Available only in USA

Donald A. Erickson

Education:  constitutional rights of parents and schools,  state and federal regulation and subvention,  student uniforms and discipline, church and state, single-sex schools,  effects of high-stakes testing. accreditation in higher education


web site:  expertwitness-on-education.com
E-mail:  wit@expertwitness-on-education.com  or derick@ucla.edu
Phone:  310/713-5042
Residence:  19120 Olympic Crest Drive, Santa Clarita, CA 91352


My CV.,  available at www.expertwitness-on-education.com, provides much information on:

a. My experience as expert witness:

My work in this regard has focused mostly, though far from exclusively, on First Amendment rights of parents, students, and educators.  The issues, constantly changing, include state regulation or subvention of private schools (and therefore of parental choice), homeschooling, mistreatment of student religious groups, public school uniforms, single-sex schools, and accreditation.   In sixteen states, state and federal courts often describe my testimony favorably, as in an extensively cited case in which the U. S. Supreme Court quoted me by name, and in a judge's recent comment (to the opposing attorney) that “The more that man talks, the less progress your side makes.”  Attorneys on the other side, alarmed by my testimony, sometimes make elaborate efforts to discredit me.  Attorneys whom I assist say, for instance (in unsolicited letters photocopied on my website) that I ‘turned those cases into victories” and gave “the best testimony the nation had to offer.”

b.  My qualifications more generally:  

I have been tenured full professor at two eminent institutions (the University of Chicago and UCLA), teaching in those universities for eleven years each, plus brief stints in three other institutions of higher education.    I have fulfilled various engagements at fifty-five other institutions of higher education, forty-six in the U. S., four in Canada, two in Australia, and one in Somalia.   I have served many other institutions, including the President's Commission on School Finance; the Office of Economic Opportunity; the Bureau of Indian Affairs; the National Center for Education Statistics; the National Institute of Education; legislative commissions in four states; two state departments of education; several public school systems; a great many private school organizations; the National Conference of Christians and Jews; the Church Federation of Greater Chicago; the Church Plan Commission for Metropolitan New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut; the National Committee for S!
upport of the Public Schools; the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory;  the Educational Testing Service; the Hegeler Institute; Wingspread; the Educational Commission of the States; the Council for State Governments; the US. Agency for International Development; several U. S. associations of school administrators; the Western Canadian Association of School Administrators; the Australian Council for Educational Administration; and two Australian state departments of education.

My research has been financed by several organizations already mentioned, by the British Columbia Ministry of Education, and by five U. S. foundations.  I have published approximately one hundred articles and chapters plus, as editor and commentator,  two books sponsored by professional organizations) and one published by University of Chicago Press.


First Amendment rights of student religious groups, of parents as homeschoolers  or patrons of private schools,  and of educators subjected to unjust "accountability"; state and federal regulation and subvention of private and other special schools; student uniiforms and other disciplinary arrangements; single-sex schools; accreditation of institutions of higher education, etc.