Bradford v. Tarrant County Junior College District, 73-1650.

• Decision Date: 08 May 1974
• Docket Number: No. 73-1650.,73-1650.
• Citation: 492 F.2d 133
• Parties: Marie J. BRADFORD, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. TARRANT COUNTY JUNIOR COLLEGE DISTRICT, Joe B. Rushing, Chancellor, et al., etc., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

492 F.2d 133 (1974)

Marie J. BRADFORD, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. TARRANT COUNTY JUNIOR COLLEGE DISTRICT, Joe B. Rushing, Chancellor, et al., etc., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 73-1650.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

April 4, 1974.

Rehearing Denied May 8, 1974.

William C. Odeneal, Jr., Dallas, Tex., for plaintiff-appellant.

Thomas H. Law, Fort Worth, Tex., for defendants-appellees.

Before COLEMAN, AINSWORTH and GEE, Circuit Judges.

GEE, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff-appellant Marie J. Bradford claimed below that her teaching contract was not renewed because of her exercise of rights of free speech secured to her by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. After a full bench trial, the district court found otherwise. She also asserted that minimal standards of procedural due process were not observed in connection with her non-retention, but was able to show neither tenure, de facto tenure, nor any stigma or damage to her community standing entailed in the non-renewal. Thus, neither liberty nor property were at stake, and questions of procedural due process do not arise.¹ We affirm.

From 1967 through May 1970, Mrs. Bradford was employed as an English instructor by Tarrant County Junior College, a state institution, on successive one-year contracts. In April of 1969, a faculty meeting was held to air faculty concerns centering around the non-renewal of several other teachers' contracts. At this meeting, Mrs. Bradford put several awkward, but entirely proper, questions to the college president. The situation was tense, and the manner and tone of her interrogation was described by various witnesses as hostile, sarcastic, needling and intended to embarrass. Other witnesses saw nothing exceptionable in her behavior. About three weeks later, she was offered a contract for the 1969-1970 academic year at a substantial raise, which she accepted.

In December of that year, Mrs. Bradford received indications that her contract would again be renewed, though these came from her immediate superiors and she knew that the actual offer of renewal could come only from the president.² Later that month, pursuant to customary policy and procedure at the college, she attended a confidential evaluation conference with Dr. Speegle, the Dean of Instruction, and her two intermediate supervisors. Following such conferences, at which an instructor's performance was appraised and critiqued, formal recommendations for renewal customarily went forward along the chain of command. The conference proceeded, she being again given to understand that a recommendation for renewal of her contract would be made, to a point at which Speegle remarked, in what he described as a spirit of good will and constructive criticism, that her manner of putting questions at the April, 1969, faculty meeting had been "unprofessional" and a repetition of such conduct might cause her termination. Mrs. Bradford took strong and immediate offense at the term and the conference ended on a strained note.

Next day the meeting was reconvened at her request. Taking the floor, Mrs. Bradford asked Speegle whether she had misheard him as referring to her conduct as unprofessional on the prior day. He confirmed his statement. She then advised him that in so doing he had defamed her before her two other superiors present, that she had consulted an attorney the previous evening, and that if he did not give her a written retraction of his statement she would proceed to law. With this, he terminated the meeting to consult the school attorneys. Subsequently, Speegle and his...