Joseph B. Tulman
Professor of Law Emeritus
A.B., University of North Carolina, 1975; J.D., University of North Carolina School of Law, 1979; M.A.T., Antioch University, 1986.
Professor Joseph B. Tulman’s teaching, research and clinical practice interests are in the area of juvenile and special education law. He joined the Antioch School of Law in 1984 as a teaching fellow, supervising students in the Juvenile Law Clinic and working primarily on delinquency cases. In 1986, after the D.C. Council established the school of law as the District’s public law school, he joined the faculty and began directing the Juvenile and Special Education Law Clinic. With his colleagues in the clinic, Professor Tulman pioneered the use of special education advocacy for children in the neglect and delinquency systems. In 2010, he launched the Took Crowell Institute for At-Risk Youth, a legal clinic and advocacy program designed to keep at-risk youth out of the “school-to-prison pipeline.” His publications include articles about the unnecessary detention of children, and he co-authored and co-edited a comprehensive manual for using special education advocacy for children in the delinquency system.
Appointed by the mayor of D.C., Professor Tulman served as chair of the District of Columbia Juvenile Justice Advisory Group from September 2001 until March 2003, and later as a member. He also served on the boards of The Justice Policy Institute and School Talk, Inc., and as a member of the advisory boards for the Southern Poverty Law Center’s School-to-Prison Pipeline Reform Project, the D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, and the Mid-Atlantic Juvenile Defender Center. He was a Resource Fellow for the National Center on Education, Disability and Juvenile Justice, and frequently conducted training session around the country, primarily on delinquency and disability issues.
From 1988 until 2002, Professor Tulman served as counsel for plaintiffs in Evans v. Williams, a class action on behalf of persons with mental retardation. The suit, filed in 1976 by an Antioch law professor, led to the closing in 1991 of Forest Haven, a large institution housing a children’s developmental center and mental institution. As a result of the lawsuit, an agreement filed by the Evans parties, and approved by the court in 2001, established and funds The Quality Trust for Individuals with Disability, a non-profit organization to advance the interests of people with disabilities in D.C.
In 2017, the Council on Court Excellence honored Professor Tulman with a Justice Potter Stewart Award for his work on behalf of the administration of justice. In 2011, the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA) awarded him its Diane Lipton Award for Outstanding Educational Advocacy on behalf of children with disabilities. In 2007, the Association of American Law Schools Clinical Section Committee on Lawyering in the Public Interest named him a Bellow Scholar. In 2001, he received the DC Bar’s Jerrold Scoutt Prize in recognition of his work providing direct legal services to disadvantaged persons in the District of Columbia and, in 1996, the Criminal Law Section of the American Bar Association awarded him its Livingston Hall Juvenile Justice Award. In 1995, Professor Tulman was awarded the D.C. School of Law’s distinguished service award, and in 2012, the University of the District of Columbia awarded him The Cleveland L. Dennard Distinguished Service Award, as an individual who has demonstrated a long-term commitment of outstanding service to the University or to the Washington, D.C. community.
Selected Publications (in .pdf format)
- Joseph B. Tulman, Special Education Advocacy for Youth in the Delinquency System (book chapter and accompanying teacher’s manual). Special Education Advocacy (Ruth Colker & Julie Waterstone, eds., LexisNexis, 2011).
- Joseph B. Tulman, Shutting Off the School-to-Prison Pipeline for Status Offenders with Education-Related Disabilities, With Douglas M. Weck, 54 N.Y.L. Sch. L. Rev. 875 (2009-2010).
- Joseph B. Tulman, Using Special Education Advocacy to Avoid or Resolve Status Offense Charges (book chapter). Representing Juvenile Status Offenders (A.B.A. Children and the Law, 2010).
- Joseph B. Tulman, Applying Disability Rights to Equalize Treatment for People with Disabilities in the Delinquency and Criminal Systems, 8 A.B.A. Child. Rts. Litig. Committee 1 (Spring 2006).
- Joseph B. Tulman, Disability and Delinquency: How Failures to Identify, Accommodate, and Serve Youth with Education-Related Disabilities Leads to Their Disproportionate Representation in the Delinquency System, 3 Whittier J. Child & Fam. Advoc. 3 (2003).
- Special Education Advocacy Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) For Children in the Juvenile Delinquency System (Joseph B. Tulman & Joyce A. McGee eds., 1998).
- Joseph B. Tulman & Mary G. Hynes, Enforcing Special Education Law on Behalf of Incarcerated Children: A Blueprint for Deconstruction, 18 Child. Legal Rts. J. 48 (1998).
- Joseph B. Tulman, The Role of the Probation Officer in Intake: Stories from Before, During, and After the Delinquency Initial Hearing, 3 D.C. L. Rev. 235 (1995).
- Bart Lubow & Joseph B. Tulman, The Unnecessary Detention of Children in the District of Columbia, 3 D.C. L. Rev. xi (1995).
- Joseph B. Tulman, The Best Defense is a Good Offense: Incorporating Special Education Law Into Delinquency Representation in the Juvenile Law Clinic, 42 Wash. U. J. Urb. & Contemp. L. 223 (1992).
- Joseph B. Tulman, The International Legal Status of Jerusalem, 3 ASILS Int’l L.J. 39 (1979).
