Source: https://casetext.com/case/slochower-v-board-of-education
Timestamp: 2019-12-07 07:47:57
Document Index: 593177906

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 903', '§ 6206', '§ 6206', '§ 903', '§ 903', '§ 903', '§ 903', '§ 903', '§ 903', '§ 903', '§ 903', '§ 903', '§ 903', '§ 903', '§ 903']

Slochower v. Board of Education, 350 U.S. 551 | Casetext
350 U.S. 551 (1956)
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Slochowerv.Board of Education
U.S.Apr 9, 1956
In Wieman, however, a public employee had been dismissed by the state merely for refusing to sign a loyalty…
Heckler v. Shepard
To state that a person does not have a constitutional right to government employment is only to say that he…
holding that dismissal of professor, pursuant to statute that required termination of any public employee who invoked Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to avoid a question related to official conduct, violated due process; observing that "[t]o state that a person does not have a constitutional right to government employment is only to say that he must comply with reasonable, lawful, and nondiscriminatory terms laid down by the proper authorities"
holding that city may not discharge a teacher because the teacher invoked the Fifth Amendment before a congressional committee
Summary of this case from U.S. v. Ross
holding that the rights of a tenured professor sufficiently constitutes a property interest entitled to due process protection
Summary of this case from Farrell v. Bd. of Educ. of Allegany Cnty.
Argued October 18-19, 1955. Decided April 9, 1956.
This appeal brings into question the constitutionality of § 903 of the Charter of the City of New York. That section provides that whenever an employee of the City utilizes the privilege against self-incrimination to avoid answering a question relating to his official conduct, "his term or tenure of office or employment shall terminate and such office or employment shall be vacant, and he shall not be eligible to election or appointment to any office or employment under the city or any agency." Appellant Slochower invoked the privilege against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment before an investigating committee of the United States Senate, and was summarily discharged from his position as associate professor at Brooklyn College, an institution maintained by the City of New York. He now claims that the charter provision, as applied to him, violates both the Due Process and Privileges and Immunities Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Shortly after testifying before the Internal Security Subcommittee, Slochower was notified that he was suspended from his position at the College; three days later his position was declared vacant "pursuant to the provisions of Section 903 of the New York City Charter."
Page 554 [Reporter's Note: A sentence which was reported in the Preliminary Print at p. 554, lines 13-18, was deleted by an order of the Court entered May 28, 1956, 351 U.S. 944.]
Slochower had 27 years' experience as a college teacher and was entitled to tenure under state law. McKinney's New York Laws, Education Law, § 6206(2). Under this statute, appellant may be discharged only for cause, and after notice, hearing, and appeal. § 6206 (10). The Court of Appeals of New York, however, has authoritatively interpreted § 903 to mean that "the assertion of the privilege against self incrimination is equivalent to a resignation." Daniman v. Board of Education, 306 N.Y. 532, 538, 119 N.E.2d 373, 377. Dismissal under this provision is therefore automatic and there is no right to charges, notice, hearing, or opportunity to explain.
The Supreme Court of New York, County of Kings, concluded that appellant's behavior fell within the scope of § 903, and upheld its application here. 202 Misc. 915, 118 N.Y.S.2d 487. The Appellate Division, 282 A.D. 718, 122 N.Y.S.2d 286, reported sub nom. Shlakman v. Board, and the Court of Appeals, reported sub nom. Daniman v. Board, supra, each by a divided court, affirmed. We noted probable jurisdiction, 348 U.S. 935, because of the importance of the question presented.
The problem of balancing the State's interest in the loyalty of those in its service with the traditional safeguards of individual rights is a continuing one. To state that a person does not have a constitutional right to government employment is only to say that he must comply with reasonable, lawful, and nondiscriminatory terms laid down by the proper authorities. Adler v. Board of Education, 342 U.S. 485, upheld the New York Feinberg Law which authorized the public school authorities to dismiss employees who, after notice and hearing, were found to advocate the overthrow of the Government by unlawful means, or who were unable to explain satisfactorily membership in certain organizations found to have that aim. Likewise Garner v. Los Angeles Board, 341 U.S. 716, 720, upheld the right of the city to inquire of its employees as to "matters that may prove relevant to their fitness and suitability for the public service," including their membership, past and present, in the Communist Party or the Communist Political Association. There it was held that the city had power to discharge employees who refused to file an affidavit disclosing such information to the school authorities.
But in each of these cases it was emphasized that the State must conform to the requirements of due process. In Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U.S. 183, we struck down a so-called "loyalty oath" because it based employability solely on the fact of membership in certain organizations. We pointed out that membership itself may be innocent and held that the classification of innocent and guilty together was arbitrary. This case rests squarely on the proposition that "constitutional protection does extend to the public servant whose exclusion pursuant to a statute is patently arbitrary or discriminatory." 344 U.S., at 192.
At the outset we must condemn the practice of imputing a sinister meaning to the exercise of a person's constitutional right under the Fifth Amendment. The right of an accused person to refuse to testify, which had been in England merely a rule of evidence, was so important to our forefathers that they raised it to the dignity of a constitutional enactment, and it has been recognized as "one of the most valuable prerogatives of the citizen." Brown v. Walker, 161 U.S. 591, 610. We have reaffirmed our faith in this principle recently in Quinn v. United States, 349 U.S. 155. In Ullmann v. United States, 350 U.S. 422, decided last month, we scored the assumption that those who claim this privilege are either criminals or perjurers. The privilege against self-incrimination would be reduced to a hollow mockery if its exercise could be taken as equivalent either to a confession of guilt or a conclusive presumption of perjury. As we pointed out in Ullmann, a witness may have a reasonable fear of prosecution and yet be innocent of any wrongdoing. The privilege serves to protect the innocent who otherwise might be ensnared by ambiguous circumstances. See Griswold, The Fifth Amendment Today (1955).
Without attacking Professor Slochower's qualification for his position in any manner, and apparently with full knowledge of the testimony he had given some 12 years before at the state committee hearing, the Board seized upon his claim of privilege before the federal committee and converted it through the use of § 903 into a conclusive presumption of guilt. Since no inference of guilt was possible from the claim before the federal committee, the discharge falls of its own weight as wholly without support. There has not been the "protection of the individual against arbitrary action" which Mr. Justice Cardozo characterized as the very essence of due process. Ohio Bell Telephone Co. v. Commission, 301 U.S. 292, 302.
In reliance upon the Due Process Clause of our Constitution, the Court strikes deep into the authority of New York to protect its local governmental institutions from influences of officials whose conduct does not meet the declared state standards for employment. This New York City Charter, § 903, adopted in 1936, to take effect in 1938, was designed to eliminate from public employment individuals who refused to answer legally authorized inquiries as to the "official conduct of any officer or employee of the city . . . on the ground that his answer would tend to incriminate him." Its provisions, as applicable to Professor Slochower and others, have been upheld by the Court of Appeals of New York under multi-pronged state grounds of attack in the instances where he and other city teachers of New York have sought to bar their removal from their positions.
"In this court we are all agreed that the Communist party is a continuing conspiracy against our Government. . . . We are also all in agreement that an inquiry into past or present membership in the Communist party is an inquiry regarding the official conduct of an officer or employee of the City of New York. Loyalty to our Government goes to the very heart of official conduct in service rendered in all branches of Government. . . . Communism is opposed to such loyalty. . . . Internal security affects local as well as National Governments." Id., at 540-541, 119 N.E.2d, at 379. The majority decided § 903 was applicable to a "hearing before a Federal legislative committee" and that this appellant was an employee of the city. Id., at 541, 119 N.E.2d, at 379.
The Court finds it a denial of due process to discharge an employee merely because he relied upon the Fifth Amendment plea of self-incrimination to avoid answering questions which he would be otherwise required to answer. We assert the contrary — the city does have reasonable ground to require its employees either to give evidence regarding facts of official conduct within their knowledge or to give up the positions they hold. Petitioners never contended that error or inadvertence led them to refuse to answer. Their contention is set out in the margin below. Discharges under § 903 do not depend upon any conclusion as to the guilt of the employee of some crime that might be disclosed by his testimony or as to his guilt or perjury, if really there was no prosecution to fear. We disagree with the Court's assumption that § 903 as a practical matter takes the questions asked as confessed. Cities, like other employers, may reasonably conclude that a refusal to furnish appropriate information is enough to justify discharge. Legally authorized bodies have a right to demand that citizens furnish facts pertinent to official inquiries. The duty to respond may be refused for personal protection against prosecution only, but such avoidance of public duty to furnish information can properly be considered to stamp the employee as a person unfit to hold certain official positions. Such a conclusion is reinforced when the claimant for protection has the role of instructor to youth. The fact that the witness has a right to plead the privilege against self-incrimination protects him against prosecution but not against the loss of his job.
Cf. Ullmann v. United States, 350 U.S. 422, at 438-439:
The Court may intend merely to hold that since the facts of Slochower's alleged Communist affiliations prior to 1941 were known to the Board before the federal claim, and since the inquiries of the Committee were asked for a purpose unrelated to his college functions, therefore it was a denial of due process to vacate his office. If so, its conclusion is likewise, we think, erroneous. We agree that this case is not like Garner v. Los Angeles Board, 341 U.S. 716, an attempt to elicit information about professional qualifications. But § 903 is directed at the propriety of employing a man who refuses to give needed information to appropriate public bodies.
