Tex. S. Univ. v. Villarreal

• Decision Date: 16 April 2021
• Docket Number: No. 19-0440,19-0440
• Citation: 620 S.W.3d 899
• Parties: TEXAS SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY; Dannye Holley, in His Individual and Official Capacities; Edward Maldonado (a/k/a Spearit), in His Individual and Official Capacities; Gabriel Aitsebaomo, in His Individual and Official Capacities, Petitioners, v. Ivan VILLARREAL, Respondent
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

620 S.W.3d 899

TEXAS SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY; Dannye Holley, in His Individual and Official Capacities; Edward Maldonado (a/k/a Spearit), in His Individual and Official Capacities; Gabriel Aitsebaomo, in His Individual and Official Capacities, Petitioners,

v.Ivan VILLARREAL, Respondent

No. 19-0440

Supreme Court of Texas.

Argued December 1, 2020

OPINION DELIVERED: April 16, 2021

Summer Lee, Atty. Gen. W. Kenneth Paxton Jr., Austin, Kyle D. Hawkins, Evan S. Greene, Eric A. Hudson, Jeffrey C. Mateer, Austin, for Petitioners.

Austin M.B. Whatley, Jerad W. Najvar, Houston, for Respondent.

Justice Busby delivered the opinion of the Court.

In this case, we address whether a state university's dismissal of a student for poor academic performance implicates a liberty or property interest protected by the Texas Constitution's guarantee of due course of law. Texas Southern University's Thurgood Marshall School of Law (the School) dismissed Ivan Villarreal after one year because he did not maintain the required 2.0 grade point average. Villarreal sued the School, alleging claims for breach of contract and deprivation of his liberty and property without due course of law. The School filed a plea to the jurisdiction invoking sovereign immunity, which the trial court granted. The First Court of Appeals reversed in part, holding that Villarreal had alleged viable procedural and substantive due course of law claims.

We hold that an academic dismissal from higher education carries insufficient stigma to implicate a protected liberty interest. And assuming without deciding that Villarreal had a protected property right in his continuing education, the procedures followed by the School in connection with his dismissal were constitutionally adequate. We therefore reverse the court of appeals' judgment with respect to Villarreal's constitutional claims and render judgment dismissing the case.

BACKGROUND

Ivan Villarreal entered Thurgood Marshall School of Law in August 2014. He completed his first year with a 1.976 grade point average. The School's Student Rules and Regulations handbook includes a non-waivable requirement that a first-year student maintain an average of at least 2.0 to continue in the program. Villarreal was dismissed on June 10, 2015 for failing to meet this requirement.

Villarreal filed an untimely petition with the School's Academic Standards Committee that challenged his grade in criminal law based on irregularities in the administration of the School's uniform examination. He asked the committee to change his grade or readmit him immediately, waiving the two-year waiting period that would otherwise apply. Villarreal alleged that the School had mishandled a cheating investigation into reports that a professor held unauthorized review sessions in which some students received advance copies of certain exam questions. Villarreal did not attend the sessions, but he contended that cheating by others negatively affected his own grade. Before the committee could rule on Villarreal's first petition, he filed a second petition challenging all of his fall 2014 grades.

The committee reviewed Villarreal's first petition and denied it, explaining that the dean had already addressed the alleged cheating administratively. The dean's remedy gave each student the opportunity to challenge his or her criminal law grade individually by March 2015, which Villarreal did not do. The School had also implemented a class-wide remedy that gave students the higher of two test scores: the score they originally received and a score that disregarded answers to the allegedly compromised questions. Villarreal's score did not change under this remedy.

Villarreal was invited to meet with the committee and later with the dean regarding his second petition. Following those meetings, the petition was denied based on his unsatisfactory grades.

Villarreal then sued the School as well as the dean and other faculty members in their official and personal capacities, alleging that they mishandled the investigation into the alleged cheating incident and seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. He asserted a claim for breach of contract against the School, and he contended that the School and the faculty members violated his substantive and procedural rights under the due course of law clause of the Texas Constitution. The School and the individual defendants filed a plea to the jurisdiction that asserted sovereign immunity from suit and included evidence responding to some of Villarreal's allegations. The defendants contended that Villarreal lacked any constitutionally protected interest to support viable ultra vires claims under the due course of law clause and that Villarreal's contract claim was barred by immunity. The trial court granted the plea to the jurisdiction in its entirety.

