Webster v. Redmond
| Decision Date | 23 December 1977 |
| Docket Number | No. 72 C 3005.,72 C 3005. |
| Citation | 443 F. Supp. 670 |
| Parties | Douglas Warren WEBSTER, Plaintiff, v. James F. REDMOND et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
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Terry Yale Feiertag, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff.
John T. Mehigan, Robert J. Krajcir, Melvin Gaines, Chicago, Ill., for defendants.
This litigation is the result of a dispute between a teacher, the Chicago Board of Education, its members, and certain of its executive employees, concerning the teacher's rights, as holder of a principal's certificate, to be the principal of a Chicago elementary school. Trial has been without a jury on a multi-count amended complaint which alleged that in connection with a vacant principalship defendants subjected the teacher to race discrimination, an unlawful employment practice, and deprivation of due process of law.
The teacher's claims are asserted under Title 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983, 2000e-3, and 2000e-5. Jurisdiction of this court is invoked pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1343(3), and 1343(4). The teacher seeks declaratory relief as provided in 28 U.S.C. §§ 2201 and 2202. He alleges that the matter in controversy exceeds the sum or value of $10,000, exclusive of costs and interest and arises under the constitution and laws of the United States.
After hearing evidence consisting of the testimony of witnesses, excerpts from depositions, and exhibits offered and received for the parties, this court at various stages of the trial ruled in favor of defendants on the claims of race discrimination and unlawful employment practice. Findings of fact were made; conclusions of law reached; and judgments were entered, for defendants, on these claims. Having done so, the court decided that the only remaining question in this case is whether the teacher was denied due process of law when a vote of the Board deprived him of a school principalship, he being otherwise qualified, solely for the reason that once he was arrested and indicted for a felony, being the receiver of stolen property; but the indictment was dismissed because on his motion, it was determined that evidence the state was going to use against him was taken from his home by an unreasonable search and seizure. This question, and the issue it presents, arise from the following facts.
Douglas Warren Webster is a black American; and with the exception of a tour of duty with the United States Army from 1953 to 1955, he has been a lifelong resident of the city of Chicago. Since 1953, when he was graduated from DePaul University with a degree of bachelor of arts in education, he has been a Chicago elementary school teacher. He has a master of arts degree from the same university; and, continuing his education, has accumulated in excess of 36 hours beyond the master's degree level at various institutions of higher learning in the Chicago area. He has worked toward becoming qualified for the position of school principal. Toward this end, he studied for, took all the examinations, passed them, and was granted a principal's certificate dated August 25, 1970. At the time of the trial of this case, Webster was on the principal's eligibility list of the Chicago Board of Education; and was, as he had always been qualified to be a school principal. Throughout his career in the Chicago school system, he has enjoyed a superior rating for the way he has performed his duties of a teacher, master teacher, assistant principal, and acting principal.
On January 21, 1971, while he was assigned to the Cook County Jail school maintained by the Board of Education, Webster was arrested and later indicted for the felony of being the receiver of stolen property, a ring worth more than $100 that had been taken in an armed robbery. This arrest, and later the charge, came to the attention of his superiors; and as a result, Webster was suspended from his duties as a Chicago school teacher. He employed a lawyer; and on March 5, 1971, filed a motion to suppress the evidence against him on the ground that it had been taken from his home by an unconstitutional search. The motion was heard; and a judge ruled that the evidence the state was going to use against Webster had been taken from his home by an unreasonable search and seizure in violation of his constitutional rights. The evidence was suppressed; and a short time later the indictment against Webster was stricken with leave to reinstate. No appeal was taken, although the ruling was reviewable under Illinois law.
In the meantime, Webster remained suspended from his duties as a school teacher. No charges were filed against him. Finally, on August 11, 1971, the General Superintendent recommended to the Board that Webster be reinstated to his position with back pay from January 26, 1971, when he was suspended, to September 3, 1971, when he was to be reinstated. This was done; and Webster resumed his duties.
