Court Opinion

ID: 9427089
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:19:42.378243+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:04.847685
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Marshall,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree with the Court that, “[a]ssuming the existence of a liberty or property interest, respondent has been awarded at least as much due process as the Fourteenth Amendment requires.” Ante, at 84-85. I cannot join the Court’s opinion, however, because it contains dictum suggesting that respondent was entitled to even less procedural protection than she received. I also differ from the Court in its assumption that characterization of the reasons for a dismissal as “academic” or “disciplinary” is relevant to resolution of the question of what procedures are required by the Due Process Clause. Finally, I disagree with the Court’s decision not to remand to the Court of Appeals for consideration of respondent’s substantive due process claim.
I
We held in Goss v. Lopez, 419 U. S. 565 (1975), 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.” Id., at 581.
*98There is no question that respondent received these protections, and more.1
According to the stipulation of facts filed in the District Court, respondent had a “discussion” with the Dean, of the Medical School in mid-1972, at the close of her first year in school, during which she was notified of her unsatisfactory performance.2 The Dean testified that he explained the nature of her problems go respondent twice at this meeting, so that she would fully understand them.3 A letter from the Dean followed shortly thereafter, in which respondent was advised that she was being placed on probation because of, inter alia, “a major deficiency” in her “relationships with others,” and her failure to “kee[p] to established schedules” and “atten[d] carefully to personal appearance.”4 The Dean again met with respondent in October 1972 “to call attention in a direct and supportive way to the fact that her performance was not then strong.” 5
In January 1973, there was still another meeting between respondent and the Dean, who was accompanied by respondent’s docent and the chairman of the Council on Evaluation. Respondent was there notified of the Council’s recommendation that she not graduate and that she be dropped from school unless there was “radical improvement” in her “clinical competence, peer and patient relations, personal hygiene, and ability to accept criticism.” 6 A letter from the Dean again *99followed the meeting; the letter summarized respondent’s problem areas and noted that they had been discussed with her “several times.” 7
These meetings and letters plainly gave respondent all that Goss requires: several notices and explanations, and at least three opportunities “to present [her] side of the story.” 419 U. S., at 581. I do not read the Court’s opinion to disagree with this conclusion. Hence I do not understand why the Court indicates that even the “informal give-and-take” mandated by Goss, id., at 584, need not have been provided here. See ante, at 85-86, 89-91. This case simply provides no legitimate opportunity to consider whether “far less stringent procedural requirements,” ante, at 86, than those required in Goss are appropriate in other school contexts. While I disagree with the Court’s conclusion that “far less” is adequate, as discussed infra, it is equally disturbing that the Court decides an issue not presented by the case before us. As Mr. Justice Brandéis warned over 40 years ago, the “ ‘great gravity and delicacy’ ” of our task in constitutional cases should cause us to “ ‘shrink’ ” from “ ‘anticipating] a question of constitutional law in advance of the necessity of deciding it,’ ” and from “ ‘formulating] a rule of constitutional law broader than is required by the precise facts to which it is to be applied.’ ” Ashwander v. TV A, 297 U. S. 288, 345-347 (1936) (concurring opinion).
II
In view of the Court’s dictum to the effect that even the minimum procedures required in Goss need not have been provided to respondent, I feel compelled to comment on the extent of procedural protection mandated here. I do so within a framework largely ignored by the Court, a framework derived from our traditional approach to these problems. According to our prior decisions, as summarized in Mathews v. *100Eldridge, 424 U. S. 319 (1976), three factors are of principal relevance in determining what process is due:
“First, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and finally, the Government's interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail." Id., at 335.
