Court Opinion

ID: 9631755
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:49:16.252225+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:00.869168
License: Public Domain

*339THORNTON, J.,
dissenting.
In my view the defendant school board, in adopting the challenged regulation, was acting within the scope of its discretion, and therefore judicial intervention is unjustified.
The leading Oregon case dealing with judicial review of school board regulations is Burkitt et al. v. School Dist. No. 1, et al., 195 Or 471, 246 P2d 566 (1952). In Burkitt our Supreme Court sustained against a similar attack a Portland school board rule forbidding inter-high school secret societies. The court quoted with approval the following statement from 47 Am Jur 328, Schools § 47, as follows:
“ ‘Since the courts will not interfere with the exercise of discretion by school directors in matters confided by law to their judgment, unless there is a clear abuse of discretion or a violation of law, they are usually disinclined to interfere with regulations, adopted by school boards, and they will not consider whether the regulations are wise or expedient, but merely whether they are a reasonable exercise of the power and discretion of the board. The reasonableness of regulations is a question of law for the courts. Acting reasonably within the powers conferred, it is the province of the board of education to determine what things are detrimental to the successful management, good order and discipline of the schools and the rules required to produce these conditions. The presumption is always in favor of the reasonableness and propriety of' a rule or regulation duly made.’ ” 195 Or at 492.
The Burkitt court also observed:
“Here, as it seems to us, for the court to interfere with the action of the school authorities now challenged would be of little less than to constitute ourselves a school board for all the schools of the *340state. This is something we have neither the right nor the inclination to do.” 195 Or at 499.
As another court aptly pointed out in a similar ease:
“Boards of Education, rather than Courts, are charged with the important and difficult duty of operating the public schools * * *. The Court’s duty, regardless of its personal views, is to uphold the Board’s regulation unless it is generally viewed as being arbitrary and unreasonable * * State v. Marion Co. Bd. Ed., 202 Tenn 29, 34, 302 SW2d 57, 59 (1957).
The trial court in its opinion in the case at bar gave considerable weight to the testimony of the educators on the detrimental effect the prohibited hair styles had on good order and school discipline.
The presumption is in favor of the reasonableness and propriety of any such rule or regulation. Burkitt et al. v. School Dist. No. 1, et al., supra.
After reviewing the testimony, I would agree with the trial judge’s conclusion that there was sufficient evidence to show that the challenged regulation bore a reasonable relationship with school deportment and discipline and therefore did not constitute an abuse of the school board’s discretion.
As the Supreme Court of Utah said in Starkey v. Board of Ed. of Davis County Sch. Dist., 14 Utah 2d 227, 230, 381 P2d 718, 720 (1963):
“It is not for the courts to be concerned with the wisdom or propriety of the resolution as to its social desirability, nor whether it best serves the objectives of education, nor with the convenience or inconvenience of its application to the plaintiff in his particular circumstances. So long as the *341resolution is deemed by the Board of Education to serve the purpose of best promoting the objectives of the school and the standards for eligibility are based upon uniformly applied classifications which bear some reasonable relationship to the objectives, it cannot be said to be capricious, arbitrary or unjustly discriminatory.”