¹ Research for this article was supported by funds from the National Institute of Education (Grant No. OB NIE G 78 0212), the Spencer Foundation, and the Ford Foundation. The analyses and conclusions do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of these organizations. The author would like to acknowledge the assistance and comments on earlier drafts by Klaus Faber, Lawrence Friedman, Donald Jensen, David Kirp, Henning Köhler, Henry Levin, Ingo Richter, and the participants in the Stanford-UC Berkeley Seminar on Law and Governance in Education.

² I am using quotation marks in referring to “equal protection” in the German context in order to avoid any automatic equation with the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. A more detailed discussion on the similarities and differences between these two constitutional guidelines is provided in a later part of the article. I am grateful to David Kirp and Donald Jensen for helping me to sort out this issue.

³ For general information on the Federal Constitutional Court within the overall judicial and political system in the Federal Republic, see McWhinney, Edward, Constitutionalism in Germany and the Federal Constitutional Court (Leyden: Sythoff, 1962)Google Scholar; Heyde, Wolfgang, The Administration of Justice in the Federal Republic of Germany (Bonn: Press and Information Office of the Federal Government, 1971)Google Scholar; Kommers, Donald P., Judicial Politics in West Germany: A Study of the Federal Constitutional Court (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1976)Google Scholar; Kommers, Donald P., “The Jurisprudence of Free Speech in the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany,” Southern California Law Review, 53, 2 (01 1980), 657–95.Google Scholar

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⁶ Kommers, , “The Jurisprudence of Free Speech,” pp. 663–64.Google Scholar

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¹¹ For more detailed information on developments during that period, see Hüfner, Klaus and Naumann, Jens, Konjunkturen der Bildungspolitik in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Volume 1: Der Aufschwung (1960–1967) (Stuttgart: Klett, 1977)Google Scholar; Weiler, Hans N., “Legalization, Expertise, and Participation: Strategies of Compensatory Legitimation in Educational Policy,” Comparative Education Review, 27, 2 (06 1983), 259–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Reviews of National Policies of Education: Germany (Paris: OECD, 1972)Google Scholar; Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung, ed., Bildung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Daten und Analysen (2 volumes) (Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1980)Google Scholar; Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Education, Between Elite and Mass Education: Education in the Federal Republic of Germany (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983).Google Scholar

¹² The Gesamtschule, which was designed to overcome the social stratification inherent in the traditional German three-tiered system of Hauptschule, Real schule, and Gymnasium; see Raschert, Jürgen, Gesamtschule:Ein gesellschaftliches Experiment (Stuttgart: Klett, 1974)Google Scholar; Weiler, , “Legalization, Expertise, and Participation.”Google Scholar

¹³ Hameyer, Uwe, Aregger, Kurt and Frey, Karl, eds. Bedingungen und Modelle der Curriculuminnovation (Weinheimn: Beltz, 1976)Google Scholar; Baumert, Jürgen and Raschert, Jürgen, Vom Experiment zur Regelschule: Schulplanung, Curriculumentwicklung und Lehrerfortbildung in Zusammenarbeit von Lehrern und Verwaltung bei der Expansion der Berliner Gesamtschule (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1978).Google Scholar

¹⁴ BVerfGE 33/303; see also 37/104. BVerfGE refers to the published decisions by the Federal Constitutional Court; they are cited with the first number indicating the volume, and the second the page on which the decision starts; thus, the first of the two decisions cited in this note is found in volume 33 and starts on page 303. The decisions are published regularly as Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr). All quotations from Court decisions in this article have been translated by the author.

¹⁵ BVerfGE 26/246.

¹⁶ BVerfGE 45/400.

¹⁷ BVerfGE 41/251.

¹⁸ In Kirp, David L. and Yudof, Mark G., Educational Policy and the Law: Cases and Materials (Berkeley: McCutchan, 1974), p. xxxv.Google Scholar

¹⁹ For some very pertinent observations on the field of energy policy, see Nelkin, Dorothy and Pollak, Michael, The Atom Besieged: Extraparliamentary Dissent in France and Germany (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1981), pp. 155–66Google Scholar; Kitscheit, Herbert, Kernenergiepolitik: Arena eines gesellschaftlichen Konflikts (Frankfurt: Campus, 1980), pp. 272–79Google Scholar; see also the Court's decision on the “fastbreeder” at Kalkar, , BVerfGE 49/89.Google Scholar

