Opinion ID: 70832
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: TP's Due Process Claims

Text: TP argues that her suspension for fighting, screaming obscenities, and refusing to cooperate with and assaulting faculty members was imposed with inadequate process. She says she received no notice or hearing and alleges the decision to suspend was made before the phone conference.1 The Supreme Court determined in Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565, 577, 95 S.Ct. 729, 738, 42 L.Ed.2d 725 (1975), that the Fourteenth Amendment is implicated in school suspension decisions when a state provides an entitlement to a public education. But, the characterization of what process is due in the academic setting was strikingly tempered by the Court's recognition that [j]udicial interposition in the operation of the public school system ... raises problems requiring care and restraint. Id. (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Therefore, when a student is suspended for fewer than ten days, the process provided need 1 The district court originally determined that factual issues required a jury trial on the question of when (and if) TP's hearing was provided; but on reconsideration, the court held that TP received a hearing during the phone conversation between TP and Dr. Driscoll that satisfied due process regardless of whether or not it preceded the decision to suspend. consist only of oral or written notice of the charges against him and, if he denies them, an explanation of the evidence the authorities have and an opportunity to present his side of the story. 419 U.S. at 582, 95 S.Ct. at 740. The dictates of Goss are clear and extremely limited: Briefly stated, once school administrators tell a student what they heard or saw, ask why they heard or saw it, and allow a brief response, a student has received all the process that the Fourteenth Amendment demands. The only other requirement arises from the Court's admonishment that the hearing come before removal from school as a general rule, unless a student's continued presence is dangerous or disruptive. In these instances, removal can be immediate. Id. When TP was removed from school, she posed a danger to persons or property or both and was disruptive. After fighting with two girls, she had had to be physically carried to the principal's office by a teacher; and while the details of what followed are contested, TP admits she was emotionally distraught and that she expressed to administrators her intention to kill that girl who had allegedly attacked her. She also admits that she refused to stay seated in the office and tried to run out of the office. Dr. Driscoll says (without contradiction) that she was injured in the attempts to calm TP in Driscoll's office. So, TP was first properly removed from school under the circumstances even if she was given no opportunity to explain herself. The important issue is whether she had the chance to explain her behavior before the decision setting the duration of the suspension—nine days—became final. Appellees assert that TP received her hearing by telephone later that day, when TP's mother phoned Dr. Driscoll at school. TP and her mother both took part in that call.2 Dr. Driscoll admits that she cannot recall whether the initial decision to suspend was reached before or after that call. Despite this uncertainty, Appellees are still correct that the phone call satisfied the requirements of the due process clause. This court had occasion to consider, shortly after Goss, the issue of whether a hearing held after a suspension decision has been announced, but in time to modify or to reverse the decision, satisfies due process. In Sweet v. Childs, 518 F.2d 320, 321 (5th Cir.1975), the student plaintiffs were removed from school because they were causing a disruption. Later that day, an announcement was made over local radio that they had been suspended. Shortly thereafter, in a post-suspension student-parent conference[ ], the students were allowed to air their views; and the suspensions were reversed. Id. Applying Goss, the court found no deprivation of due process. Sweet teaches that when students are removed from school for creating a disturbance, a tentative decision to continue to suspend the students for some days may be made before a hearing as long as the disciplinarian goes on to hold a prompt—given the practicalities—hearing at which the preliminary decision to suspend can be reversed. Here, TP acknowledged in her deposition that, 2 Appellees do not argue that TP received a sufficient hearing in the principal's office, and therefore we do not consider this idea. within hours of leaving school, she was able to tell her side of the story to Dr. Driscoll on the phone: I said [to Dr. Driscoll], no we were not fighting.... [T]hese girls jumped on me, and her sister was holding me. TP also told Dr. Driscoll her attacker jumped on her for no reason. Dr. Driscoll then declined to alter the punishment. Under Sweet, that the hearing did not precede the initial determination of TP's punishment is not dispositive on whether due process was afforded. Therefore, because TP was apprised of the charges against her, and Dr. Driscoll soon heard TP's version of the morning's events, TP—given the circumstances—received sufficient process under Goss.
TP claims that the procedural due process violation discussed above also constituted a violation of what the Supreme Court has called substantive due process: she says the nine-day suspension caused her injury of a shocking and abusive nature. And, TP argues her substantive due process rights were violated because Driscoll, who made the decision to suspend, was biased because TP injured Driscoll in the struggle in the principal's office following TP's fight with other students. These substantive due process claims are without merit. Pursuant to this court's opinion in McKinney v. Pate, 20 F.3d 1550, 1557 n. 9 (11th Cir.1994) (en banc), the decision to suspend TP for nine days is an executive decision. As an executive act, the suspension contravenes substantive due process rights only if, in the Supreme Court's words, the right affected is implicit in the concept of ordered liberty. Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 325, 58 S.Ct. 149, 152, 82 L.Ed. 288 (1937), overruled on other grounds by Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784, 793, 89 S.Ct. 2056, 2062, 23 L.Ed.2d 707 (1969). See also McKinney, 20 F.3d at 1556 (noting strong presumption against discovering substantive due process protection for unenumerated rights). The right to attend a public school is a state-created, rather than a fundamental, right for the purposes of the substantive due process clause. See Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 221, 102 S.Ct. 2382, 2396, 72 L.Ed.2d 786 (1982) (noting that though it is societally important, [p]ublic education is not a right' granted to individuals by the Constitution) (citations omitted). Therefore, the right to avoid school suspension may be abridged as long as proper procedural protections are afforded; and TP's substantive due process challenge must fail. By the way, TP's quarrel with Driscoll's supposed bias is also properly seen as an alleged deprivation of procedural, not substantive, due process. McKinney, 20 F.3d at 1560-61. Thus, TP's effort to invoke substantive due process fails.3 3 We note that Driscoll's alleged bias amounts to no deprivation of procedural due process either. In the school context, it is both impossible and undesirable for administrators involved in incidents of misbehavior always to be precluded from acting as decisionmakers. Thus Justice White noted in Goss, 419 U.S. at 584, 95 S.Ct. at 741, that as long as the informal give-and-take occurs, a disciplinarian who has witnessed the conduct at issue can suspend a student on the spot. And in an analogous situation, we have written that in the case of an employment termination ... due process does not require the state to provide an impartial decisionmaker at the pre-termination hearing, McKinney, 20 F.3d at 1562 (citing Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 543, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 1917, 68 L.Ed.2d 420 (1981)) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). The reasoning is that often the supervisor will participate in events preceding termination, and thus always requiring an impartial decisionmaker to be educated on the facts would render the required processes