Note: 

Pamela White Hensley, Schools and School Districts—Corporal Punishment—Junior High School’s System of Excessive, Degrading, and Arbitrary Corporal Punishment Violates the Eighth Amendment’s Prohibition Against Cruel and Unusual Punishment and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Guarantee of Due Process of Law.  Ingraham v. Wright, 498 F.2d 248. 269, rehearing en banc granted, 504 F.2d 1379 (5th Cir. 1974), 53 TEXAS L. REV. 395 (1975). 

Abstract:

In Ingraham, the Fifth Circuit acknowledged the widespread use of moderate corporal punishment in public schools, and refused to characterize corporal punishment as violative of the eighth amendment per se.  However, the Fifth Circuit did reach several progressive conclusions in Ingraham.  Firstly, unreasonable corporal punishment occurring in one school can be unconstitutional.  Secondly, the court went beyond the eighth amendment claim and proposed fourteenth amendment procedural safeguards to ensuring the fundamental fairness of the imposition of corporal punishment.  Thirdly, the court suggested that liability may be extended to school district officials for systematically unreasonable corporal punishment.  In this note, the author contends that the fourteenth amendment holding may be more significant than the eighth amendment holding in Ingraham, because the former may impose broader liability, and can serve as a more precise tool for judicial review.  However, the author concludes that the only legitimate solution to the continuing problems of excessive corporal punishment in public schools is its abolition, which would not unduly restrict the school’s ability to control student behavior