Chitwood v. Feaster, 72-1404.
| Decision Date | 11 October 1972 |
| Docket Number | No. 72-1404.,72-1404. |
| Citation | 468 F.2d 359 |
| Parties | Garrett C. CHITWOOD et al., Appellants, v. Eston K. FEASTER, Individually and as President of Fairmont State College, et al., Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Franklin D. Cleckley, Morgantown, W. Va. (James A. Esposito, Fairmont, W. Va., on brief), for appellants.
Woodrow A. Potesta and Victor A. Barone, Asst. Attys. Gen., West Virginia (Chauncey H. Browning, Jr., Atty. Gen., West Virginia, on brief), for appellees.
Before HAYNSWORTH, Chief Judge, and CRAVEN and RUSSELL, Circuit Judges.
The District Court, 54 F.R.D. 204, awarded summary judgment against several nontenured teachers whose contracts were not renewed by Fairmont State College in West Virginia. They have appealed, contending, (1) that they were entitled to a statement of the reasons for failure to renew their contracts, and that they should have been given notice and an administrative hearing before the decision not to renew became final; and (2) that their contracts were not renewed in retaliation for conduct by them within the protection of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
The first contention has been foreclosed by a subsequent decision of the Supreme Court in Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548. These teachers were not tenured and there was no basis for any reasonable expectancy of permanent employment. While the college might have dealt with them more frankly, under Roth, they had no constitutional right to a statement of reasons for the failure to renew their contracts or to an opportunity for an administrative hearing.1
As to the second branch of the case, some of the plaintiffs make no claim of participation by them in conduct protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments, for which failure of contract renewal might have been retaliatory. Summary judgment as to them was appropriate, for they had no possible constitutional claim in light of Roth. Others, however, filed affidavits asserting their participation in anti-war and other protest movements, as well as public statements critical of the college and its officials. These are the very kind of claims which led the Supreme Court of the United States in Roth's companion case, Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 33 L.Ed.2d 570, to say that a teacher who claimed that the nonrenewal of his contract was the result of similar verbal conduct was entitled to a hearing and a determination whether or not the activity protected by the First Amendment was the cause of the termination of the employment relationship.2
Some of the affidavits refer to what seems to be bickering and running disputes with the department heads. We do not intend to suggest that that kind of speech is protected by the First Amendment in the sense that it may not be considered in connection with the termination of the employment relationship. A college has a right to expect a teacher to follow instructions and to work cooperatively and harmoniously with the head of the department. If one cannot or does not, if one undertakes to seize the authority and prerogatives of the department head, he does not immunize himself against loss of his position simply because...
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...The law may sometimes move in mysterious and burdensome ways, but it is not so mysterious and burdensome as all that. In Chitwood v. Feaster, 468 F.2d 359 (4th Cir.1972), another case dealing with untenured teachers in West Virginia, the Fourth Circuit set out the limited scope of First Ame......
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...1731, 20 L.Ed.2d 811 (1968); Shumate v. Board of Education of the County of Jackson, 478 F.2d 233 (4th Cir. 1973); Chitwood v. Feaster, 468 F.2d 359 (4th Cir. 1972). Therefore, a factual determination must be made to decide if the discharge of plaintiff occurred in retaliation for, or as pu......
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