Kelm v. Carlson
Decision Date | 08 February 1973 |
Docket Number | No. 72-1241.,72-1241. |
Citation | 473 F.2d 1267 |
Parties | Russell A. KELM, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. William S. CARLSON et al., Defendants-Appellees. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Russell A. Kelm, in pro. per.
B. Gary McBride, Spengler, Nathanson, Heyman, McCarthy & Durfee, Toledo, Ohio, for defendants-appellees.
Before PHILLIPS, Chief Judge, and EDWARDS and McCREE, Circuit Judges.
Appellant, a recent graduate of the Law School at the University of Toledo, appeals from the dismissal of his suit for reimbursement of $1,550 tuition fees charged him as an out-of-state resident. It is his claim that his federal constitutional rights to due process of law and to equal protection of the laws have been abridged by defendants (officers of the University) by their interpretation of the out-of-state tuition regulation in force at the University at the applicable times or by the regulation itself. He claims that jurisdiction of this case lies in the federal district court, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1970) and 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3) (1970).
Appellees, properly, in our view, do not dispute the jurisdiction of the District Court to hear and decide the federal constitutional issues under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and 28 U.S.C. § 1343. Lynch v. Household Finance Co., 405 U.S. 538, 92 S.Ct. 1113, 31 L.Ed.2d 424 (1970); Starns v. Malkerson, 326 F.Supp. 234 (D.Minn.1970), aff'd mem., 401 U.S. 985, 91 S.Ct. 1231, 28 L.Ed.2d 527 (1971).
The District Judge dealt with the due process issue by remanding the matter to the defendants for the purpose of furnishing a written statement of the University's reasons for refusing to reclassify appellant as a resident of Ohio. That statement has now been furnished (as we will see) and we believe that the District Judge's opinion and order of June 16, 1971, has dealt adequately and correctly with the due process issue in this case.
What we deem to be left in this appeal is appellant's contention that the University regulation as interpreted created an arbitrary and unreasonable classification and denied him the equal protection of the laws.
The facts in this dispute have been accurately set forth in findings by the District Court:
Appellant's Application for Non-resident Fee Exemption was not filed until February 1, 1971. This suit was filed April 1, 1971, after the final denials of the application referred to above. With these facts before us, we turn to the narrow equal protection issue raised by petitioner.
The State of Ohio has authorized the boards of trustees of its state universities to "charge reasonable tuition for the attendance of pupils who are nonresidents of Ohio," O.R.C. § 3345.01 (1972), and to adopt rules and regulations pursuant thereto. O.R.C. § 3333.04 (1972).
No attack is made on these statutes, and federal case law upholds their validity. Starns v. Malkerson, 326 F.Supp. 234 (D.Minn.1970), aff'd mem., 401 U.S. 985, 91 S.Ct. 1231, 28 L.Ed.2d 527 (1971); Clarke v. Redeker, 259 F.Supp. 117 (S.D.Iowa 1966).
Pursuant to these statutes the Board of Trustees of the University of Toledo adopted a regulation concerning students' nonresident status, the currently disputed portions of which follow:
Any possible ambiguity concerning the meaning of 5(b) language, "definite commitments to enter into gainful employment in Ohio upon completion of a degree program," was, we believe, resolved by the letter of the Residence Committee (written after the District Court remand) stating its reasons for rejecting appellant's application for exemption from the nonresident fee. That letter said in part:
It seems clear therefore that the terms in Rule 5(b) "made definite commitments to enter into gainful employment" include proof that the applicant for a nonresident exemption actually has a job in Ohio available to him at the time of his graduation, and that without such proof, he cannot acquire resident status for purposes of the University's tuition regulation.
Such a condition seems to us vulnerable to appellant's challenge as arbitrary and unreasonable. Since pregraduation offers are most frequently made to the top percentages of law school graduates, the regulation would discriminate against the majority of law graduates who in good faith had moved to Ohio and had established residence for all other purposes. It discriminates against members of that same majority who not only have moved to Ohio in good faith and establish residence there for all other purposes, but who, like the appellant, have secured employment in Ohio on a part-time basis to finance law school and whose wives are gainfully employed full-time in Ohio. In addition, it discriminates against those law school students who desire on graduation to go into practice for themselves. It would also work with discriminatory harshness as between students in classes graduating when hiring opportunities were numerous as compared to those in years when little if any pregraduation hiring was available.
The classification as nonresidents of all applicants who are unable to secure pregraduation job commitments from prospective employers represents an irrebuttable presumption which has no reasonable relation to fact.
Although in our instant case the class excluded by the above-described irrebuttable presumption is somewhat smaller than is the class excluded in Kline v. Vlandis, 346 F.Supp. 526 (D.Conn.1972), we find the constitutional reasoning and logic of the Vlandis case both applicable to this case and persuasive:
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