GOSS ET AL. v. LOPEZ ET AL.
No. 73-898
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 16, 1974—Decided January 22, 1975
419 U.S. 565
Thomas A. Bustin argued the cause for appellants. With him on the briefs were James J. Hughes, Jr., Robert A. Bell, and Patrick M. McGrath.
Peter D. Roos argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief were Denis Murphy and Kenneth C. Curtin.*
*John F. Lewis filed a brief for the Buckeye Association of School Administrators et al. as amici curiae urging reversal.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed by David Bonderman, Peter Van N. Lockwood, Paul L. Tractenberg, David Rubin, and W. William Hodes for the National Committee for Citizens in Education et al.; by Alan H. Levine, Melvin L. Wulf, and Joel M. Gora for the American Civil Liberties Union; by Robert H. Kapp, R. Stephen Browning, and Nathaniel R. Jones for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People et al.; and by Marian Wright Edelman for the Children‘s Defense Fund of the Washington Research Project, Inc., et al.
This appeal by various administrators of the Columbus, Ohio, Public School System (CPSS) challenges the judgment of a three-judge federal court, declaring that appellees—various high school students in the CPSS—were denied due process of law contrary to the command of the Fourteenth Amendment in that they were temporarily suspended from their high schools without a hearing either prior to suspension or within a reasonable time thereafter, and enjoining the administrators to remove all references to such suspensions from the students’ records.
I
Ohio law,
The nine named appellees, each of whom alleged that he or she had been suspended from public high school in Columbus for up to 10 days without a hearing pursuant to
The proof below established that the suspensions arose out of a period of widespread student unrest in the CPSS during February and March 1971. Six of the named plaintiffs, Rudolph Sutton, Tyrone Washington, Susan Cooper, Deborah Fox, Clarence Byars, and Bruce Harris, were students at the Marion-Franklin High School and were each suspended for 10 days4 on account of disruptive or disobedient conduct committed in the presence of the school administrator who ordered the suspension. One of these, Tyrone Washington, was among a group of students demonstrating in the school auditorium while a class was being conducted there. He was ordered by the school principal to leave, refused
Two named plaintiffs, Dwight Lopez and Betty Crome, were students at the Central High School and McGuffey Junior High School, respectively. The former was suspended in connection with a disturbance in the lunchroom which involved some physical damage to school property.5 Lopez testified that at least 75 other students were suspended from his school on the same day. He also testified below that he was not a party to the destructive conduct but was instead an innocent bystander. Because no one from the school testified with regard to this incident, there is no evidence in the record indicating the official basis for concluding otherwise. Lopez never had a hearing.
Betty Crome was present at a demonstration at a high school other than the one she was attending. There she was arrested together with others, taken to the police station, and released without being formally charged. Before she went to school on the following day, she was
There was no testimony with respect to the suspension of the ninth named plaintiff, Carl Smith. The school files were also silent as to his suspension, although as to some, but not all, of the other named plaintiffs the files contained either direct references to their suspensions or copies of letters sent to their parents advising them of the suspension.
On the basis of this evidence, the three-judge court declared that plaintiffs were denied due process of law because they were “suspended without hearing prior to suspension or within a reasonable time thereafter,” and that
Although not imposing upon the Ohio school administrators any particular disciplinary procedures and leaving them “free to adopt regulations providing for fair suspension procedures which are consonant with the educational goals of their schools and reflective of the characteristics of their school and locality,” the District Court declared
The defendant school administrators have appealed the three-judge court‘s decision. Because the order below granted plaintiffs’ request for an injunction—ordering defendants to expunge their records—this Court has jurisdiction of the appeal pursuant to
II
At the outset, appellants contend that because there is no constitutional right to an education at public expense, the Due Process Clause does not protect against expulsions from the public school system. This position misconceives the nature of the issue and is refuted by prior decisions. The
Accordingly, a state employee who under state law, or rules promulgated by state officials, has a legitimate claim of entitlement to continued employment absent sufficient cause for discharge may demand the procedural protections of due process. Connell v. Higginbotham, 403 U. S. 207 (1971); Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U. S. 183, 191-192 (1952); Arnett v. Kennedy, 416 U. S. 134, 164 (POWELL, J., concurring), 171 (WHITE, J., concurring and dissenting) (1974). So may welfare recipients who have statutory rights to welfare as long as they maintain the specified qualifications. Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U. S. 254 (1970). Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471 (1972), applied the limitations of the Due Process Clause to governmental decisions to revoke parole, although a parolee has no constitutional right to that status. In like vein was Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539 (1974), where the procedural protections of the Due Process Clause were triggered by official cancellation of a prisoner‘s good-time credits accumulated under state law, although those benefits were not mandated by the Constitution.
