NCSS Legal Defense Fund

NCSS Legal Defense Fund

• Grants are available for sums up to $2500 for legal expenses that meet the fund's award criteria.
• Grants are awarded by the Legal Defense Fund Committee based on a written application, documentation of legal expenditures, and eligibility of the applicant.
• Applications for grants may be made at any time as the needs arises.

• The NCSS Legal Defense Fund is available to any individual NCSS member of good standing.
• Applicants must complete a grant application form.

Award Criteria
Legal Defense Fund grants are designed to protect the rights and freedoms of educators defined by the NCSS Position Statement on Academic Freedom.

A teacher's academic freedom is his or her right and responsibility to study, investigate, present, interpret, and discuss all the relevant facts and ideas in the field of his or her professional competence. This freedom implies no limitations other than those imposed by generally accepted standards of scholarship.

As a professional, the teacher strives to maintain a spirit of free inquiry, open mindedness, and impartiality in the classroom. As a member of an academic community, however, the teacher is free to present in the field of his or her professional competence opinions and convictions and with the premises from which they derived.

Awards may be made for legal expenses in cases involving infringement or loss of an educator's right to:

• participate in the development of curriculum and the selection of teaching materials;
• select for classroom study controversial issues related to the curriculum and appropriate to the maturity, and intellectual and emotional capacities of the students;
• have access to adequate instructional resources so that all sides of an issue can be presented adequately;
• call upon teaching colleagues, administrators, and professional organizations for assistance and advice;
• teach in their area of academic competence without regard to their personal beliefs, race, sex, sexual orientation, or ethnic origin;
• expresses their own points of view in the classroom as long as they clearly indicate it is their opinion and are willing to explain their position;
• work in a climate conducive to rational and free inquiry;
• have their professional competence when dealing with controversial issues judged withing the context in which the activity in question occurred;
• exercise their rights as citizens including the rights to support any side of an issue or any candidate for public office, and to seek and to hold partisan and non-partisan public and professional positions;
• be protected by fair procedures and due process should complaints arise about materials or methods of instruction.

• The NCSS Board of Directors establishes policy for the fund and may modify these guidelines as circumstances demand.
• The Legal Defense Fund Committee acts upon requests for assistance as they arise. The committee consists of the NCSS President, President-Elect, Academic Freedom, Ethics, and Equity Committee Chair, Executive Director and one other NCSS member designated by the President.
• The Legal Defense Fund Committee may not commit to expenditures in excess of $2500 per applicant. The NCSS Board of Directors must approve any larger requests.
• A teacher requesting assistance may appeal a decision of the Legal Defense Fund Committee to the NCSS Board of Directors.
• All applications and appeals shall be acted upon in a timely manner.
• All information submitted to NCSS and the Legal Defense Fund Committee shall be considered confidential.
• Grants for financial assistance are contingent on the availability of money in the fund.