Matthew Patrick Shaw
Assistant Professor of Law | Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN, UNITED STATES
Expert on the intersection of federal law and educational policy.
Biography
Matthew Patrick Shaw's scholarship focuses on the intersection of federal law and educational policy and explores education rights and regulations through critical legal history, doctrinal analysis, and econometric policy studies. Professor Shaw joined the law faculty in 2022. He had previously served on the faculty of Vanderbilt Peabody College since fall 2017, having joined Peabody as an assistant professor of public policy and education after completing his doctorate in education at Harvard University and a two-year fellowship with the American Bar Foundation and Law and Society Association. After earning his law degree in Columbia Law School in 2005, he was a law clerk for then-Chief Judge W. Louis Sands of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia before practicing law in Atlanta.
His current projects investigate the constitutional status of rights to education across the K-20 lifecycle and the rights of vulnerable and marginalized members of the education ecology, including undocumented immigrants, LGBTQ school-aged youth, and historically Black K-12 and higher-educational spaces.
Areas of Expertise (11)
School Reform
School Choice
College Access
Property
Education Law
Critical Legal Studies
Constitutional Law
Law and Society
Education Policy
College Completion
School Finance
Education (4)
Harvard University: Ed.D., Quantitative Policy Analysis in Education
Harvard University: Ed.M., Education Policy and Management
Columbia University: J.D.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: A.B., Romance Languages and History
Links (1)
Selected Media Appearances (9)
Trans Participation and the Burden of Marginalized Groups
Diverse: Issues in Higher Education online
2024-06-26
In the realm of athletics, in general, sometimes the playing field is just inherently not level, argues Dr. Matthew Patrick Shaw, assistant professor of law, public policy, and education at Vanderbilt University. “That’s just the nature of sports. Somebody is going to have advantages that make them more competitive,” Shaw says. “But somehow, on the other hand, trans students are supposed to somehow feel guilty, suffer for, be excluded because of their anatomy. Same with intersex athletes like Caster Semenya.”
Book Bans
NewsChannel 5 tv
2023-09-11
According to PEN America, of the more than 4,000 instances of books banned in the last two years. Many of which involve people of color or LGBTQ+ themes and diverse authors. On this episode of Urban Outlook, host April Eaton is joined by Dr. Matthew Shaw, Assistant Professor of Law and Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Education at Vanderbilt University to discuss this trend.
Elimination of Affirmative Action
NewsChannel 5 tv
2023-08-07
The Supreme Court's recent ruling to gut affirmative action now makes it unlawful for colleges to consider race as a factor, just one of the many factors, in admissions. On this episode of Urban Outlook, host April Eaton is joined by Dr. Matthew Shaw, an assistant Professor of Law, and Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Education at Vanderbilt University to discuss the elimination of Affirmative Action.
Affirmative Action
NewsChannel 5 tv
2023-07-25
Do you agree with SCOTUS's ruling on Affirmative Action? What is the impact on SCOTUS's ruling on Tennessee Colleges and Universities? Today on MorningLine, Nick Beres is joined by Dr. Matthew Shaw, Assistant Professor of Law and Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Education at Vanderbilt University to talk about Affirmative Action.
Tennessee is talking about rejecting federal education funding. What would that mean for kids?
Chalkbeat online
2023-02-16
“States do not have to accept federal funding at first glance,” said Matthew Patrick Shaw, assistant professor of law, public policy and education at Vanderbilt University. “These are carrot-stick programs in which the federal government has policy objectives and, in order to encourage states to go along with them, offers money that they believe states need to operate these programs.”
Is the Establishment Clause Dead? A Message From SCOTUS
Bloomberg Law online
2022-06-24
The US Supreme Court’s ruling that Maine cannot exclude faith-based schools from a state program that pays for private school tuition in areas of the state that lack public schools could erode the Constitution’s Establishment Clause, argues Vanderbilt Law School’s Matthew Patrick Shaw.
How A Rarely Discussed Supreme Court Case Could Upend Education.
Forbes online
2022-05-06
Beyond stripping education from undocumented children, some legal observers see other huge ramifications if Plyler is reversed. Matthew Patrick Shaw, Assistant Professor of Law at Vanderbilt who specializes in “the intersection of federal law and educational policy” tweeted on Thursday, “And if education isn’t special enough for the 14th A[mendment] to stop the states from saying it costs too much $$$ to teach undocumented youth then it isn’t special enough to stop the states from defunding it, vouchering it to death, privatizing it, or even doing away w/it completely.”
Chaos Theory: Amid Pandemic Recovery Efforts, School Leaders Fear Critical Race Furor Will ‘Paralyze’ Teachers
The 74 online
2021-06-28
So, where do we go from here? Legislation designed to suppress the controversial philosophy’s influence is problematic for a few reasons, said Matthew Shaw, an associate law professor at Vanderbilt University. First, he said, the laws are difficult to enforce. And second, they’ve only created greater interest in the ideas they seek to wipe out. “The irony is that trying to ban or limit critical race theory in conversations in such a public, blunt, legalistic manner has sparked thousands of critical conversations,” he said.
Can you get rid of your student loans by filing for bankruptcy?
The Conversation online
2020-02-20
Paying back student loans is not an easy thing to do. One out of every 5 borrowers with outstanding student loan debt has fallen behind their payments. There are several ways borrowers can get help to deal with their debt burden. Bankruptcy is the most extreme. In general, the law does not allow you to get rid of student loans through bankruptcy. One exception to the rule is if a borrower can prove that paying back the loans “would impose an undue hardship on [them] and [their] dependents.” The threshold for proving that is pretty high. Plus, there’s not a lot of legal guidance on what precisely an undue hardship is.