Here, on the basis of state law, appellees plainly had legitimate claims of entitlement to a public education.
Although Ohio may not be constitutionally obligated to establish and maintain a public school system, it has nevertheless done so and has required its children to attend. Those young people do not “shed their constitutional rights” at the schoolhouse door. Tinker v. Des Moines School Dist., 393 U. S. 503, 506 (1969). “The Fourteenth Amendment, as now applied to the States, protects the citizen against the State itself and all of its creatures—Boards of Education not excepted.” West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 637 (1943). The authority possessed by the State to prescribe and enforce standards of conduct in its schools although concededly very broad, must be exercised consistently with constitutional safeguards. Among other things, the State is constrained to recognize a student‘s legitimate entitlement to a public education as a property interest which is protected by the Due Process Clause and which may not be taken away for misconduct without adherence to the minimum procedures required by that Clause.
The Due Process Clause also forbids arbitrary deprivations of liberty. “Where a person‘s good name, reputation, honor, or integrity is at stake because of what the government is doing to him,” the minimal requirements of the Clause must be satisfied. Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U. S. 433, 437 (1971); Board of Regents v. Roth, supra, at 573. School authorities here suspended appellees from school for periods of up to 10 days
Appellants proceed to argue that even if there is a right to a public education protected by the Due Process Clause generally, the Clause comes into play only when the State subjects a student to a “severe detriment or grievous loss.” The loss of 10 days, it is said, is neither severe nor grievous and the Due Process Clause is therefore of no relevance. Appellants’ argument is again refuted by our prior decisions; for in determining “whether due process requirements apply in the first place, we must look not to the ‘weight’ but to the nature of the interest
A short suspension is, of course, a far milder deprivation than expulsion. But, “education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments,” Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483, 493 (1954), and the total exclusion from the educational process for more than a trivial period, and certainly if the suspension is for 10 days, is a serious event in the life of the suspended child. Neither the property interest in educational benefits temporarily denied nor the liberty interest in reputation, which is also implicated, is so insubstantial that suspensions may constitutionally be imposed by any procedure the school chooses, no matter how arbitrary.8
“Once it is determined that due process applies, the question remains what process is due.” Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S., at 481. We turn to that question, fully
“Judicial interposition in the operation of the public school system of the Nation raises problems requiring care and restraint. . . . By and large, public education in our Nation is committed to the control of state and local authorities.” Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U. S. 97, 104 (1968).
