Opinion ID: 1146646
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: were the appellees denied any property interests?

Text: The bounds of constitutionally protected property rights were advanced by the United States Supreme Court in Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972): To have a property interest in a benefit, a person clearly must have more than an abstract need or desire for it. He must have more than a unilateral expectation of it. He must, instead, have a legitimate claim of entitlement to it. Id. at 577, 92 S.Ct. at 2709, 33 L.Ed.2d at 561. In order for procedural due process to be invoked, there must be a denial of a right previously recognized and protected by the state. Paul v. Davis, 424 U.S. 693, 711, 96 S.Ct. 1155, 1165, 47 L.Ed.2d 405, 420 (1976). With reference to interscholastic athletics this Court held in National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Gillard, 352 So.2d 1072 (Miss. 1977) that the right to engage in intercollegiate football is not a property right as contemplated by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution or by Article 3, Section 14 of the Mississippi Constitution. See also, Mitchell v. Louisiana High School Athletic Association, 430 F.2d 1155 (5th Cir.1970) (The privilege of participating in interscholastic athletics falls outside the protection of due process). Notwithstanding the Gillard decision, the chancellor in the present case held that the serious expectations of college baseball scholarships created legitimate and substantial property interests. That finding is contrary to established case law. The most notable decision rejecting the rationale employed by the chancellor was Parish v. National Collegiate Athletic Assn, 506 F.2d 1028 (5th.Cir.1975), in which five college basketball players challenged an NCAA grade-point average rule. The Court noted: Appellants wisely abandoned at oral argument their attempt to create a property interest out of the alleged injury to their hoped-for careers in professional basketball from the inability to gain tournament experience and television exposure. Both the injury and the career are far too speculative to establish a property interest as defined in Roth. Id. at 1034, footnote 17. [1] Another theory advanced by appellees is that their interest in participating in interscholastic athletics should be protected as an integral part of their constitutionally protected interest in receiving a public education. Appellees rely primarily on Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565, 95 S.Ct. 729, 42 L.Ed.2d 725 (1975) which established that a student's legitimate entitlement to a public education is a property interest protected by the due process clause and may not be deprived without the observation of minimum due process procedures. Id. at 574, 95 S.Ct. at 736, 42 L.Ed.2d at 734. An argument identical to that of the appellees was rejected in Walsh v. Louisiana High School Athletics Assn., 616 F.2d 152, 159 (5th.Cir.1980) in which the Court held that the due process protection of a student's entitlement to a public education does not extend to all integral parts of the educational process, including participation in interscholastic athletic competition. See also, Dallam v. Cumberland Valley School District, 391 F. Supp. 358, 361, (M.D.Pa. 1975). After reviewing the applicable authorities, this Court holds that the chancellor erred in finding that the appellees were denied any legitimate property interests.