Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-95-06191/USCOURTS-ca10-95-06191-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 

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PUBLISH 

. FILED 

lhtJted States Coun ot AppeQJs Tenth Circuit 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS SEP 1 0 1996 

PATRICK FISHER 

CJerk TENTH CIRCUIT 

R.C. BUNGER, and K.V. PRADHAN, 

Plaintiffs - Appellants, 

v. 

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA 

BOARD OF REGENTS; CAMERON 

UNIVERSITY; DON DAVIS, 

President; JACQUETTA MCCLUNG, 

Dean; TERRIL MCKELLIPS, VicePresident for Academic Affairs; 

WANDA STEVENS, Chairman, 

Department of Administrative 

Sciences, School of Business; BOB 

SHEETS, Chairman, Department of 

Accounting and Finance, School of 

Business, 

Defendants - Appellees. 

No. 95-6191 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF OKLAHOMA 

(D. Ct. No. Civ-92-915-L) 

Donald A. Herring (Joseph W. Strealy, with him on the brief), Schnetzler/Strealy, 

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, appearing for Appellants. 

Harry F. Tepker, Jr., University of Oklahoma Law Center, Norman, Oklahoma 

(Fred Gipson and Lisa Millington, University of Oklahoma, Office of Legal 

Counsel, Norman, Oklahoma, with him on the brief), appearing for the Appellees. 

Appellate Case: 95-6191 Document: 01019279338 Date Filed: 09/10/1996 Page: 1 
Before ANDERSON, TACHA, and BALDOCK, Circuit Judges. 

TACHA, Circuit Judge. 

Plaintiffs R.C. Bunger and K.V. Pradhan sued their former employer, 

Cameron University, the University of Oklahoma Board of Regents, and various 

administrators associated with Cameron University under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for 

deprivation of their due process and free speech rights. The district court granted 

summary judgment in favor of the defendants on both claims, and Bunger and 

Pradhan now appeal. We exercise jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 

affirm. 

I. Background 

Bunger and Pradhan were untenured assistant professors in tenure-track 

faculty positions in the Cameron University School of Business. In December 

1990, the two professors, along with two other faculty members, signed a 

"Complaint Relating to Election Procedures for Graduate Council Membership 

from the School of Business." The complaint was a memorandum to Dean 

Jacquetta J. McClung of the School of Business and to the chairpersons of the two 

departments at the school, and criticized the dean's announced election 

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procedures for becoming a member of the Cameron University Graduate Council. 

The Graduate Council played a role in shaping admissions policies to graduate 

programs, graduate curriculum content, and qualifications for graduate degrees. 

The professors complained that the election procedures restricted Graduate 

Council membership to tenured faculty and that exclusion of untenured faculty 

from the Council violated the university's Faculty Handbook. Prior to the 

professors' complaint, Bunger had received six of nine votes cast as a write-in 

candidate for the Council. Accordingly, in addition to demanding that untenured 

faculty be eligible for Council membership, the complaint requested "that the 

election of R.C. Bunger be honored." 

In April 1991, defendant Terril McKellips, Vice-President for Academic 

Affairs, officially notified Bunger and Pradhan that they had not been 

recommended for reappointment and that their current appointments would be 

terminated at the end of the 1991-1992 academic year. Both professors filed 

grievances with the Faculty Grievance Committee, complaining that the university 

failed to follow Faculty Handbook guidelines in making its reappointment 

decision. In particular, the professors complained that the university violated 

rules regarding the selection of a reviewing personnel committee, notification 

procedures, the scheduling of meetings, the development of evaluation plans, and 

the provision of an opportunity for the faculty member under scrutiny to address 

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Appellate Case: 95-6191 Document: 01019279338 Date Filed: 09/10/1996 Page: 3 
the personnel committee. The committee recommended that both professors be 

reappointed because the university had failed to follow its procedural guidelines 

in evaluating their performance. However, the university declined to follow the 

committee's recommendations and refused to reappoint Bunger and Pradhan for 

the 1992-1993 academic year. 

In May 1992, the plaintiffs initiated this action against Cameron University, 

the Board of Regents, and various individual defendants. They allege that the 

defendants deprived them of procedural due process by failing to reappoint them 

to the faculty of Cameron University in violation of procedures contained in the 

university's Faculty Handbook. In addition, the plaintiffs alleged that the 

defendants violated their First Amendment right to free speech by declining to 

reappoint them, in retaliation for their participation in the grievance regarding the 

composition of the university's Graduate Council. In April 1995, the district 

court entered an order granting summary judgment to the defendants and 

dismissing all claims against the defendants. 

II. The Due Process Claims 

We review a district court's grant of summary judgment de novo, applying 

the same legal standard employed by the district court. Wolf v. Prudential Ins. 

Co. of Am., 50 F .3d 793, 796 (1Oth Cir. 1995). Bunger and Pradhan first contend 

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that the university's decision not to reappoint them constitutes a deprivation of 

their procedural due process. The requirements of procedural due process apply 

only where a person is deprived of"life, liberty or property." U.S. Const. amend. 

XIV, § 1; see Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 569 

( 1972). In this case, the plaintiffs assert that they possess a constitutionallyprotected property interest in their reappointment as untenured faculty members. 

The property interests safeguarded by due process are not created by the 

Constitution, Roth, 408 U.S. at 577, nor limited to "actual ownership of real 

estate, chattels, or money." id. at 571-72. "Rather they are created and their 

dimensions are defined by existing rules or understandings that stem from an 

independent source such as state law .... " Id. at 577. 

Under Oklahoma state law, public employees are employed at will unless 

they have specific contractual arrangements entitling them to continued 

employment, such as tenure agreements. See Carnes v. Parker, 922 F .2d 1506, 

1510 (1Oth Cir. 1991 ). Tenured professors in Oklahoma possess a property 

interest in their continued employment that is protected by the Due Process 

Clause. Short v. Kiamichi Area Vocational-Technical Sch. Dist. No.7, 761 P.2d 

4 72, 4 75-76 (Okla. 1988). However, untenured professors in Oklahoma do not 

possess this "legitimate claim of entitlement" to their reappointment absent a 

specific contractual guarantee to that effect. See Roth, 408 U.S. at 2709. 

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Consequently, Bunger and Pradhan can assert no constitutionally-cognizable 

property interest in their reappointment. 

Bunger and Pradhan also contend that the procedural guidelines in the 

Faculty Handbook effectively created a property interest in reappointment, of 

which they could be divested only according to the terms of the specified 

procedures. This tautological argument fails because it attempts to construct a 

property interest out of procedural timber, an undertaking which the Supreme 

Court warned against in Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 

532 ( 1985). "The categories of substance and procedure are distinct. ... 

'Property' cannot be defined by the procedures provided for its deprivation any 

more than can life or liberty." Id. at 541. The university's promise that it would 

follow certain procedural steps in considering the professors' reappointment did 

not beget a property interest in reappointment. See Colburn v. Trustees of Indiana 

Univ., 973 F .2d 581, 589-90 (7th Cir. 1992) (holding that statements in 

handbooks and appointment contracts that untenured university faculty would be 

judged according to certain criteria and procedures did not create a property 

interest in reappointment). Only a formal guarantee of continuing employment 

under color of state law--of which academic tenure is a classic example--would 

have created a property interest. In sum, because Bunger and Pradhan do not 

possess a property interest in their reappointment, they may not avail themselves 

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of the constitutional protections of the Due Process Clause. 

The plaintiffs in this case also assert that the defendants deprived them of a 

constitutionally-cognizable liberty interest by refusing to reappointment them. 

Bunger alleges that another university withdrew an offer of employment after it 

learned of his pending litigation with Cameron University. Bunger and Pradhan 

therefore argue that Cameron University's decision to not reappoint them 

restricted their liberty to take advantage of other employment opportunities, in 

violation of the requirements of due process. Although the liberty guaranteed by 

the Fourteenth Amendment extends beyond freedom from bodily restraint, Roth, 

408 U.S. at 572, it does not extend as far as the plaintiffs in this case contend. 

"Mere proof ... that [the plaintiff's] record of nonretention in one job, taken 

alone, might make him somewhat less attractive to some other employers would 

hardly establish the kind of foreclosure of opportunities amounting to a 

deprivation of 'liberty."' Id. at 574, n.l3. Here, as in Roth, "[t]he State, in 

declining to rehire [the plaintiff], did not make any charge against him that might 

seriously damage his standing and associations in his community. It did not base 

the nonrenewal of his contract on a charge, for example, that he had been guilty 

of dishonesty, or immorality." Id. at 573. Nor does the record contain evidence 

that the state took measures to bar the plaintiffs from obtaining employment at 

other universities. Although any dismissal or denial of reappointment, for 

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whatever reason, may reflect negatively upon a professor, this stigma alone is not 

of a constitutional magnitude. Haimowitz v. University of Nevada, 579 F.2d 526, 

529 (9th Cir. 1978). Thus, the decision not to reappoint Bunger and Pradhan does 

not amount to a constitutionally-cognizable deprivation of their liberty to pursue 

their chosen career. 

III. The Free Speech Claim 

Bunger and Pradhan claim that their participation in the complaint regarding the 

exclusion of untenured faculty from the Cameron University Graduate Council 

precipitated the university's decisions not to reappoint them. They assert that the 

university's decisions were in retaliation for their expressed opposition to university 

policies and that the university thereby violated their First Amendment rights to free 

speech. A public employee may not invoke the protection of the First Amendment for 

every statement that he makes while on the state payroll. Instead, constitutional 

protection extends only to speech on matters of "public concern," Connick v. Meyers, 

461 U.S. 138, 143-43 (1983), which are issues of"political, social, or other concern to 

the community." Id. at 146. "Whether an employee's speech addresses a matter of 

public concern must be determined by the content, form, and context of a given 

statement, as revealed by the whole record." I d. at 14 7-48. We review the question 

whether speech by a public employee involves a matter of public concern de novo. ~ 

Wren v. Spurlock, 798 F.2d 1313, 1317 (lOth Cir. 1986). 

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The decisions of the Supreme Court provide several examples of subjects that are 

matters of public concern: public criticism of a board of education regarding the 

allocation of funds between athletics and education, Pickering v. Board of Educ., 391 

U.S. 563, 571-72 (1968); testimony before a state legislature on whether a college 

should be elevated to four-year status, Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 594-

95, 598 (1972); disclosure to a radio station of the substance of a school 

principal's memorandum concerning teacher dress codes in the context of a 

campaign to raise public support for bond issues, Mount Healthy City Sch. Dist. 

Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 282-84 (1977); and private communications 

with an employer regarding racially discriminatory policies, Connick, 461 U.S. at 

146 (citing Givhan v. Western Line Consolidated Sch. Dist., 439 U.S. 410 

(1979)). In contrast, the distribution of a questionnaire within a district attorney's 

office regarding office transfer policies, office morale, the need for a grievance 

committee, the level of confidence in supervisors, and whether employees felt 

pressure to work in political campaigns does not amount to expression on matters 

ofpublic concern. Connick, 461 U.S. at 141-43. 

Bunger and Pradhan's grievance does not involve a matter of public 

concern. The question of whether an administrative council in a university is 

limited to tenured faculty or opened to untenured faculty is a matter of internal 

structure and governance. The organization of such internal governing bodies is 

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not an issue of social importance or heightened public interest. Although many 

an academic donnybrook has been fought over such administrative rules, the 

issues at stake rarely transcend the internal workings of the university to affect 

the political or social life of the community. 

The First Amendment does not require public universities to subject 

internal structural arrangements and administrative procedures to public scrutiny 

and debate. The definition of what constitutes a matter of public concern must be 

constrained by "the common-sense realization that government offices could not 

function if every employment decision became a constitutional matter." l.!l at 

143. The grievance brought by Bunger and Pradhan is internal in scope and 

personal in nature, in that it calls specifically for the membership of Bunger on 

the Graduate Council. It does not "directly affect the community at large," 

Colburn, 973 F .2d at 5 86, and consequently is not a matter of public concern. 

In conclusion, we hold that the expression of Bunger and Pradhan does not 

regard a matter of public concern, and thus their nonreappointment is not subject 

to First Amendment scrutiny. In addition, they possessed no Fourteenth 

Amendment property or liberty interest in their reappointment and thus their due 

process claims must also be rejected. Accordingly, the judgment of the district 

court is AFFIRMED. 

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