There are certain bench marks to guide us, however. Mullane v. Central Hanover Trust Co., 339 U. S. 306 Esteban v. Central Missouri State College, 415 F. 2d 1077, 1089 (CA8 1969), cert. denied, 398 U. S. 965 (1970); Vought v. Van Buren Public Schools, 306 F. Supp. 1388 (ED Mich. 1969); Whitfield v. Simpson, 312 F. Supp. 889 (ED Ill. 1970); Fielder v. Board of Education of School District of Winnebago, Neb., 346 F. Supp. 722, 729 (Neb. 1972); DeJesus v. Penberthy, 344 F. Supp. 70, 74 (Conn. 1972); Soglin v. Kauffman, 295 F. Supp. 978, 994 (WD Wis. 1968), aff‘d, 418 F. 2d 163 (CA7 1969); Stricklin v. Regents of University of Wisconsin, 297 F. Supp. 416, 420 (WD Wis. 1969), appeal dismissed, 420 F. 2d 1257 (CA7 1970); Buck v. Carter, 308 F. Supp. 1246 (WD Wis. 1970); General Order on Judicial Standards of Procedure and Substance in Review of Student Discipline in Tax Supported Institutions of Higher Education, 45 F. R. D. 133, 147-148 (WD Mo. 1968) (en banc). The lower courts have been less uniform, however, on the question whether removal from school for some shorter period may ever be so trivial a deprivation as to require no process, and, if so, how short the removal must be to qualify. Courts of Appeals have held or assumed the Due Process Clause applicable to long suspensions, Pervis v. LaMarque Ind. School Dist., 466 F. 2d 1054 (CA5 1972); to indefinite suspensions, Sullivan v. Houston Ind. School Dist., 475 F. 2d 1071 (CA5), cert. denied, 414 U. S. 1032 (1973); to the addition of a 30-day suspension to a 10-day suspension, Williams v. Dade County School Board, 441 F. 2d 299 (CA5 1971); to a 10-day suspension, Black Students of North Fort Myers Jr.-Sr. High School v. Williams, 470 F. 2d 957 (CA5 1972); to “mild” suspensions, Farrell v. Joel, 437 F. 2d 160 (CA2 1971), and Tate v. Board of Education, 453 F. 2d 975 (CA8 1972); and to a three-day suspension, Shanley v. Northeast Ind. School Dist., Bexar County, Texas, 462 F. 2d 960, 967 n. 4 (CA5 1972); but inapplicable to a seven-day suspension, Linwood v. Board of Ed. of City of Peoria, 463 F. 2d 763 (CA7), cert. denied, 409 U. S. 1027 (1972); to a three-day suspension, Dunn v. Tyler Ind. School Dist., 460 F. 2d 137 (CA5 1972); to a suspension for not “more than a few days,” Murray v. West Baton Rouge Parish School Board, 472 F. 2d 438 (CA5 1973); and to all suspensions no matter how short, Black Coalition v. Portland School District No. 1, 484 F. 2d 1040 (CA9 1973). The Federal District Courts have held the Due Process Clause applicable to an interim suspension pending expulsion proceedings in Stricklin v. Regents of University of Wisconsin, supra, and Buck v. Carter, supra; to a 10-day suspension, Banks v. Board of Public Instruction of Dade County, 314 F. Supp. 285 (SD Fla. 1970), vacated, 401 U. S. 988 (1971) (for entry of a fresh decree so that a timely appeal might be taken to the Court of Appeals), aff‘d, 450 F. 2d 1103 (CA5 1971); to suspensions of under five days, Vail v. Board of Education of Portsmouth School Dist., 354 F. Supp. 592 (NH 1973); and to all suspensions, Mills v. Board of Education of the Dist. of Columbia, 348 F. Supp. 866 (DC 1972), and Givens v. Poe, 346 F. Supp. 202 (WDNC 1972); but inapplicable to suspensions of 25 days, Hernandez v. School District Number One, Denver, Colorado, 315 F. Supp. 289 (Colo. 1970); to suspensions of 10 days, Baker v. Downey City Board of Education, 307 F. Supp. 517 (CD Cal. 1969); and to suspensions of eight days, Hatter v. Los Angeles City High School District, 310 F. Supp. 1309 (CD Cal. 1970), rev‘d on other grounds, 452 F. 2d 673 (CA9 1971). In the cases holding no process necessary in connection with short suspensions, it is not always clear whether the court viewed the Due Process Clause as inapplicable, or simply felt that the process received was “due” even in the absence of some kind of hearing procedure.