As the Court recognizes, the “private interest" involved here is a weighty one: “the deprivation to which respondent was subjected — dismissal from a graduate medical school— was more severe than the 10-day suspension to which the high school students were subjected in Goss.” Ante, at 86 n. 3. One example of the loss suffered by respondent is contained in the stipulation of facts: Respondent had a job offer from the psychiatry department of another university to begin work in September 1973; the offer was contingent on her receiving the M. D. degree.8 In summary, as the Court of Appeals noted:
“The unrefuted evidence here establishes that Horowitz has been stigmatized by her dismissal in such a way that she will be unable to continue her medical education, and her chances of returning to employment in a medically related field are severely damaged." 538 F. 2d 1317, 1321 (CA8 1976).
As Judge Friendly has written in a related context, when the State seeks “to deprive a person of a way of life to which [s]he has devoted years of preparation and on which [s]he ... ha[s] come to rely,” it should be required first to provide a “high level of procedural protection." 9
*101Neither of the other two factors mentioned in Mathews justifies moving from a high level to the lower level of protection involved in Goss. There was at least some risk of error inherent in the evidence on which the Dean relied in his meetings with and letters to respondent; faculty evaluations of such matters as personal hygiene and patient and peer rapport are neither as “sharply focused” nor as “easily documented” as was, e. g., the disability determination involved in Mathews, supra, at 343. See Goss v. Lopez, 419 U. S., at 580 (when decisionmaker “act[s] on the reports and advice of others . . . [t]he risk of error is not at all trivial”).10
Nor can it be said that the university. had any greater interest in summary proceedings here than did the school in Goss. Certainly the allegedly disruptive and disobedient students involved there, see id., at 569-571, posed more of an immediate threat to orderly school administration than did respondent. As we noted in Goss, moreover, “it disserves . . . the interest of the State if '[the student’s] suspension is in fact unwarranted.” Id., at 579.11 Under these circumstances — with respondent having much more at stake than did the students in Goss, the administration at best having no more at stake, and the meetings between respondent and the Dean leaving some possibility of erroneous dismissal — I believe that respondent was entitled to more procedural protection than is provided by “informal give-and-take” before the school could dismiss her.
The contours of the additional procedural protection to which respondent was entitled need not be defined in terms of the traditional adversary system so familiar to lawyers and *102judges. See Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S., at 348. We have emphasized many times that “[t]he very nature of due process negates any concept of inflexible procedures universally applicable to every imaginable situation.” Cafeteria Workers v. McElroy, 367 U. S. 886, 895 (1961); see, e. g., ante, at 86; Goss v. Lopez, supra, at 578. In other words, what process is due will vary “according to specific factual contexts.” Hannah v. Larche, 363 U. S. 420, 442 (1960); see, e. g., Mathews v. Eldridge, supra, at 334; Morrissey v. Brewer, 40817. S. 471, 481 (1972); Bell v. Burson, 402 U. S. 535, 540 (1971). See also-Anti-Fascist Comm. v. McGrath, 341 17. S. 123, 162-163 (1951) (Frankfurter, J., concurring).
In the instant factual context the “appeal” provided to respondent, see ante, at 81, served the same purposes as, and in some respects may have been better than, a formal hearing. In establishing the procedure under which respondent was evaluated separately by seven physicians who had had little or no previous contact with her, it appears that the Medical School placed emphasis on obtaining “a fair and neutral and impartial assessment.”12 In order to evaluate respondent, each of the seven physicians spent approximately half a day observing her as she performed various clinical duties and then submitted a report on her performance to the Dean.13 It is difficult to imagine a better procedure for determining whether the school’s allegations against respondent had any substance to them.14 Cf. Mathews v. Eldridge, supra, at *103337-338, 344 (use of independent physician to examine disability applicant and report to decisionmaker). I therefore believe that the appeal procedure utilized by respondent, together with her earlier notices from and meetings with the Dean, provided respondent with as much procedural protection as the Due Process Clause requires.15
Ill
The analysis in Parts I and II of this opinion illustrates that resolution of this case under our traditional approach does not turn on whether the dismissal of respondent is characterized as one for “academic” or “disciplinary” reasons. In my view, the effort to apply such labels does little to advance the due process inquiry, as is indicated by examination of the facts of this case.