Consideration of the meaning of "due process" under the Fourteenth Amendment supports our position that § 903 of the City Charter does not violate that concept. For this Court to hold that state action in the field of its unchallenged powers violates the due process of the Federal Constitution requires far more than mere disagreement with the legal conclusions of state courts. To require, as the Court does, that New York stay its hand in discharging a teacher whom the city deems unworthy to occupy a chair in its Brooklyn College, demands that this Court say, if it follows our prior cases, that the action of the Board in declaring Professor Slochower's position vacant was inconsistent with the fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all our civil and political institutions. A denial of due process is "a practice repugnant to the conscience of mankind." Surely no such situation exists here.
Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 323, 325, 326. Cf. Francis v. Resweber, 329 U.S. 459, 463; Adamson v. California, 332 U.S. 46, 53.
Those charged with educational duties in a State bear heavy responsibilities. Only a few years ago, in Adler v. Board of Education, 342 U.S. 485, we upheld against three dissents the Feinberg Law of New York making ineligible for employment as a teacher in any public school a member of any subversive organization, if he knew its purpose. The argument that the "fact found bears no relation to the fact presumed," i. e., "disqualification for employment," was rejected. There also the contention was denial of due process. We said:
A great American university has declared that members of its faculty who invoked the Fifth Amendment before committees of Congress were guilty of "misconduct" though not grave enough to justify dismissal. Numerous other colleges and universities have treated the plea of the Fifth Amendment as a justification for dismissal of faculty members. When educational institutions themselves feel the impropriety of reserving full disclosure of facts from duly authorized official investigations, can we properly say a city cannot protect itself against such conduct by its teachers?
Page 564 42 American Association of University Professors Bulletin 96. Compare The Rights and Responsibilities of Universities and their Faculties, Association of American Universities, March 24, 1953, III:
Page 564 42 American Assn. of University Professors Bulletin 61-94.
The New York rule is not the patently arbitrary and discriminatory statute of Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U.S. 183. There "[a] state servant may have joined a proscribed organization unaware of its activities and purposes." P. 190. This Court unanimously condemned as arbitrary the requirement of an oath that covered both innocent and knowing membership without distinction. A different situation exists here. Section 903 was included in the Seabury Report to help in the elimination of graft and corruption. Numerous employees had refused to testify as to criminal acts on the ground of self-incrimination. New York decided it did not want that kind of public employees. We think New York had that right. We would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
As I understand MR. JUSTICE CLARK'S opinion, the Court regards § 903 as raising some sort of presumption of guilt from Dr. Slochower's claim of privilege. That is not the way the Court of Appeals construed the statute. On the contrary, that Court said: "we do not presume, of course, that these petitioners [one of whom was Dr. Slochower] by their action have shown cause to be discharged under the Feinberg Law (L. 1949, ch. 360) since no inference of membership in the Communist party may be drawn from the assertion of one's privilege against self incrimination." Since § 903 is inoperative if even incriminating answers are given, it is apparent that it is the exercise of the privilege itself which is the basis for the discharge, quite apart from any inference of guilt. Thus the Court of Appeals could say that "The assertion of the privilege against self incrimination is equivalent to a resignation." It is also clear that the Board of Education's discharge of Dr. Slochower was on this same premise. The question this case presents, therefore, is not whether any inferences can constitutionally be drawn from a claim of privilege, but whether a State violates due process when it makes a claim of privilege grounds for discharge.
In effect, what New York has done is to say that it will not employ teachers who refuse to cooperate with public authorities when asked questions relating to official conduct. Does such a statute bear a reasonable relation to New York's interest in ensuring the qualifications of its teachers? The majority seems to decide that it does not. This Court has already held, however, that a State may properly make knowing membership in an organization dedicated to the overthrow of the Government by force a ground for disqualification from public school teaching. Adler v. Board of Education, 342 U.S. 485. A requirement that public school teachers shall furnish information as to their past or present membership in the Communist Party is a relevant step in the implementation of such a state policy, and a teacher may be discharged for refusing to comply with that requirement. Garner v. Los Angeles Board, 341 U.S. 716. Moreover, I think that a State may justifiably consider that teachers who refuse to answer questions concerning their official conduct are no longer qualified for public school teaching, on the ground that their refusal to answer jeopardizes the confidence that the public should have in its school system. On either view of the statute. I think Dr. Slochower's discharge did not violate due process.
There is some evidence that Dr. Slochower had already answered, before a state committee, the same question which he refused to answer before the congressional subcommittee. Even assuming that New York already had the information, I cannot see how that would prevent New York from constitutionally applying § 903 to this claim of privilege. Apart from other considerations, who can tell whether Dr. Slochower would have answered the question the same way as he had before?