Court Opinion

ID: 9736474
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:57:53.879384+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:27:06.886111
License: Public Domain

CHRISTIAN, J.
I dissent.
Subject always to constitutional requirements, it is provided by statute in California that “The governing board of any school district may make and enforce all rules and regulations needful for the government and discipline of the schools under its charge.” (Bd. Code, §10604.) Neither this section nor any other provision of law requires that school discipline be maintainable only pursuant to formal written regulations; indeed, it is provided in Education Code section' 10601 that a classroom teacher may “for good cause” sus*564pend a pupil from school “for not exceeding one sehoolday, plus the remainder of the sehoolday during which the suspension is ordered, ...” Section 10602 provides that “Continued willful disobedience, [or] open and persistent defiance of the authority of the school personnel, . . . shall constitute-good cause for suspension or expulsion from school; [if] the conduct for which [the student] is to be disciplined is related to school activity or school attendance.” Neither of these sections requires the adoption of regulations by the governing board or by school administrators in order for valid disciplinary action to be taken thereunder. Both quoted passages are of quite early origin: the passage quoted from section 10601 has been part of the statutory law of this state since 1873.1 The language quoted from section 10602 has had a place in the California statutes in substantially its present form since the enactment of the Political Code in 1873.2 The reference in section 10604 to the power of the governing board to “make and enforce all rules and regulations needful for the government and discipline of the schools under its charge ” is of more recent origin: it first appears as a subsidiary and implementing section of an enactment quaintly designated in the statute book as the “Anti-frat Act” (Cal.Stats. 1909, ch. 218, § 2). Neither the 1909 enactment nor any subsequent amendment suggests that the Legislature intended to require the educational authorities to adopt formal rules and regulations as a precondition to maintaining reasonable school discipline. Search reveals no reported decision of any American court, other than the majority opinion in the present case, holding or implying that the adoption of such regulations is a constitutional prerequisite to reasonable school discipline.
The majority opinion mentions that some school districts have adopted elaborate and almost scientifically discrete haircut regulations. That they are free to do, so long as the regulations are not arbitrary, capricious, or otherwise unconstitutional. But consider the almost infinite variety of disciplinary *565concerns which may arise in a public school: personal sanitation, dress, disorder in the passageways, disruptive spéech or conduct in class, and use of bicycles or motor transport, to name a few. Must a school specify in a written regulation the minimum allowable frequency of baths before a teacher may require a student to be clean? What kind of specific regulation is required to enable teachers to restrain disruptive speech in classrooms or movement in passageways ? All these matters may lawfully be left to adjustment and reasonable control by teachers acting informally. It would needlessly disable our schools to force the handling of such problems into a mold of rule and regulation. So long as the teacher acts reasonably the Constitution does not require him to work in an atmosphere of litigious contest with any juvenile sea-lawyer who may appear in his class.
Despite the fact that the governing board need "not have adopted any written regulations whatever, in order to enable school personnel to exercise reasonably the broad - powers vested in them by statute, the trial court found and concluded that respondent’s suspension from school was unlawfully founded upon a vague, indefinite and unconstitutional rule that “extremes of hair styles are not acceptable.” Respondent himself did not allege in his petition the existence of such a rule; he merely quoted, from a mimeographed student orientation pamphlet which is in evidence, the language which the court found objectionable. It is not clear how the trial court concluded that the inclusion in the pamphlet of this language, indicating generally that students would be required to maintain good grooming, restricted or abolished the power of the principal or his delegates to carry out such a policy on. a case-by-ease basis. There are certain references to “regulations” in the record but those unnecessary references have no significance. Respondent was not' suspended from school’ as a penalty for violating some “regulation” which should have been drawn with the specificity of a plumbing code- or- a penal statute; he was suspended upon his “continued willful disobedience,” in the language of Education Code, section 10602, of the vice-principal’s request that he get a haircut. No claim is made that the request was vague or unintelligible; had respondent desired to know how long he could leave his hair he could have asked for further discussion. Instead he flatly refused to get a haircut. A request to get a haircut or any other school requirement regarding dress, conduct, or expression may be subject to constitutional attack if it is arbitrary *566or-capricious or does not give due weight to First Amendment rights. (Cf. Bagley v. Washington Township Hospital Dist. (1966) 65 Cal.2d 499 [55 Cal.Rptr. 401, 421 P.2d 409].) But the opinion of the majority fairly sets out facts showing, as that opinion states, why it would have been lawful to “require that petitioner wear his hair at a shorter length”; that -history needs no review here. (Akin v. Riverside Unified School Dist. Board of Education (1968) 262 Cal.App.2d 161 [68 Cal.Rptr. 557]; Leonard v. School Committee of Attleboro (1965) 349 Mass. 704 [212 N.E.2d 468, 14 A.L.R.3d 1192].)
Because the order of suspension was valid, a brief discussion of its consequences will be appropriate. Education Code, section 10607, provides that no secondary school student shall be suspended for “more than the duration of the current semester.” A further limitation is imposed by section 10607.5: “no student shall be suspended . . . for more than 20 days ...” unless he is transferred to a “continuation education school.” Here the suspension was ordered on October 19. Because it was discovered in the course of the controversy ihat the boy resided in an adjoining high school district with which appellant district had an interdistrict attendance agreement, the district of residence was promptly notified that respondent was no longer acceptable at Areata High School. The interdistrict agreement provides only for admission of students who are “acceptable to the district of attendance.” When the boy had been suspended, and thus would soon require placement in continuation school, it was entirely reasonable for appellant district to terminate its tacit acceptance so that the district of residence could make its own determination whether under its policies there existed a disciplinary problem of such gravity as to require further suspension and placement in continuation school.
I would reverse the order for issuance of writ of mandate.
Appellants’ petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied April 9, 1969.

Political Code, section 1696, as amended by Cal. Stats. 1873, ch. 543, § 27, provided that “Every teacher in the public schools must: . . . 4. Hold pupils to strict account for disorderly conduct on the way to and from school, on the play-grounds, or during recess; suspend for good cause any pupil in the school, and report such suspension to the Board of Trustees or Education for review. ’ ’

Politieal Code, section 1685: “Continued willful disobedience or open, defiance of the authority of the teacher constitutes good cause for expulsion from school; and habitual profanity and vulgarity good cause for .suspension from school.”