Furumoto v. Lyman

• Decision Date: 21 August 1973
• Docket Number: No. C-72-1997-CBR.,C-72-1997-CBR.
• Citation: 362 F. Supp. 1267
• Parties: Alice FURUMOTO et al., Plaintiffs, v. Richard W. LYMAN, Individually and as President of Stanford University, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of California

362 F. Supp. 1267

Alice FURUMOTO et al., Plaintiffs, v. Richard W. LYMAN, Individually and as President of Stanford University, et al., Defendants.

No. C-72-1997-CBR.

United States District Court, N. D. California.

August 21, 1973.

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Kennedy & Rhine, Michael Kennedy, San Francisco, Cal., for plaintiffs.

McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen, David M. Heilbron, Gary H. Moore, San Francisco, Cal., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OF OPINION, FINDINGS OF FACT, CONCLUSIONS OF LAW, AND ORDER AND JUDGMENT

RENFREW, District Judge.

Plaintiffs, former students at Stanford University, brought this action under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985 and the First, Fifth, Eighth, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments. They invoke the jurisdiction of this Court under 28 U.S. C. §§ 1331 and 1343. Defendants are members of the Board of Trustees, administration and faculty of Stanford University. The claims arose from plaintiffs' participation in a disturbance in a classroom at Stanford, for which they were given indefinite suspensions from the University. Plaintiffs seek an injunction preventing defendants from enforcing the campus regulations which were applied to them and from continuing plaintiffs' suspensions. Each plaintiff also seeks $125,000 in damages plus interest, attorneys' fees, costs, and any other appropriate relief. Defendants have moved for summary judgment.

I. STATEMENT OF FACTS¹

On January 18, 1972, shortly after 11:00 A.M., approximately fifteen people, including plaintiffs, entered Room 127, McCullough Building, on the Stanford University campus, where a scheduled quiz in a course on electrical engineering was being given under the supervision of Professor William Shockley.² The racial or ethnic composition of the group was mostly non-Caucasian. Although plaintiffs were registered Stanford students it is not clear that all members of the group were Stanford students. The group's sole purpose was to condemn Shockley's view of genetics while demanding that he debate one Cedric Clark publicly. The intrusion was a planned event, with the members of the group acting in concert.

Shockley announced in a loud and clear voice to the group immediately after they had entered that they were interrupting a quiz and should leave the room. They refused to leave. Shockley then asked them to identify themselves, which they also refused to do. Most of the group settled in the rear of the room while a tall, black man, unidentified, went to the front and began to read a statement. An unidentified black woman began passing out copies of the statement to class members. The statement declared that Professor Shockley had been "found" by "Third World People" to be "racist" in his writings, speeches and actions. It called his theories "Nazi race theory" and claimed that he was seeking to justify "killing the future generation of black and other poor people * * *." It concluded that: "We will not allow this to happen." (emphasis in statement) "As a first step," it demanded that Professor Shockley meet one Cedric Clark in a public debate by February 28, 1972.

Shockley took Polaroid snapshots of the intruders, although the latter covered their faces. Mr. Troy Barbee, a member of the University staff, having received word of the intrusion, came to the classroom. Shockley gave the Polaroid exposures to him, but the black man, having finished his statement, walked toward Barbee, grabbed the exposures from him, and passed them to other intruders. They were never recovered. In an attempt to recover them, however, Barbee in effect pushed the black man down to the floor. Other intruders then rose and shouted accusations at Barbee. This event caused high tensions and the possibility of further disturbances, although generally tensions were low throughout the incident.

Before the black man had begun reading his statement, Shockley had turned on a cassette recorder. The black man turned it off, but Shockley turned it back on. After the black man had finished reading the statement, he removed the cassette and threw it along the floor to other intruders. The cassette too was not recovered.

The action of the intruders effectively prevented the students in Shockley's electrical engineering class from taking the scheduled quiz.