The minutes of the meeting at which it was first decided that respondent should not graduate contain the following:
“This issue is not one of academic achievement, but of performance, relationship to people and ability to communicate.” App. 218 (emphasis added).
By the customary measures of academic progress, moreover, no deficiency was apparent at the time that the authorities decided respondent could not graduate; prior to this time, according to the stipulation of facts, respondent had received *104“credit” and “satisfactory grades” in all of her courses, including clinical courses.16
It may nevertheless be true, as the Court implies, ante, at 91 n. 6, that the school decided that respondent’s inadequacies in such areas as personal hygiene, peer and patient relations, and timeliness would impair her ability to be “a good medical doctor.” Whether these inadequacies can be termed “purely academic reasons,” as the Court calls them, ibid., is ultimately an irrelevant question, and one placing an undue emphasis on words rather than functional considerations. The relevant point is that respondent was dismissed largely because of her conduct,17 just as the students in Goss were suspended because of their conduct.18
*105The Court makes much of decisions from state and lower federal courts to support its point that “dismissals for academic . . . cause do not necessitate a hearing.” Ante, at 87. The decisions on which the Court relies, however, plainly use the term “academic” in a much narrower sense than does the Court, distinguishing “academic” dismissals from ones based on “misconduct” and holding that, when a student is dismissed for failing grades, a hearing would serve no purpose.19 These cases may be viewed as consistent with *106our statement in Mathews v. Eldridge that “the probable value ... of additional . . . procedural safeguards” is a factor relevant to the due process inquiry. 424 U. S., at 335, quoted supra, at 100; see 424 U. S., at 343-347. But they provide little assistance in resolving cases like the present one, where the dismissal is based not on failing grades but on conduct-related considerations.20
In such cases a talismanic reliance on labels should not be a substitute for sensitive consideration of the procedures required by due process.21 When the facts disputed are of a type susceptible of determination by third parties, as the allegations about respondent plainly were, see ante, at 91 n. 6, there is no more reason to deny all procedural protection to one who will suffer a serious loss than there was in Goss v. Lopez, and indeed there may be good reason to provide even more protection, as discussed in Part II, supra. A court’s *107characterization of the reasons for a student’s dismissal adds nothing to the effort to find procedures that are fair to the student and the school, and that promote the elusive goal of determining the truth in a manner consistent with both individual dignity and society’s limited resources.
IV
While I agree with the Court that respondent received adequate procedural due process, I cannot join the Court’s judgment because it is based on resolution of an issue never reached by the Court of Appeals. That court, taking a properly limited view of its role in constitutional cases, refused to offer dictum on respondent’s substantive due process claim when it decided the case on procedural due process grounds. See 538 F. 2d, at 1321 n. 5, quoted ante, at 91. Petitioners therefore presented to us only questions relating to the procedural issue. Pet. for Cert. 2. Our normal course in such a case is to reverse on the questions decided below and presented in the petition, and then to remand to the Court of Appeals for consideration of any remaining issues.
Rather than taking this course, the Court here decides on its own that the record will not support a substantive due process claim, thereby “agreeing]” with the District Court. Ante, at 92. I would allow the Court of Appeals to provide the first level of appellate review on this question. Not only would a remand give us the benefit of the lower court’s thoughts,22 it *108would also allow us to maintain consistency with our own Rule 23 (l)(c), which states that ‘‘[ojnly the questions set forth in the petition or fairly comprised therein will be considered by the court.” By bypassing the courts of appeals on questions of this nature, we do no service to those courts that refuse to speculate in dictum on a wide range of issues and instead follow the more prudential, preferred course of avoiding decision — particularly constitutional decision- — until “ ‘absolutely necessary’ ” to resolution of a case. Ashwander v. TV A, 297 U. S., at 347 (Brandeis, J., concurring).
I would reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand for further proceedings.

 It is necessary to recount the facts underlying this conclusion in some detail, because the Court’s opinion does not provide the relevant facts with regard to the notice and opportunity to reply given to respondent.

 App. 15. It is likely that respondent was less formally notified of these deficiencies several months earlier, in March 1972. See id., at 100-101 (testimony of respondent’s docent).

 Id., at 146.

 Idat 15-16.

 Id., at 147.

 Id., at 18.

 Id., at 182-183.

 Id., at 16.

 “Some Kind of Hearing,” 123 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1267, 1296-1297 (1975) (revocation of professional licenses).

 The inquiry about risk of error cannot be separated from the first inquiry about the private interest at stake. The more serious the consequences for the individual, the smaller the risk of error that will be acceptable.

 The statements and letters of the Medical School Dean reflect a genuine concern that respondent not be wrongfully dismissed. See App. 147-150, 180-183, 185-187.

 Id., at 150 (testimony of Dean); see id., at 185, 187, 208, 210 (letters to respondent and seven physicians).

 See id., at 190-207.

 Respondent appears to argue that her sex and her religion were under-dying reasons for her dismissal and that a hearing would have helped to resolve the “factual dispute” between her and the school on these issues. Brief for Respondent 30; see id., at 51-52. See also ante, at 92 n. 7. But the only express grounds for respondent’s dismissal related to deficiencies in personal hygiene, patient rapport, and the like, and, as a matter of procedural due process, respondent was entitled to no more than a *103forum to contest the factual underpinnings of these grounds. The appeal procedure here gave respondent such a forum — an opportunity to demonstrate that the school’s charges were “unfair or mistaken,” Goss v. Lopez, 419 U. S. 565, 581 (1975).

 Like a hearing, the appeal procedure and the meetings
“represent [ed] ... a valued human interaction in which the affected person experience^] at least the satisfaction of participating in the decision that vitally concern [ed] her .... [T]hese rights to interchange express the elementary idea that to be a person, rather than a thing, is at least to be consulted about what is done with one.” L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law § 10-7, p. 503 (1978) (emphasis in original).

 App. 12. Respondent later received “no credit” for her emergency-room rotation, the .only course in which her grade was less than satisfactory. Ibid. This grade was not recorded, according to the District Court, until after the decision had been made that respondent could not graduate. Id., at 31. When the Coordinating Committee made this decision, moreover, it apparently had not seen any evaluation of respondent’s emergency-room performance. See id., at 229 (minutes of Coordinating Committee meeting).

 Only one of the reasons voiced by the school for deciding not to graduate respondent had any arguable nonconduct aspects, and that reason, “clinical competence,” was plainly related to perceived deficiencies in respondent’s personal hygiene and relationships with colleagues and patients. See id., at 219. See also id., at 181, 182-183, 210.

 The futility of trying to draw a workable distinction between “academic” and “disciplinary” dismissals is further illustrated by my Brother Powell’s concurring opinion. The opinion states that the conclusion in the text supra, “is explicitly contrary to the District Court’s undisturbed findings of fact,” ante, at 94, but it cites no District Court finding indicating that respondent’s dismissal was based on other than conduct-related considerations. No such finding exists.
The District Court’s statement that respondent was dismissed because of “ 'the quality of her work,’ ” quoted ante, at 95, like statements to the effect that the dismissal was “solely on academic grounds,” ante, at 96, is ultimately irrelevant to the due process inquiry. It provides no information on the critical question whether “the facts disputed are of a type susceptible of determination by third parties.” Infra, at 106. Nor does *105the District Court’s finding that “ ‘the grading and evaluating system of the medical school was applied fairly,’ ” quoted ante, at 95 n. 3, advance resolution of this case, especially in view of the fact, noted supra, that respondent’s grades in clinical courses, as in all other courses, were satisfactory when the decision was made that she could not graduate. This fact further indicates, contrary to Mr. Justice Powell’s intimation, ante, at 95, that the school found the deficiencies in respondent’s clinical performance to be different from the deficiencies that lead to unsatisfactory grades in more traditional scholastic subjects.
Mr. Justice Powell is correct, of course, in suggesting that the kind of conduct here involved is different from that involved in Goss v. Lopez, supra. Ante, at 94, and n. 2. The question facing the Medical School authorities was not solely whether respondent had misbehaved in the past, but rather whether her past, present, and likely future conduct indicated that she would not be “a good medical doctor,” ante, at 91 n. 6. The appeal procedure of the school was well suited to aid in resolution of this question, since it involved “observation of her skills and techniques in actual conditions of practice,” ante, at 95. It matters not at all whether the result of such observation is labeled “an ‘academic’ judgment,” ibid,., so long as it is recognized that the school authorities, having an efficient procedure available to determine whether their decision to dismiss respondent was “unfair or mistaken,” Goss v. Lopez, supra, at 581, were constitutionally required to give respondent a chance to invoke the procedure, as they did, before depriving her of a substantial liberty or property interest. See supra, at 100-102.