It also appears from our cases that the timing and content of the notice and the nature of the hearing will depend on appropriate accommodation of the competing interests involved. Cafeteria Workers v. McElroy, supra, at 895; Morrissey v. Brewer, supra, at 481. The student‘s interest is to avoid unfair or mistaken exclusion from the educational process, with all of its unfortunate consequences. The Due Process Clause will not shield him from suspensions properly imposed, but it disserves both his interest and the interest of the State if his suspension is in fact unwarranted. The concern would be mostly academic if the disciplinary process were a totally accurate, unerring process, never mistaken and never
The difficulty is that our schools are vast and complex. Some modicum of discipline and order is essential if the educational function is to be performed. Events calling for discipline are frequent occurrences and sometimes require immediate, effective action. Suspension is considered not only to be a necessary tool to maintain order but a valuable educational device. The prospect of imposing elaborate hearing requirements in every suspension case is viewed with great concern, and many school authorities may well prefer the untrammeled power to act unilaterally, unhampered by rules about notice and hearing. But it would be a strange disciplinary system in an educational institution if no communication was sought by the disciplinarian with the student in an effort to inform him of his dereliction and to let him tell his side of the story in order to make sure that an injustice is not done. “[F]airness can rarely be obtained by secret, one-sided determination of facts decisive of rights. . . .” “Secrecy is not congenial to truth-seeking and self-righteousness gives too slender an assurance of rightness. No better instrument has been devised for arriving at truth than to give a person in jeopardy of serious loss notice of the case against him and opportunity to meet it.” Anti-Fascist Committee v. McGrath, supra, at 170, 171-172 (Frankfurter, J., concurring).9
In holding as we do, we do not believe that we have imposed procedures on school disciplinarians which are inappropriate in a classroom setting. Instead we have imposed requirements which are, if anything, less than a fair-minded school principal would impose upon himself in order to avoid unfair suspensions. Indeed, according to the testimony of the principal of Marion-Franklin High School, that school had an informal procedure, remarkably similar to that which we now require, applicable to suspensions generally but which was not followed in this case. Similarly, according to the most recent memorandum applicable to the entire CPSS, see n. 1, supra, school principals in the CPSS are now required by local rule to provide at least as much as the constitutional minimum which we have described.
We stop short of construing the Due Process Clause to require, countrywide, that hearings in connection with short suspensions must afford the student the opportunity to secure counsel, to confront and cross-examine witnesses supporting the charge, or to call his own witnesses to verify his version of the incident. Brief disciplinary suspensions are almost countless. To impose in each such case even truncated trial-type procedures might well overwhelm administrative facilities in many places and, by diverting resources, cost more than it would save in educational effectiveness. Moreover, further formalizing the suspension process and escalating its formality and adversary nature may not only make it too costly as a regular disciplinary tool but also destroy its effectiveness as part of the teaching process.
On the other hand, requiring effective notice and informal hearing permitting the student to give his version of the events will provide a meaningful hedge against erroneous action. At least the disciplinarian will be alerted to the existence of disputes about facts and argu-
Requiring that there be at least an informal give-and-take between student and disciplinarian, preferably prior to the suspension, will add little to the factfinding function where the disciplinarian himself has witnessed the conduct forming the basis for the charge. But things are not always as they seem to be, and the student will at least have the opportunity to characterize his conduct and put it in what he deems the proper context.
We should also make it clear that we have addressed ourselves solely to the short suspension, not exceeding 10 days. Longer suspensions or expulsions for the remainder of the school term, or permanently, may require more formal procedures. Nor do we put aside the possibility that in unusual situations, although involving only a short suspension, something more than the rudimentary procedures will be required.
IV
The District Court found each of the suspensions involved here to have occurred without a hearing, either before or after the suspension, and that each suspension was therefore invalid and the statute unconstitutional insofar as it permits such suspensions without notice or hearing. Accordingly, the judgment is Affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE POWELL, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE, MR. JUSTICE BLACKMUN, and MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST join, dissenting.
