Knight v. State Board of Education

• Decision Date: 16 December 1961
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 3129.
• Citation: 200 F. Supp. 174
• Parties: Pauline E. KNIGHT et al., v. STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Tennessee

200 F. Supp. 174

Pauline E. KNIGHT et al., v. STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION et al.

Civ. No. 3129.

United States District Court M. D. Tennessee, Nashville Division.

December 16, 1961.

Z. Alexander Looby, Avon N. Williams, Jr., Looby & Williams, Nashville, Tenn., Jack Greenberg, New York City, for plaintiffs.

George F. McCanless, Atty. Gen., Milton P. Rice, Asst. Atty. Gen., for defendants.

WILLIAM E. MILLER, Chief Judge.

In this action the plaintiffs, thirteen negro students of Tennessee A & I State University, challenge upon constitutional grounds their suspension from the University at the end of the 1960-1961 school year. They contend that the action taken by the University through its discipline committee violated the plaintiffs' rights under the equal protection and due process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, in that such action was arbitrary, discriminatory, and without either notice to the plaintiffs of the charges against them or opportunity to be heard. It is further insisted that the suspension orders were issued as a punitive or retaliatory measure against the plaintiffs because of their having exercised their alleged constitutional rights by participating in the recent freedom rides in Mississippi to protest the segregation laws and practices of that state at interstate bus terminals and facilities. Such alleged punitive and retaliatory action is said to violate the plaintiffs' rights under the equal protection and due process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, independently of the question of procedural due process, and in addition to constitute a prohibited burden on interstate commerce in violation of the commerce clause, thus entitling the plaintiffs to unconditional reinstatement to the University.

Upon consideration of the facts developed by the evidence and the applicable authorities, the Court is persuaded that the plaintiffs' claim to a deprivation of procedural due process is well taken, but that their claim that the disciplinary action taken against them by the University was dictated by a purpose or motive to punish the plaintiffs or as a retaliatory measure for engaging in the freedom rides is without merit and cannot be sustained.

Pertinent and material facts in the controversy are as follows: Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial State University, located at Nashville, was organized as a college or university for negroes but presently is operated on an integrated basis. Its President, its operating and teaching personnel, and most of its students are members of the negro race. It is one of six tax-supported institutions of higher learning in the State under the general management, supervision and control of the State Board of Education. Prior to April 8, 1960, the State Board had not prescribed written or definite rules or regulations for disciplining students at the institutions under its control. Matters of discipline were largely left to each institution, although there is some evidence to indicate that there was a tacit rule or general understanding on the part of the Board that each institution would have the right to dismiss a student summarily for personal misconduct or upon being convicted of a criminal offense involving personal misconduct. Whether or not there was such an unwritten rule, it is clear from the record that it did not receive uniform interpretation by the authorities in control of the various colleges and universities under the jurisdiction of the Board, some schools acting on the assumption that the power to discipline students could be exercised without notice or any kind of hearing and other schools taking the contrary view. This was the posture on April 8, 1960, when the Tennessee Commissioner of Education, in his capacity as Chairman of the State Board of Education, addressed a letter to each of the institutions of higher learning under the Board's jurisdiction formulating a rule governing the disciplining of students for misconduct which was later ratified and approved by the entire Board. The letter of April 8, 1960, reads as follows:

"The necessity for maintaining the integrity and honor of the student body at each of the State colleges and universities under the jurisdiction of the State Board of Education has long been recognized. The misconduct of any student enrolled in an institution of higher learning reflects dishonor and discredit upon the institution in which he is enrolled and upon higher education in general.

"It is for this reason, therefore, that as Chairman of the State Board of Education and acting on behalf of the Board, I am instructing you to dismiss promptly any student enrolled in the institution of which you are president who shall, in the future, be arrested and convicted on charges involving personal misconduct.

"This policy is to be placed into effect immediately."

The regulation so prescribed was construed by the President of Tennessee A & I as requiring prompt and mandatory suspension or dismissal of any student convicted of a criminal offense involving personal misconduct, regardless of whether such conviction may have been appealed to a higher court. This was also the construction placed upon the regulation by the authorities of other schools and by the Chairman of the State Board. The letter of April 8, 1960 was written at the time of the lunch counter demonstrations in the City of Nashville, in which some of the plaintiffs and other Tennessee A & I students participated, protesting the prevailing practice in restaurants and at lunch counters in that city denying service to members of the negro race. As a result of such demonstrations, many students of Tennessee A & I were arrested and convicted for alleged disorderly conduct, but the proof shows that no disciplinary action was taken by the University against any of the student participants under the regulation of April 8, 1960.

In May and June, 1961, the plaintiffs, after completion of their school work for the year, in different groups and at different times, traveled by interstate bus to Jackson, Mississippi, where they entered the waiting rooms of the Greyhound and Trailways Bus Terminals. When they refused to leave the bus terminals in response to an order from a local police officer, they were arrested, charged with disorderly conduct in violation of a Mississippi statute defining that offense, and later convicted in a Magistrate's Court. Each plaintiff received a fine of $200.00 and a 60-day suspended jail sentence. Each plaintiff spent approximately 30 days in jail pending efforts to post an appeal bond. They were finally successful in perfecting appeals of their convictions to a higher court in Mississippi, which appeals are still pending. On June 1, 1961, a day or so after most of the convictions, but on the same day as one of the convictions and even before one of them, the discipline committee of Tennessee A & I University suspended the plaintiffs from the University after an ex parte hearing, without notice to the plaintiffs, and at a time when they were still in jail in Mississippi pending attempts to post bonds for appeals. On the same date, the committee addressed to the plaintiffs at their local residences in Nashville a letter setting forth the action of the committee as follows:

"In view of the fact that you have been arrested and convicted for violating a Mississippi law and are now in litigation to prove or disprove the validity of that arrest and conviction, and in light of the policy of the State Board of Education that provides for the dismissal of a student from a college or university under its jurisdiction when such student is arrested and convicted of charges involving misconduct, you have been placed on probation and will be denied the privilege of continuing your education at the Tennessee A & I State University. If it is later indicated that you have not violated this policy of the State Board of Education, your case may be reconsidered.¹

The plaintiffs did not learn of the action taken by the University until their return to Nashville some 30 or 40 days thereafter. They then attempted to protest their suspension to the University authorities and, after a series of demonstrations, obtained an audience with the President of the University in which they were advised that the action taken by the committee was mandatory under the terms of the letter of April 8 by reason of the plaintiffs' convictions in Mississippi and that their only recourse would be to the courts.

The question whether due process requires notice and some opportunity to be heard before students at a state tax-supported college are expelled for misconduct was directly presented in the recent case of Dixon v. Alabama State Board of Education, 294 F.2d 150 (5th Circuit), certiorari denied by the Supreme Court. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in an elaborate and carefully reasoned opinion emphatically answered the question in the affirmative. While there are factual differences between the Dixon case and the present one, and the principles enunciated so clearly therein are not necessarily determinative of this case, they are entitled to considerable weight insofar as the question of procedural due process is concerned. It was pointed out in the Dixon case that with respect to private colleges and universities the precedents had established the rule that dismissal of students could be effected at any time and for any reason without notice to the student concerned, and without opportunity for a hearing, but that the authorities involving suspension or expulsion from a public college or university all dealt with the question whether the hearing given to the student was adequate, in every instance the court upholding the sufficiency of the hearing. Finding the question not conclusively settled by the authorities, the court proceeded to apply to the facts of the particular case the criteria articulated by the Supreme Court in Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee...