Court Opinion

ID: 9461702
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:22:59.893507+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:13.840237
License: Public Domain

WIDENER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent to the denial of rehearing. I would rehear the case and affirm the dismissal of the complaint.
However phrased, the decision here is nothing more nor less than substantive due process I had thought laid to rest at least by the time of Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U.S. 726, 83 S.Ct. 1028, 10 L.Ed.2d 93 (1963).
An undermining of the disciplinary authority of responsible local political officials, as this case does, I think is perfectly uncalled for, and is an impermissible extension of the federal judicial power.
A police force would seem to be even more subject to haircut regulations than are school boys, and I think the remarks of Mr. Justice Black as circuit justice in Karr v. Schmidt, 401 U.S. 1201, 91 S.Ct. 592, 27 L.Ed.2d 797 (1971), should apply here:
“The only thing about it [the case] that borders on the serious to me is the idea that anyone should think the Federal Constitution imposes on the United States courts the burden of supervising the length of hair that public school students should wear. The records of the federal courts, including ours, show a heavy burden of litigation in connection with cases of great importance — the kind of litigation our courts must be able to handle if they are to perform their responsibility to our society. Moreover, our Constitution has sought to distribute the powers of government in this Nation,,between the United States and the States. Surely the federal judiciary can perform no greater service to the Nation than to leave the States unhampered in the performance of their purely local affairs. Surely few policies can be thought of that States are more capable of deciding than the length of the hair of school boys. There can, of course, be honest differences of opinion as to whether any government, state or federal, should as a matter of public policy regulate the length of haircuts, but it would be difficult to prove by reason, logic, or common sense that the federal judiciary is more competent to deal with *346hair length than are the local school authorities and state legislatures of all our 50 States. Perhaps if the courts will leave the States free to perform their own constitutional duties they will at least be able successfully to regulate the length of hair their public school students can wear.” 401 U.S. 1201, 1202-3, 91 S.Ct. 592, 593, 27 L.Ed.2d 797.
FIELD, Circuit Judge, joins in this dissent.