The Court today invalidates an Ohio statute that permits student suspensions from school without a hearing
“for not more than ten days.”1 The decision unnecessarily opens avenues for judicial intervention in the operation of our public schools that may affect adversely the quality of education. The Court holds for the first time that the federal courts, rather than educational officials and state legislatures, have the authority to determine the rules applicable to routine classroom discipline of children and teenagers in the public schools. It justifies this unprecedented intrusion into the process of elementary and secondary education by identifying a new constitutional right: the right of a student not to be suspended for as much as a single day without notice and a due process hearing either before or promptly following the suspension.2
The Court‘s decision rests on the premise that, under Ohio law, education is a property interest protected by the
I
Although we held in San Antonio Independent School Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 1, 35 (1973), that education is not a right protected by the Constitution, Ohio has elected by statute to provide free education for all youths age six to 21,
In identifying property interests subject to due process protections, the Court‘s past opinions make clear that these interests “are created and their dimensions are defined by existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent source such as state law.” Board of Regents v. Roth, supra, at 577 (emphasis supplied). The Ohio statute that creates the right to a “free” education also explicitly authorizes a principal to suspend a student for as much as 10 days.
The Court thus disregards the basic structure of Ohio law in posturing this case as if Ohio had conferred an unqualified right to education, thereby compelling the school authorities to conform to due process procedures in imposing the most routine discipline.4
But however one may define the entitlement to education provided by Ohio law, I would conclude that a deprivation of not more than 10 days’ suspension from school, imposed as a routine disciplinary measure, does not assume constitutional dimensions. Contrary to the Court‘s assertion, our cases support rather than “refute” appellants’ argument that “the Due Process Clause . . . comes into play only when the State subjects a student to a ‘severe detriment or grievous loss.’ ” Ante, at 575. Recently, the Court reiterated precisely this standard for analyzing due process claims:
“Whether any procedural protections are due depends on the extent to which an individual will be ‘condemned to suffer grievous loss.’ Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath, 341 U. S. 123, 168 (1951) (Frankfurter, J., concurring), quoted in Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U. S. 254, 263 (1970).” Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471, 481 (1972) (emphasis supplied).
The Ohio suspension statute allows no serious or sig-
The Court also relies on a perceived deprivation of “liberty” resulting from any suspension, arguing—again without factual support in the record pertaining to these appellees—that a suspension harms a student‘s reputation. In view of the Court‘s decision in Board of Regents v. Roth, supra, I would have thought that this argument was plainly untenable. Underscoring the need for “serious damage” to reputation, the Roth Court held that a nontenured teacher who is not rehired by a public university could not claim to suffer sufficient reputational injury to require constitutional protections.7 Surely a brief suspension is of less serious consequence to the reputation of a teenage student.
II
In prior decisions, this Court has explicitly recognized that school authorities must have broad discretionary au-
“[T]he Court has repeatedly emphasized the need for affirming the comprehensive authority of the States and of school officials, consistent with fundamental constitutional safeguards, to prescribe and control conduct in the schools.”8
Such approach properly recognizes the unique nature of public education and the correspondingly limited role of the judiciary in its supervision. In Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U. S. 97, 104 (1968), the Court stated:
“By and large, public education in our Nation is committed to the control of state and local authorities. Courts do not and cannot intervene in the resolution of conflicts which arise in the daily operation of school systems and which do not directly and sharply implicate basic constitutional values.”
The Court today turns its back on these precedents. It can hardly seriously be claimed that a school principal‘s decision to suspend a pupil for a single day would “directly and sharply implicate basic constitutional values.” Ibid.
Moreover, the Court ignores the experience of mankind, as well as the long history of our law, recognizing
A
I turn now to some of the considerations which support the Court‘s former view regarding the comprehensive authority of the States and school officials “to prescribe and control conduct in the schools.” Id., at 507. Unlike the divergent and even sharp conflict of interests usually present where due process rights are asserted, the interests here implicated—of the State through its schools and of the pupils—are essentially congruent.
The State‘s interest, broadly put, is in the proper functioning of its public school system for the benefit of all pupils and the public generally. Few rulings would interfere more extensively in the daily functioning of schools than subjecting routine discipline to the formalities and judicial oversight of due process. Suspensions are one of the traditional means—ranging from keeping a student after class to permanent expulsion—used to maintain discipline in the schools. It is common knowledge that maintaining order and reasonable de-
The facts set forth in the margin10 leave little room for doubt as to the magnitude of the disciplinary problem in the public schools, or as to the extent of reliance upon the right to suspend. They also demonstrate that if hearings were required for a substantial percentage of short-term suspensions, school authorities would have time to do little else.