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²⁴ It should be noted that this discussion leaves out the important issue of the relationship between federal and Land authority in matters of educational policy. For more information and analysis on this issue, see Bundesminister für Bildung und Wissenschaft, Bericht der Bundesregierung über die strukturellen Probleme des föderativen Bildungssystems (Bonn: Der Bundesminister für Bildung und Wissenschaft, 1978)Google Scholar; Oppermann, , “Nach welchen rechtlichen Grundsätzen,” pp. C64–C74Google Scholar; Faber, Klaus, “Vielfalt und Einheitlichkeit im Bildungswesen, bundesstaatliche Aufgabenverteilung und parlamentarische Verantwortung,” Bildung und Erziehung, 31, 3 (06 1978), 211–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bothe, Michael et al. , Die Befugnisse des Gesamtstaates im Bildungswesen: Rechtsvergleichender Bericht (Bonn: Der Bundesminister für Bildung und Wissenschaft, 1976).Google Scholar

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²⁶ See also Richter, , Bildungsverfassungsrecht, pp. 44–76.Google Scholar

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²⁹ This is not the place for a more extended comparison of these somewhat different usages of the notion of “equal protection” in the German and American constitutional discussion. It should be noted, however, that even in the American context there is a recognized “link” between the “due process of law” norm of the Fifth Amendment and the “equal protection of the laws” guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment—as Corwin points out with reference to the U.S. Supreme Court's Boiling decision in 1954 (Corwin, , The Constitution and What It Means Today, p. 390Google Scholar and passim).

³⁰ E.g., BverfGE 33/1 in the case of prisoners.

³¹ BVerfGE 41/251, pp. 259–60.Google Scholar

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³⁴ BVerfGE 47/46, pp. 78–80.Google Scholar

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⁴⁵ BVerfGE 47/46, p. 79.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ E.g., BVerfGE 41/251, dealing with a student's expulsion from school, or 47/46 on the introduction of sex education.

⁴⁷ BVerfGE 45/400, pp. 417–20Google Scholar; this decision was confirmed in 1980, see BVerfGE 53/185.

⁴⁸ BVerfGE 34/165, pp. 192–94.Google Scholar

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⁵⁰ BVerfGE 47/46.

⁵¹ BVerfGE 47/46, p. 83.Google Scholar

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⁵⁴ BVerfGE 41/251, especially pp. 262–66Google Scholar. In a related decision, the Court distinguishes between expulsion (where statutory regulation is required) and mere nonpromotion from one grade to the next (which can be regulated by administrative rules): BVerfGE 58/257.

⁵⁵ Against the then-candidate for chancellor of the Christian Democrats, Bavarian Minister President Franz-Joseph Strauss.

⁵⁶ Schueler, Hans, “Eine Posse wird zum Politikum,” Die Zeil (North American edition), 31 10 1980Google Scholar. The Bavarian Landtag has since responded to the Court's challenge by adopting appropriate legislation. Similar interactions between courts and legislatures at the Land level have occurred in recent years in North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse; at issue were such matters as subsidies for private education, the legal status of Gesamtschulen, and the role of History and German in the curriculum of upper secondary schools (personal communication from Ingo Richter).

⁵⁷ Juristentag, Deutscher, Schulrecht, Kommission, Schule im RechtsstaatGoogle Scholar. See also Niehues, Norbert, Schul- und Prüfungsrecht. Zweite, überarbeitete Auflage (München: Beck, 1983).Google Scholar

⁵⁸ BVerfGE 49/89.

⁵⁹ BVerfGE 48/210.

⁶⁰ BVerfGE 56/1.

⁶¹ Rose, , Challenge to GovernanceGoogle Scholar; Berger, , “Politics and Antipolitics.”Google Scholar

⁶² Ibid., p. 38.

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⁶⁶ Richter, , Bildungsverfassungsrecht, pp. 183–99Google Scholar; on the Court's general record in dealing with equity issues, see also McWhinney, , Constitutionalism in Germany and the Federal Constitutional Court, pp. 49–51Google Scholar; Kommers, , Judicial Politics in West Germany, pp. 243–46.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Kirp, , “Law, Politics, and Equal Educational Opportunity,” pp. 121, 135.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Weiler, , “Legalization, Expertise, and Participation.”Google Scholar

⁶⁹ On this characteristic of judicial review, see also Cappelletti, and Cohen, , Comparative Constitutional Law.Google Scholar

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