The First Court of Appeals reversed in part, holding that Villarreal alleged viable constitutional claims against the School and the individual defendants in their official capacities. Villarreal v. Tex. S. Univ. , 570 S.W.3d 916 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2018). As a threshold matter, the court concluded that Villarreal had a constitutionally protected liberty interest in his graduate education under this Court's holding in University of Texas Medical School at Houston v. Than , 834 S.W.2d 425, 429 (Tex. 1992). See Villarreal , 570 S.W.3d at 922.

Turning to whether Villarreal was unconstitutionally deprived of that interest, the court of appeals held that he had "adequately alleged a procedural due-course-of-law claim based on his allegation [regarding] the university's bad-faith mismanagement of an exam-grading controversy." Id. at 924. As to substantive due course of law, the court held sufficient his allegations "that the ‘class-wide remedy’ for irregularities in the criminal-law exam was arbitrary [and] implemented in bad faith." Id. at 925. The court therefore remanded the constitutional claims to the trial court for further proceedings. Id. at 925–26. Justice Massengale concurred in the judgment based on controlling precedent, but he questioned whether Texas courts should interpret our Constitution to protect a liberty interest in a student's reputation associated with the pursuit of graduate education. Id. at 926–29, 932 (Massengale, J., concurring). We granted the School's petition for review.

ANALYSIS

As part of a state educational institution, the School and its employees acting in their official capacities have sovereign immunity from suit. Fed. Sign v. Tex. S. Univ. , 951 S.W.2d 401, 405 (Tex. 1997) ; see Franka v. Velasquez , 332 S.W.3d 367, 383 (Tex. 2011). Whether sovereign immunity defeats a trial court's subject-matter jurisdiction is a question of law properly raised in a plea to the jurisdiction. Tex. Nat. Res. Conservation Comm'n v. IT–Davy , 74 S.W.3d 849, 855 (Tex. 2002). Thus, we review de novo whether a plaintiff has alleged or offered undisputed evidence of facts that establish jurisdiction. Tex. Dep't of Parks & Wildlife v. Miranda , 133 S.W.3d 217, 226 (Tex. 2004). If disputed evidence creates a fact question regarding a jurisdictional issue that also implicates the merits, however, a jury should resolve the dispute. Id. at 227–28.

Although there are factual disputes here regarding the School's cheating investigation, the parties agree on the facts relevant to our disposition of this case: Villarreal's grade point average was below a 2.0 at the conclusion of his first year; he filed multiple petitions seeking grade changes and reinstatement that were denied; and he was eligible to re-enroll after two years. We focus on these facts in determining whether, as a matter of law, Villarreal has alleged viable constitutional claims that overcome the School's sovereign immunity.

I. Dismissal from higher education for academic reasons does not deprive a student of a protected liberty interest.

The Texas Constitution provides that "[n]o citizen of this State shall be deprived of life, liberty, property, privileges or immunities, or in any manner disfranchised, except by the due course of the law of the land." TEX. CONST. art. I, § 19. The due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution uses similar language.¹ "Although not bound by federal due process jurisprudence ..., we consider federal interpretations of procedural due process to be persuasive authority in applying our due course of law guarantee." University of Texas Medical School at Houston v.Than , 901 S.W.2d 926, 929 (Tex. 1995). For the most part, the parties do not ask us to take a different approach from the federal courts. We therefore consider not only Texas decisions but also federal decisions to inform our interpretation of the due course of law guarantee as it applies to dismissal from a state university.

To determine whether a governmental action violates the due course of law guarantee, we engage in a two-step inquiry. Id. First, does the plaintiff have a liberty, property, or other enumerated interest that is entitled to protection? Id. Second, if a protected interest is implicated, did the government defendant follow due course of law in depriving the plaintiff of that interest? Id.

At the first step, the court of appeals asked whether Villarreal alleged a protected liberty interest in his graduate education and concluded that he had. 570 S.W.3d at 922. This inquiry misunderstands the nature of the liberty analysis courts have employed in this area, which focuses on whether dismissal from a university interferes with the student's liberty interest in his or her reputation and employability, not on whether education is a protected liberty interest.

In deciding whether a dismissal from government employment or education amounts to the deprivation of a liberty interest under the due process clause of the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. Supreme Court looks to whether the dismissal imposes a stigma. For example, the Court observed in Wisconsin v. Constantineau that "[w...