B
The State‘s generalized interest in maintaining an orderly school system is not incompatible with the indi-
The lesson of discipline is not merely a matter of the student‘s self-interest in the shaping of his own character and personality; it provides an early understanding of the relevance to the social compact of respect for the rights of others. The classroom is the laboratory in which this lesson of life is best learned. Mr. Justice Black summed it up:
“School discipline, like parental discipline, is an integral and important part of training our children to be good citizens—to be better citizens.” Tinker, 393 U. S., at 524 (dissenting opinion).
In assessing in constitutional terms the need to protect pupils from unfair minor discipline by school authorities, the Court ignores the commonality of interest of the State and pupils in the public school system. Rather, it thinks in traditional judicial terms of an adversary
C
One of the more disturbing aspects of today‘s decision is its indiscriminate reliance upon the judiciary, and the adversary process, as the means of resolving many of the most routine problems arising in the classroom. In mandating due process procedures the Court misapprehends the reality of the normal teacher-pupil relationship. There is an ongoing relationship, one in which the teacher must occupy many roles—educator, adviser, friend, and, at times, parent-substitute.12 It is rarely adversary in nature except with respect to the chronically disruptive or insubordinate pupil whom the teacher must be free to discipline without frustrating formalities.13
The Ohio statute, providing as it does for due notice both to parents and the Board, is compatible with the teacher-pupil relationship and the informal resolution of mistaken disciplinary action. We have relied for generations upon the experience, good faith and dedication of those who staff our public schools,14 and the nonadversary means of airing grievances that always have been available to pupils and their parents. One would have thought before today‘s opinion that this informal method of resolving differences was more compatible with the interests of all concerned than resort to any constitutionalized procedure, however blandly it may be defined by the Court.
D
In my view, the constitutionalizing of routine classroom decisions not only represents a significant and unwise extension of the Due Process Clause, but it also was quite unnecessary in view of the safeguards prescribed by the Ohio statute. This is demonstrable from a com-
The Ohio statute, limiting suspensions to not more than eight school days, requires written notice including the “reasons therefor” to the student‘s parents and to the Board of Education within 24 hours of any suspension. The Court only requires oral or written notice to the pupil, with no notice being required to the parents or the Board of Education. The mere fact of the statutory requirement is a deterrent against arbitrary action by the principal. The Board, usually elected by the people and sensitive to constituent relations, may be expected to identify a principal whose record of suspensions merits inquiry. In any event, parents placed on written notice may exercise their rights as constituents by going directly to the Board or a member thereof if dissatisfied with the principal‘s decision.
Nor does the Court‘s due process “hearing” appear to provide significantly more protection than that already available. The Court holds only that the principal must listen to the student‘s “version of the events,” either before suspension or thereafter—depending upon the circumstances. Ante, at 583. Such a truncated “hearing” is likely to be considerably less meaningful than the opportunities for correcting mistakes already available to students and parents. Indeed, in this case all of the students and parents were offered an opportunity to attend a conference with school officials.
In its rush to mandate a constitutional rule, the Court appears to give no weight to the practical manner in which suspension problems normally would be worked out under Ohio law.15 One must doubt, then, whether
III
No one can foresee the ultimate frontiers of the new “thicket” the Court now enters. Today‘s ruling appears to sweep within the protected interest in education a multitude of discretionary decisions in the educational process. Teachers and other school authorities are required to make many decisions that may have serious consequences for the pupil. They must decide, for example, how to grade the student‘s work, whether a student passes or fails a course,16 whether he is to be promoted, whether he is required to take certain subjects, whether he may be excluded from interscholastic athletics17 or other extracurricular activities, whether he may be removed from one school and sent to another, whether he may be bused long distances when available schools are nearby, and whether he should be placed in a “general,” “vocational,” or “college-preparatory” track.
