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organizational responses to the law can shape subsequent legal outcomes (Edelman 1992;
Edelman, Uggen, and Erlander 1999, Stryker 1994). Schools’ attempts to comply with externally
mandated zero tolerance policies, often by creating policies more far-reaching and stringent than
required by legislation, is a useful case to illustrate the interplay between law, legislation, and
organizational response.
Several prior studies have examined how the legislative adoption of equal employment
opportunity (EEO) law, especially Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act forbidding workplace
discrimination, influences organizational behavior (Edelman 1990; 1992; Edelman, Abraham,
and Erlanger 1992; Dobbin et al. 1988; Dobbin et al. 1993; Sutton et al. 1994). Edelman et al
1999 make use of an automated legal database (Westlaw) in order to examine the relationship
between internal grievance procedures adopted by organizations and Broad-scale quantitative
measurement of legal decisions made by courts, rather than legislative ones like EEO, has been
limited to a few states. Yet because of the recursive relationship between legislation, court case
outcomes, and organizational response, systematic analysis of the full complement of legal
decisions may lead to greater insights.
Edelman (1990: 1402) posits that a “legal environment” indirectly fosters change in
organizational governance by creating “a normative environment to which organizations must
adapt” above and beyond the direct influence of legal outcomes on organizational behavior. We
have found support for this argument in prior research: legal contestation over school discipline
influences student achievement, the adoption of school rules, and student perceptions of school
discipline (Arum et al. 2003). Our prior research suggests that the expansion of due process
rights to public school students, which occurred during a period of student rights contestation
(1969-1976) created enormous strain on the governance of public schools. During the 1990s, we
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