During the black man's statement, Shockley corrected his pronunciation of "eugenics" and "dysgenics." Shockley entered into a debate or dialogue, mostly with the black woman. He, in the words of the Stanford hearing officer, "actively, engagingly, seductively, and provocatively contributed to the continuation" of this debate. The intruders made "baiting and accusatory type statements" of Shockley's racism, allegations of genocide, and equated Shockley's views with the racial views of Hitler. After the debate, which lasted less than thirty minutes, Shockley agreed to give serious consideration to a request for a debate made in the conventional manner as long as certain conditions were met. Once this understanding was reached, the intruders left the room.

Plaintiffs, and one other student, were charged in writing with having violated a university policy in disrupting the effective carrying out of a university function or approved activity.³ In accordance with Stanford's rules, this case was heard by a hearing officer, who was a professor of law. The hearing lasted eight days. The hearing officer concluded that additional warnings by Shockley that the intruders were disrupting the class would have been ignored.

The hearing officer found that plaintiff Alice Furumoto had been one of the intruders and had made provocative and derisive comments to Professor Shockley. She had known that the course in electrical engineering was in progress when she entered, and she shared the group's purpose of condemning Shockley's genetic theories and demanding the public debate. He found similarly that plaintiff Don Lee was one of the intruders, that he had known the course was in progress, and that he had shared the group's purposes. He also found that plaintiff Kwonping Ho was one of the intruders, had known the course was in progress, and shared the group's purposes. It was also established that plaintiff Ho commented at one point during the incident that the group was not there to debate but to ascertain whether Shockley would agree to debate Clark. With other intruders, he discussed this question with Shockley and reached an understanding. He also asked one of the students in the course if he "knew what his professor was advocating." As to the other person charged, the hearing officer held that the University administration had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she had been present or had aided and abetted in the events.

After a hearing, the Campus Judicial Panel affirmed the hearing officer's findings and recommended the indefinite suspension of plaintiffs.⁴ The President of Stanford, defendant Richard W. Lyman, adopted that recommendation, and plaintiffs were indefinitely suspended from Stanford.⁵

II. PLAINTIFFS' TWO CAUSES OF ACTION

Plaintiffs' first cause of action is based on 42 U.S.C. § 1983⁶ and claims a deprivation of civil rights and privileges under color of state law. Plaintiffs claim that defendants denied them exercise of their First Amendment rights; that defendants applied to them unconstitutionally vague and overly broad campus regulations on disruption; that the sanction given them, indefinite suspension, constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in that it is disproportionate to the offense charged; and finally that defendants supported racism by giving Professor Shockley a forum and "academic respectability" for his genetic theories and by punishing plaintiffs for their anti-racist actions, causing them grave and irreparable injury.

In their second cause of action, based on 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3),⁷ plaintiffs claim that defendants entered into a conspiracy to deprive them of equal protection of the law in that defendants supported racism and punished plaintiffs' efforts to oppose racism, that defendants sanctioned them but not the University band which had disrupted classes, and that defendants prosecuted them but not others who took similar actions on other occasions.

III. JURISDICTION

Plaintiffs' allegations fulfill the necessary jurisdictional elements of 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985 and 28 U.S.C. § 1343. Although several of the allegations appear insubstantial, the proper judicial course is to assume jurisdiction and then determine whether the allegations constitute claims upon which relief can be granted. Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S. 678, 682, 66 S.Ct. 773, 776, 90 L.Ed. 939 (1946):

"Jurisdiction * * * is not defeated * * * by the possibility that the averments might fail to state a cause of action on which petitioners could actually recover * * *. Whether the complaint states a cause of action on which relief could be granted is a question of law and just as issues of fact it must be decided after and not before the court has assumed jurisdiction over the controversy."

See also Meredith v. Allen County War Memorial Hospital Com'n, 397 F.2d 33, 35 (6 Cir. 1968); Stambler v. Dillon, 302 F.Supp. 1250, 1252 (S.D.N.Y. 1969).

IV. NO CLAIM IS ALLEGED AGAINST DEFENDANT SHOCKLEY OR DEFENDANT TRUSTEES UPON WHICH RELIEF CAN BE GRANTED

It is a generally accepted and worthy principle that pleadings in civil rights actions should be construed liberally. However, where there is no basis for the claim, the action must be dismissed. Whether a cause of action has been stated upon which relief can be granted is determined by "the accepted rule that a complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief." Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 102, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957); Cohen v. Norris, 300 F.2d 24 (9...