In these and many similar situations claims of impairment of one‘s educational entitlement identical in principle to those before the Court today can be asserted with equal or greater justification. Likewise, in many of these situations, the pupil can advance the same types of speculative and subjective injury given critical weight in this case. The District Court, relying upon generalized opinion evidence, concluded that a suspended student may suffer psychological injury in one or more of
It hardly need be said that if a student, as a result of a day‘s suspension, suffers “a blow” to his “self esteem,” “feels powerless,” views “teachers with resentment,” or feels “stigmatized by his teachers,” identical psychological harms will flow from many other routine and necessary school decisions. The student who is given a failing grade, who is not promoted, who is excluded from certain extracurricular activities, who is assigned to a school reserved for children of less than average ability, or who is placed in the “vocational” rather than the “college preparatory” track, is unlikely to suffer any less psychological injury than if he were suspended for a day for a relatively minor infraction.19
If, as seems apparent, the Court will now require due process procedures whenever such routine school decisions are challenged, the impact upon public education will be serious indeed. The discretion and judgment of federal courts across the land often will be substituted for that of the 50 state legislatures, the 14,000 school boards,20 and the 2,000,00021 teachers who heretofore have been responsible for the administration of the American public school system. If the Court perceives a rational and analytically sound distinction between the discretionary decision by school authorities to suspend a pupil for a brief period, and the types of discretionary school decisions described above, it would be prudent to articulate it in today‘s opinion. Otherwise, the federal courts should prepare themselves for a vast new role in society.
IV
Not so long ago, state deprivations of the most significant forms of state largesse were not thought to require due process protection on the ground that the deprivation resulted only in the loss of a state-provided “benefit.” E. g., Bailey v. Richardson, 86 U. S. App. D. C. 248, 182 F. 2d 46 (1950), aff‘d by an equally divided Court, 341 U. S. 918 (1951). In recent years the Court, wisely in my view, has rejected the “wooden distinction between ‘rights’ and ‘privileges,’ ” Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U. S., at 571, and looked instead to the significance of the state-created or state-enforced right and to
Notes
Nor is the “de minimis” standard referred to by the Court relevant in this case. That standard was first stated by Mr. Justice Harlan in a concurring opinion in Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., 395 U. S. 337, 342 (1969), and then quoted in a footnote to the Court‘s opinion in Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U. S. 67, 90 n. 21 (1972). Both Sniadach and Fuentes, however, involved resolution of property disputes between two private parties claiming an interest in the same property. Neither case pertained to an interest conferred by the State.
“I am reluctant to believe that there is any disagreement between the majority and myself on the proposition that school officials should be accorded the widest authority in maintaining discipline and good order in their institutions.” 393 U. S., at 526.
Likewise, an amicus brief submitted by several school associations in Ohio indicates that the number of suspensions is significant: in 1972-1973, 4,054 students out of a school enrollment of 81,007 were suspended in Cincinnati; 7,352 of 57,000 students were suspended in Akron; and 14,598 of 142,053 students were suspended in Cleveland. See also the Office of Civil Rights Survey, supra, finding that approximately 20,000 students in New York City, 12,000 in Cleveland, 9,000 in Houston, and 9,000 in Memphis were suspended at least once during the 1972-1973 school year. Even these figures are probably somewhat conservative since some schools did not reply to the survey.
Yet the Court, relying on cases such as Sniadach and Fuentes, apparently views the classroom of teenagers as comparable to the competitive and adversary environment of the adult, commercial world.
“1. The suspension is a blow to the student‘s self-esteem.
“2. The student feels powerless and helpless.
“3. The student views school authorities and teachers with resentment, suspicion and fear.
“4. The student learns withdrawal as a mode of problem solving.
“5. The student has little perception of the reasons for the suspension. He does not know what offending acts he committed.
“6. The student is stigmatized by his teachers and school administrators as a deviant. They expect the student to be a troublemaker in the future.” 372 F. Supp., at 1292.