Court Opinion

ID: 9633698
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:57:08.727715+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:55:50.051056
License: Public Domain

Herd, J.,
dissenting: This case should not be dismissed as moot. It does not fit the usual mootness case where the issue is a narrow controversy between two parties who have resolved their disagreement. This case is much broader. It involves a constitutional issue of significance to Kansas public policy and thus does not fall under the general rule on case and controversy. See Annot., 132 A.L.R. 1185, 1188-89. See Thompson v. Kansas City Power & Light Co., 208 Kan. 869, 494 P.2d 1092, cert. denied 409 U.S. 944 (1972). Everett Johnson’s resignation does not render the constitutional issue moot. It survives the parties’ private acceptance of the judgment. There was a case and controversy *293in both the trial court and the Court of Appeals. Both courts decided the issue. Those decisions are the law if we persist in the majority’s dismissal.
I dissent for the foregoing reasons and because in my opinion the lower court decisions are wrong. Article 6, § 2 of the Kansas Constitution provides for a State Board of Education which has general supervision over all public schools, educational institutions, and educational interests of the State of Kansas, except educational functions delegated to the Board of Regents. Thus, all state educational policy in Kansas is set by the Board of Education, except as to four-year state colleges and universities.
After adoption of the education article, the legislature enacted K.S.A. 25-1904. It prohibits all state employees, school district employees and officers, and community college employees and officers from serving as members of the Board. This prohibition is the nexus of this case. Everett L. Johnson’s position on the Board was challenged because he was a tenured professor at Wichita State University, a state employee. Johnson argues the statute is unconstitutional. The district court and the Court of Appeals ruled the statute constitutional. The majority dismissal in effect affirms those rulings.
In my opinion, K.S.A. 25-1904 is fatally flawed on an equal protection analysis under either the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution or its counterpart in the Kansas Constitution. Therein, all persons are guaranteed the right to equal protection of the law. K.S.A. 25-1904 designates state employees, teachers, and school district and community college administrators as a separate class and denies this class the right to serve on the State Board of Education. This is a denial of an important right. Statutory classification is discriminatory. It is permissible, however, only under specific rules which require the legislation to have a rational basis for a legitimate governmental end. Farley v. Engelken, 241 Kan. 663, 740 P.2d 1058 (1987).
The class of excluded persons includes all teachers and administrators in the state college and university systems and all teachers and administrators in public schools and community colleges. These persons are the best qualified people in Kansas to make public education policy. The rationale for the exclusion is that this class of persons has a potential conflict of interest sitting *294on the State Board of Education. The weakness of this argument is easily discerned. None of the excluded persons is prohibited from serving on the State Board of Regents or on local school boards, both of which present a greater possibility for conflict of interest to educators than does service on the State Board of Education. The State Board of Education sets no salaries or tenure for teachers while local school boards and the Board of Regents do. Thus, we see the conflict of interest argument has no merit. The ban on public educators from serving on the State Board of Education is comparable to barring farmers from serving on the State Board of Agriculture; barbers from serving on the State Barber Examiners Board, or doctors from serving on the Board of Healing Arts. Obviously, there is no rational basis for excluding public educators from serving on the State Board of Education.
We should not dismiss this appeal and should hold K.S.A. 25-1904 unconstitutional and void.