Keep Your Hands to Yourselves: A Hands-Off Plea to Reconsider the Supreme Court’s Decision in Ingraham v. Wright

Authors

Hope Gouterman
Elizabeth Kirk, The Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law

Streaming Media

Document Type

Event

Publication Date

2-21-2024

Abstract

The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law (Catholic Law) showcased its student body’s legal scholarship on Wednesday, February 21, by presenting the spring 2024 semester’s first installment of the Student Scholars Series. Wednesday’s presentation, entitled “Keep Your Hands to Yourselves: A Hands-Off Plea to Reconsider the Supreme Court’s Decision in Ingraham v. Wright,” was organized and delivered by Hope Gouterman (3L). Catholic Law lecturer Elizabeth Kirk, Co-Director of the Center for Law and the Human Person, provided the faculty response.

Focusing on the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, Gouterman’s research examines it within the context of corporal punishment in schools. Referencing the Supreme Court’s decision in Ingraham v. Wright—which upheld the constitutionality of corporal punishment in schools and rejected Eighth Amendment applicability to such disciplinary action—her scholarship analyzes both the historical context of the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause, and the use of corporal punishment within U.S. public schools. Lest the Court reconsider Ingraham’s Eighth Amendment holding, her research additionally provides a stare decisis analysis, while nonetheless acknowledging the ramifications of the case itself and urging that Court reconsider the Eighth Amendment decision in Ingraham.

Additional Information

Recommended Citation

Gouterman, Hope and Kirk, Elizabeth, "Keep Your Hands to Yourselves: A Hands-Off Plea to Reconsider the Supreme Court’s Decision in Ingraham v. Wright" (2024). Student Scholar Series. 45.
https://scholarship.law.edu/student_scholar/45