Court Opinion

ID: 9457267
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:17:27.742969+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:17.167251
License: Public Domain

BUTZNER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
Because of the fusion of church and state this record discloses, I would require Montreat-Anderson College to comply with the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment.
The Mountain Retreat Association, a corporation wholly owned by the Presbyterian Church, performs all of the municipal services of the incorporated town of Montreat, North Carolina. In turn, the town pays the association ninety-five per cent of all taxes it collects. Viewed realistically, the association and the town are inseparable. The evidence also reveals that administration of the college is interwoven with the governance of the association and the town. The college, too, is wholly owned by the church. Its president and *760business manager are also the president and business manager of the association. The business manager serves in a similar capacity for the town as well as its chief of police. The entire police force of the town is jointly employed by the college or the association. It is hired, fired, and paid by corporations wholly owned by the church.
The case, I believe, is governed by Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U.S. 715, 81 S.Ct. 856, 6 L.Ed.2d 45 (1961), because the town, an agency of the state, in the language of Mr. Justice Clark, “has so far insinuated itself into a position of interdependence” with the college and the association “that it must be recognized as a joint participant” in the narcotics investigation which led to this suit. On this account the investigation “cannot be considered to have been so ‘purely private’ as to fall without the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment.” 365 U.S. at 725, 81 S.Ct. at 862.
To escape the onus of state action, the college protests that the students were not arrested and that they never will be indicted.1 Undoubtedly, the college is in a position to give these assurances because its responsible officials are also the officials of the association which administers the affairs of the town. Their domination is illustrated by the testimony of Peter Post, a college security officer, association security officer, and town policeman, who took an active part in the investigation. He obtained information from the State Bureau of Investigation about the narcotics traffic at the college, received incriminating intelligence from confidential informants, compiled the list of suspects who were to be called before the investigating committee, supervised the summoning of students, attended the inquest, and participated in the interrogation. Post, claiming that he acted throughout the investigation as a college security officer, testified that had he been acting as a town policeman, he would have had to arrest some of the students. Other than the control the college exercises over town police, the record furnishes no explanation why Post did not secure state warrants for the arrest of students who violated state laws in his jurisdiction. Reluctantly I conclude the record depicts a town governed not by law, but by men, and — • despite the prohibition of the first amendment — churchmen.
I do not quarrel with the aim of the college to eliminate narcotics traffic on its campus. But the end does not always justify the means. When college officials vest themselves with the cloak of municipal authority, they act not only as private citizens, but also as agents of the state. Accordingly, they should act with due regard for the fourteenth amendment. Due process requires at least that students at state colleges be given notice of the charge, information about the nature of the evidence against them, an opportunity to be heard in their own defense, and that evidence be substantial to justify punishment. Esteban v. Central Missouri State College, 415 F.2d 1077, 1089 (8th Cir. 1969); Dixon v. Alabama State Board of Education, 294 F.2d 150, 158 (5th Cir. 1961); see Wright, The Constitution on the Campus, 22 Vand.L.Rev. 1027, 1071 (1969); Developments in the Law — Academic Freedom, 81 Harv.L.Rev. 1045, 1138 (1968).
There can be no doubt that the students at Montreat-Anderson College were denied these minimal rights. Summoned peremptorily at the supper hour to an inquest that lasted until four o’clock the next morning,2 the students were not given notice of the charges against them. *761They were interrogated, but were given scant opportunity to know of the evidence against them and to present evidence in their own behalf.
I would reverse and remand for entry of a decree requiring the college to expunge the record of its inquisition and to offer reinstatement to the plaintiff and other students similarly situated. The decree should also provide that reinstatement is subject to the right of the college to expel the students if, after a rehearing conducted with the same regard for procedural due process required of state colleges, there appears substantial evidence that they had violated college regulations.

. Tlie district court found: “No student has been indicted as a result of the entire investigation and no indictment is contemplated by the College or anyone else connected with the investigation.”

. The students were questioned individually and then permitted to depart. Pending their appearances, however, they were assembled in an anteroom and prevented from leaving even momentarily unless accompanied by a guard.