Opinion ID: 3066080
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: 10-day suspension

Text: The Supreme Court explained in Goss that “due process requires, in connection with a suspension of 10 days or less, that the student be given 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 581. Landon does not argue that Douglas County did not comply with these requirements. Instead, he complains that the county did not comply with its own regulatory procedures for suspension and that it did not notify Landon’s parents before meeting with him at the juvenile detention center. Before suspending Landon for 10 days, the school administrators who met with him at the detention center told him that they had evidence that he had made threats on MySpace and that they wanted to get his side of the story, but Landon asserts that they did not follow exactly the school district’s administrative regulations requiring that he be told of the “specific rules, policies, or procedures that are alleged to have been violated” (emphasis added) and that, if the evidence supported the allegations, the consequences could include suspension. As the district court noted, “defendants’ purported failure to comply with their own administrative procedure does not, itself, constitute a violation of constitutional due process.” See Bilbrey by Bilbrey v. Brown, 738 F.2d 1462, 1471 (9th Cir. 1984) (holding that a due process claim arising out of an alleged violation of a school’s own regulations “would not make a search unconstitutional if it were otherwise valid under the Fourth Amendment”); Jacobs v. Clark Cnty. Sch. Dist., 526 F.3d 419, 441 (9th Cir. 2008) (“Moreover, Plaintiffs provide no authority for their suggestion that a federal due process claim lies whenever a WYNAR V. DOUGLAS CNTY. SCH. DIST. 21 local entity deviates from its own procedures in enacting a local regulation.”) (emphasis in original). The notice Landon received was constitutionally adequate. Neither the Constitution nor the school district’s policies require parental notification prior to imposing a 10-day suspension or prior to meeting with a student.