Court Opinion

ID: 9464333
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:30:56.583898+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:34.886511
License: Public Domain

MATTHES, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
I cannot agree with Judge Bright that the disposition of this case should turn on the issue of Ms. Brown’s right to a preter-mination hearing. Judge Bright concedes that “Ms. Brown’s brief does not directly attack the Board’s failure to grant her a pretermination hearing,” and I cannot find any indirect route by which this issue may be termed fairly raised. Indeed, in response to close questioning during oral argument, Ms. Brown’s counsel expressly disavowed any reliance on the consequences of the Board’s failure to hold a pretermination hearing.
, It is ordinarily the rule in this court that issues not pressed on appeal will be considered abandoned. Sartin v. Commissioner of Public Safety, 535 F.2d 430 (8th Cir. 1976); Reserve Mining Co. v. Environmental Protection Agency, 514 F.2d 492, 532 (8th Cir. 1975); Smith v. American Guild of Variety Artists, 368 F.2d 511 (8th Cir. 1966), cert. denied, 387 U.S. 931, 87 S.Ct. 2052, 18 L.Ed.2d 991 (1967). Where, as here, the court proceeds on a theory not advanced by the parties, “the litigants are not afforded a fair opportunity to meet the issue.” Doe v. Poelker, 515 F.2d 541, 549 (8th Cir. 1975) (Van Oosterhout, J., dissenting). I would hold that Ms. Brown has abandoned the issue of her right to a pretermination hearing. Further, in my view, Ms. Brown’s abandonment of this issue largely undercuts her complaint that the Board failed to adequately pursue alternatives to dismissal.
Neither can I agree with Judge Miller that the action of the Board may be characterized as invidious sex discrimination. Assistant Superintendent Anderson’s testimony, on which Judge Miller relies, does not in my view show the unfair application of a standard of conduct. It is true that the Board might hire as a teacher a person who had previously had a child out of wedlock, and might retain certain employees (apparently individuals holding nonteaching positions) who have become marriageless parents during the course of their employment. However, Dr. Anderson’s testimony indicated that these decisions rested on a facts and circumstances appraisal of the potential for harmful communication (verbal and nonverbal) between the employee and the students. The conduct of the Board in this case was not focused upon an abstract standard of morality; its sole concern was the welfare of its students. This approach is not invidious sex discrimination, but rather an attempt to bring some measure of sophistication to a delicate problem.
I do not propose to comment in any detail on the merits of the underlying controversy. However, I must note my agreement with the district court’s judgment that “[tjhere is a rational connection between the plaintiff’s pregnancy out of wedlock and the school Board’s interest in conserving marital values, when acts probably destructive of those values are revealed, verbally or nonverbally, in the classroom.” Brown v. Bathke, 416 F.Supp. 1194, 1198 (D.Neb. 1976). See Adler v. Board of Education, *595342 U.S. 485, 72 S.Ct. 380, 96 L.Ed. 517 (1952). Further, I fully concur with the district court’s judgment that Ms. Brown’s interests in “determining her own familial relationships and associating with whom she chooses do not outweigh the interests of the school in providing the kind of teachers it chooses for imparting social values and educational subject matter to junior high school students.” Brown v. Bathke, supra at 1200; see Sullivan v. Meade Independent School District, 530 F.2d 799 (8th Cir. 1976).
We must be mindful that it is “not the role of the federal courts to set aside decisions of school administrators which the court may view as lacking a basis in wisdom or compassion.” Wood v. Strickland, 420 U.S. 308, 326, 95 S.Ct. 992, 1003, 43 L.Ed.2d 214 (1975); Wishart v. McDonald, 500 F.2d 1110 (1st Cir. 1974). It is simply inconceivable to me that the judgments made by the school administrators here are constitutionally forbidden.
In my view, the opinion of the district court is soundly reasoned in all material respects and I would affirm on the basis thereof.