Lansdale v. Tyler Junior College

• Decision Date: 09 October 1970
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 5201.
• Citation: 318 F. Supp. 529
• Parties: Joe Richard LANSDALE et al. v. TYLER JUNIOR COLLEGE.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Texas

318 F. Supp. 529

Joe Richard LANSDALE et al. v. TYLER JUNIOR COLLEGE.

Civ. A. No. 5201.

United States District Court, E. D. Texas, Tyler Division.

October 9, 1970.

William H. Kugle, Jr., Athens, Tex., for plaintiffs.

William S. Reeves, Tyler, Tex., for defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

JUSTICE, District Judge.

The named plaintiffs are three longhaired young males who bring this suit to enjoin the operation and enforcement against them of a section of the "Dress Code", a comprehensive set of regulations governing the appearance of students which was adopted by the Tyler Junior College Board of Trustees shortly before the beginning of the 1970 Fall Semester. A temporary restraining order allowing plaintiffs to register was entered August 28, 1970, and a hearing on plaintiffs' motion for preliminary injunction was held September 1, 1970, the first day of the Fall Semester. The questioned regulation reads as follows:

"Extreme hair styles are prohibited. The hair in front should not cover the eyebrows. The hair must be neatly trimmed around the ears and must be above the collar. Beards are prohibited. Side burns may be worn no longer than the bottom of the earlobe. Mustaches, if worn, must be neatly trimmed so as not to extend below or beyond the upper lip."

One of the named plaintiffs, age 22 and a Vietnam veteran, attended the 1969 Summer Session, 1970 Spring Semester, and the first semester of the 1970 Summer Session at Tyler Junior College. During his attendance, he was a "straight A" student whose conduct was never questioned by college authorities. At the hearing on plaintiffs' motion for preliminary injunction, his hair reached his shoulders. The hair of all the named plaintiffs, although long, appeared clean and neatly trimmed. Each named plaintiff gave fashion and personal expression as his justification for wearing long hair. They denied any religious, political or moral reasons for their deviation from the norm.

The named plaintiffs attempted to register at the announced time for the 1970 Fall Semester. Each named plaintiff was furnished with a copy of the Dress Code and informed by a college official that he could not register until his hair style conformed to the regulation. No other reason was given for refusal of registration. They apparently qualified, otherwise. The named plaintiffs later filed this suit, for themselves and others similarly situated, under the provisions of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and 28 U.S.C. § 1343, alleging, inter alia, that the enforcement by college officials of such regulation against them was arbitrary and unreasonable and violated their constitutional rights. The point in issue is the applicability vel non of that portion of the 14th Amendment prescribing that no state shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Initially, it must be recognized school officials are given wide discretion in formulating rules and regulations. Burnside v. Byars, 363 F.2d 744 (5th Cir. 1966); Ferrell v. Dallas Independent School Dist., 392 F.2d 697 (5th Cir. 1968), cert. den'd, 393 U.S. 856, 89 S.Ct. 98, 21 L.Ed.2d 125 (1969). Specifically, the Texas Legislature has conferred upon the boards of trustees of junior college districts the exclusive power to manage and govern internal school affairs, including the authority to adopt such rules and regulations as they deem proper. Texas Education Code, Sections 51.073 and 23.26, V.T.C.A. This discretion, however, has been limited. In West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 637, 63 S.Ct. 1178, 1185, 87 L.Ed. 1628 (1943), the Supreme Court of the United States held:

"The Fourteenth Amendment, as now applied to the States, protects the citizen against the State itself and all its creatures — Boards of Education not excepted. * * * That they are educating the young for citizenship is reason for scrupulous protection of the Constitutional freedoms of the individual, if we are not to strangle the free mind at its source and teach youth to discount important principles of our government as mere platitudes."

In Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District, 393 U.S., 503, 511, 89 S.Ct. 733, 739, 21 L.Ed.2d 731 (1969), the Supreme Court referred to the rights of students:

"In our system, state-operated schools may not be enclaves of totalitarianism. School officials do not possess absolute authority over their students. Students in school as well as out of school are `persons' under our Constitution. They are possessed of fundamental rights which the State must respect, just as they themselves must respect their obligations to the State." 393 U.S. at 511, 89 S.Ct. at 739.