 See Mahavongsanan v. Hall, 529 F. 2d 448, 450 (CA5 1976); Gaspar v. Bruton, 513 F. 2d 843, 849-851 (CA10 1975); Mustell v. Rose, 282 Ala. 358, 367, 211 So. 2d 489, 497-498, cert. denied, 393 U. S. 936 (1968); Barnard v. Inhabitants of Shelburne, 216 Mass. 19, 19-20, 22-23, 102 N. E. 1095, 1096-1097 (1913).

 See Brookins v. Bonnell, 362 F. Supp. 379, 383 (ED Pa. 1973) :
“This case is not the traditional disciplinary situation where a student violates the law or a school regulation by actively engaging in prohibited activities. Plaintiff has allegedly failed to act and comply with school regulations for admission and class attendance by passively ignoring these regulations. These alleged failures do not constitute misconduct in the sense that plaintiff is subject to disciplinary procedures. They do constitute misconduct in the sense that plaintiff was required to do something. Plaintiff contends that he did comply with the requirements. Like the traditional disciplinary case, the determination of whether plaintiff did or did not comply with the school regulations is a question of fact. Most importantly, in determining this factual question, reference is not made to a standard of achievement in an esoteric academic field. Scholastic standards are not involved, but rather disputed facts concerning whether plaintiff did or did not comply with certain school regulations. These issues adapt themselves readily to determination by a fair and impartial 'due process’ hearing.”

 The Court’s reliance on labels, moreover, may give those school administrators who are reluctant to accord due process to their students an excuse for not doing so. See generally Kirp, Proceduralism and Bureaucracy: Due Process in the School Setting, 28 Stan. L. Rev. 841 (1976).

 It would be useful, for example, to have more careful assessments of whether the school followed its own rules in dismissing respondent and of what the legal consequences should be if it did not. The Court states that it "disagree [s] with both respondent’s factual and legal contentions.” Ante, at 92 n. 8. It then asserts that “the record clearly shows” compliance with the rules, ibid., but it provides neither elaboration of this conclusion nor discussion of the specific ways in which respondent contends that the rules were not followed, Brief for Respondent 42-46, contentions accompanied by citations to the same record that the Court finds so “clear.” The statement of the District Court quoted by the Court, ante, *108at 92 n. 8, is not inconsistent on its face with respondent’s claim that the rules were not followed, nor is there anything about the context of the statement to indicate that it was addressed to this claim, see App. 45.
Review by the Court of Appeals would clarify these factual issues, which rarely warrant the expenditure of this Court’s time. If the Court’s view of the record is correct, however, then I do not understand why the Court goes on to comment on the legal consequences of a state of facts that the Court has just said does not exist. Like other aspects of the Court’s opinion, discussed supra, the legal comments on this issue are nothing more than confusing dictum. It is true, as the Court notes, ante, at 92 n. 8, that the decision from this Co.urt cited by respondent was not expressly grounded in the Due Process Clause. Service v. Dulles, 354 U. S. 363 (1957). But that fact, which amounts to the only legal analysis offered by the Court on this question, hardly answers respondent’s point that some compliance with previously established rules — particularly rules providing procedural safeguards — is constitutionally required before the State or one of its agencies may deprive a citizen of a valuable liberty or property interest.