At about the same time, steps were being taken by which, consistent with Board guidelines, a vacancy in the principalship of the Delano Elementary School was going to be filled. Three qualified persons from the Board's principals eligibility list were interviewed by the Local Advisory Council. Webster's name was selected as the person to be recommended to the General Superintendent, and by him to the Board, as qualified to fill the vacancy. Therefore, on January 14, 1972, at an executive session of the Board, Webster's name was before it for a vote by which he was to be promoted from teacher to principal of the Delano School. After the name was proposed, and the information from Webster's career as a teacher was distributed to the Board, a deputy superintendent reviewed the arrest of January 21, 1971 and the charge that followed. The attorney for the Board completed the review with references to the motion to suppress, how the court ruled on it, and the dismissal of the indictment. Despite these facts, the Associate Superintendent in whose area the Delano School was located reiterated his desire to have Webster as a principal because of his superior rating as a teacher. The Superintendent and his entire staff supported Webster's promotion. However, in the discussion, two members objected to the Board promoting to a school principalship a teacher who had once been arrested and charged with a felony. The observation was made by one board member that although Webster had not been convicted of the charge, the indictment against him was dismissed "on a technicality"; that is, the case was not prosecuted because evidence illegally seized from his home was suppressed.
A vote was taken; four members were recorded as being for Webster's promotion to the school principalship; six against; one passed.1 Thus, although his qualifications to be a school principal were not otherwise questioned, Webster was denied the promotion only because he was once arrested, indicted for a felony, but never convicted. Following this vote, and one taken on April 26, 1972 that adhered to it, Webster was never again considered for a school principalship, although he was recommended for the position, and he has always held the certificate by which the Board of Examiners declared, and the Board of Education has recognized, that he is qualified for such a position. On numerous occasions, various members of local advisory councils sought to learn why Webster was not made the principal of their schools; but Board members, and members of the Board's administrative staff, responded by saying that he would never be made a principal; that they were not at liberty to give the reasons; that Webster "was involved in a legal matter"; and that, in any event, the reasons were personal.2
Based on these facts, Webster contends that his principal's certificate was a valuable property right and an interest in liberty reflected in the opportunity he had earned to a promotion from teacher to principal in the Chicago public school system; that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed him some form of notice and hearing before he could be deprived of that property and liberty; that the same constitutional amendment, and the law and public policy of the state of Illinois, prohibited members of the Chicago Board of Education from denying him a principalship only because of an arrest, indictment and criminal prosecution that ended in a dismissal of the charge.
In support of these contentions, Webster argues that under Illinois law, appointments and promotions of teachers and principals are based only on merit. Once the Board of Examiners issues a principal's certificate and determines the merit qualifications of a teacher to be a principal, as it did in his case, the Board of Education has no authority to redetermine the merit of such a teacher for promotion. Webster points to the Illinois School Code, Ill.Rev.Stat.1971 ch. 122, § 21-1, which regulates the registration of teacher certificates, and provides that "in determining good character under this section, any felony conviction of the applicant may be taken into consideration, but such a conviction shall not operate as a bar to registration." Thus, he insists that the votes of the Board of Education barring him from promotion to a school principalship, only because of an arrest and indictment for a felony, were arbitrary state action that deprived him of due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the constitution of the United States.
The Board members who remain defendants in this case3 contend that Webster's principal's certificate represented neither a property right nor a liberty interest that was protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Illinois law, they argue, vests them with broad discretion in the appointment and promotion of teachers and principals, a discretion that goes to the heart of Webster's contention that under state law he had a property right or liberty...
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...Illinois courts have stated that "property" includes every interest in everything subject to the ownership of man. Webster v. Redmond, 443 F.Supp. 670, 676 (N.D.Ill. 1977), aff'd in part, rev'd in part on other grounds 599 F.2d 793 (7th Cir.1979), cert. denied 444 U.S. 1039, 100 S.Ct. 712, ......
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