Judge Lynne, in Zachry v. Brown, 299 F.Supp. 1360, 1362 (N.D.Ala.1967), well summarized the case law on this subject:

"The wide latitude permitted legislatures of the states and therefore the administrators of public colleges to classify students with respect to dress, appearance and behavior must be respected and preserved by the courts. However, the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment prohibits classification upon an unreasonable basis."

Tinker requires that the student-plaintiffs be regarded as "persons" under the Constitution. Certainly they are entitled to this status, for in the judgment of Congress and the President, as recently expressed in legislation, all males of the age of the two younger named plaintiffs are now deemed sufficiently mature to exercise the franchise, and have long been required to bear arms in defense of their country. As "persons", they may rightfully demand the same rights and privileges granted other persons under the Constitution. Specifically, they are entitled to question the reasonableness of any regulation directed toward them.

If this regulation involved some identifiable class other than allegedly disruptive students, its unreasonable and invidious character would be instantly apparent, especially to the affected class. To illustrate, if the Texas legislature were to be so unwise as to enact the questioned regulation into statutory form, making it applicable only to a single segment of the population — such as bankers, physicians, lawyers or construction workers — and barring violators from continued employment in their occupation, one can easily visualize the onrush to the courthouses of the state that would ensue.

Moreover, the converse of the regulation also demonstrates its basic lack of reasonableness.

"The requirement that these plaintiffs cut their hair to conform to normal or conventional styles is just as unreasonable as would palpably be a requirement that all male students of the college wear their hair down over their ears and collars." Zachry v. Brown, supra, at 1362.

The right of students to the free choice of hair styles granted other citizens has been upheld in cases involving the First, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Regulations limiting students' rights in this particular can be validated only in instances where school officials can show a reasonable relationship between the forbidden style and the health, welfare, morals, and discipline of the student community. Ferrell v. Dallas Independent School District, supra; Griffin v. Tatum, 425 F.2d 201 (5th Cir. 1970); Stevenson v. Wheeler County School Board of Education, 426 F.2d 1154 (5th Cir. 1970); Breen v. Kahl, 419 F.2d 1034 (7th Cir. 1969), cert. den'd., 398 U.S. 937, 90 S.Ct. 1836, 26 L.Ed.2d 268 (1970); Calbillo v. San Jacinto Junior College, 305 F.Supp. 857 (S.D. Tex.1969).

In Griffin v. Tatum, supra, 425 F.2d at 203, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said:

"The touchstone for sustaining such regulations is the demonstration that they are necessary to alleviate interference with the educational process."

The college officials, as defendants, contended at the hearing that the regulation was essential for maintaining campus discipline and a proper, efficient and effective educational environment. Two defendants, the college president and the academic vice-president, referred during their testimony to educational conferences they had attended. They were informed by fellow academicians at the meetings that long-haired male students had been in the forefront of disruptions and disorders at their respective colleges. They also testified that they had viewed, on television, long-haired male college students participating in riots, marches, and confrontations with authorities, and that they had read about similar activities of such students in newspapers, educational journals, and other periodicals. A Tyler Junior College foreign language professor testified that long-haired male students caused disruptions in a class he had previously conducted at a North Carolina college. Each of these three testified that in his opinion the admission of long-haired male students to Tyler Junior College inevitably would result in similar disruptions. Their rationale apparently was that since long-haired students caused disruptions in other institutions of learning, all long-haired male students are potential troublemakers.

I am unwilling to accept a syllogism so perverse and jejune as this to justify the humiliating and demeaning restrictions which this regulation would place on the plaintiffs. The foregoing testimony was directly contradicted by the unchallenged testimony of plaintiff Harders, the Vietnam veteran, who stated that his hair, which had not been cut since February 1970, was longer during the first semester of the 1970 Summer Session than prescribed by the regulation, and that his hair style provoked no disruptions of any type. The testimony also disclosed that no substantial disruptions occurred after some freshmen football players were, in the past, compelled to wear "Mohawk" hair styles by upperclassmen. (This involved the shaving of the unfortunate's head in such...