Georgia State Law Faculty Work Helps Shape National Movement on Children’s Constitutional Rights

ATLANTA — Georgia State University College of Law Professor Tanya Washington is helping lead a national effort to reshape how children’s constitutional rights are taught, argued and advanced in public life. Through Rights4Children, a collaborative founded in 2023 by Professor Washington, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law’s Robin Walker Sterling and Washington and Lee University School of Law’s Catherine Smith, legal scholars are building a child-centered framework that reaches classrooms, courts and policy conversations.

Supported by a $2.1 million anonymous gift, Rights4Children grew from a shared premise that children should be seen as rights-bearing individuals, not as an afterthought in a constitutional system built largely around adults. The group’s recent impact report describes its first three years as the beginning of a broader movement aimed at advancing equal justice under law for young people, especially children whose experiences and interests have too often been overlooked.

Washington’s role in that work reflects the reach of Georgia State faculty scholarship and teaching. As the Marjorie F. Knowles Chair in Law and Professor of Children’s Constitutional Rights, she teaches Family Law and Education Law, courses that examine how laws and policies in the two domains that most shape children’s lives, families and schools can also marginalize their rights. She challenges students to see children as constitutional actors and to think more deliberately about laws and policies that recognize and respect their enforceable rights.

That work extends beyond the classroom. Drawing on their combined teaching, research and scholarship, Washington, Walker Sterling and Smith have developed a teaching framework that trains law students to analyze law and policy through a children’s rights lens. They are also preparing a casebook, "The Child and the Law: Policy, Practice, and Constitutional Foundations," which is expected in 2027. The report also highlights Washington’s continuing scholarship in the field, including a forthcoming 2026 article and a 2025 co-authored publication examining children’s rights in anti-discrimination law.

In December 2024, the collaborative held a convening at the Georgia State University College of Law focused on advancing children’s rights in education. The launch included a public panel and reception at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, followed by sessions at Georgia State Law that brought together 20 scholars, advocates, strategists and educators. The event drew more than 100 attendees and helped publicly launch the initiative. Washington also provided oral and written testimony to the Washington, D.C., Board of Education in support of a resolution establishing an enforceable right to high-quality public schools for D.C. children.

In the courts, the collaborative has contributed amicus briefs and expert reports in cases involving educational access, discrimination, climate rights and classroom inclusion.

The initiative is collaborative by design. Walker Sterling advances the project through clinical teaching related to juvenile delinquency defense, while Smith teaches courses and seminars that examine children as constitutional right-bearers and has contributed expert analysis in climate-related litigation. Together, the founders and their broader network of scholars are building a field that connects faculty research, teaching and public engagement to questions with national consequence.

For Georgia State, Washington’s work shows how faculty scholarship can help shape not only academic discourse, but also the legal frameworks that influence children’s lives.

— Compiled by Jeremy Craig, Communications Manager, Office of the Provost