Court Opinion

ID: 9700167
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:14:52.011576+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:05.248720
License: Public Domain

AINSWORTH, Circuit Judge (dissenting) :
Judge Dawkins’ opinion ably reflects the majority view. Nevertheless, I dissent because I believe the two 1969 resolutions of the Louisiana State Board of Education,1 so-called parietal rules, which are the subject of this litigation and which require all unmarried, undergraduate students, regardless of age, in Louisiana State colleges to live in campus residence dormitories, are unconstitutional and violative of the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution.
Louisiana Tech, pursuant to the State Board’s resolutions, in 1969 directed that all unmarried students under 21 years of *887age reside on campus in college residence halls, as a condition of being a student at this State college.2 This was done by letter of the Dean of Students of Tech dated May 23, 1969, apparently to stem “the tide of migration from the campus by students” (defendants’ supplemental brief, p. 1). Prior thereto student residence on campus for unmarried freshmen under 21 and all unmarried women under 21, only, had been required, and the balance were not regulated as to residence. The mandate of the school authorities to students that they live on campus, subject to dismissal as a penalty for noncompliance, is made under the guise of having students receive a complete education through the “living and learning experience” of campus communal living.3 Said by defendants to be incidental to this purpose is the financial objective of servicing revenue bonds issued in connection with building the dormitories.
At oral argument defense counsel strenuously urged that the learning experience which students would receive by on-campus residence, was the principal objective of the State Board resolutions and the Louisiana Tech order to live on campus. Very little emphasis was placed on the proposition that on-campus residence was being required to provide sufficient revenue to service the dormitory bonds. In their supplemental brief, p. 10, defendants, however, argue:
“As to the allegation that bonds are the true issue, defendants have and do strenuously defend the security feature for the bonds seriously jeapor*888dized [sic] by the implications of this case, but such defense of bonds is only incidental to the more fundamental question of whether colleges and universities are to retain the right to provide reasonable rules in connection with their lawful purposes. * * * ”
Plaintiffs contend that defendants should “tell it like it is” and admit that the real purpose of the State Board of Education resolutions and Louisiana Tech’s order pursuant thereto, is to service the dormitory revenue bonds rather than to accord undergraduate students the living and learning experience of communal living. They point to the numerous student exemptions in the State Board’s resolutions from the requirement of on-campus living, which the school authorities may exercise in an unlimited discretion to determine which students shall finally be required to live in the campus dormitories. The State Board’s first resolution (Schedule 44) allows college officials to exempt undergraduate students from the campus residence requirement “A. In any case where it appears that a full time undergraduate student would otherwise suffer significant hardship or because of sufficient financial, medical or other good and sound reason shown.” (Emphasis supplied.) Other exemptions are provided for in this schedule' and in the second State Board resolution (Schedule 45), but the underscored exemption is so vague and general as to establish practically no standard at all for exemption.
At oral argument it also developed that the college authorities in the numerous Louisiana State colleges do not consider that they are necessarily bound by the two State Board of Education resolutions. Apparently each president decides for himself and his college whether he wishes to implement the State Board's resolutions by an appropriate order of the college itself. Defendants apparently concede as much in their supplemental brief (p. 2), wherein they state in part as follows:
“The matter of achieving use of facilities as required by the ‘covenants’ is left up to the individual institutions. In the Louisiana system, as elsewhere, each college is different, with different traditions, philosophies and local conditions. There can be no absolutely uniform set of requirements or statement of housing policy that could be intelligently enacted by the Louisiana State Board of Education. In one college a lengthy housing policy is deemed helpful. At another college, the proper officials may only include a brief reference. The flexibility necessarily required for the wide variation in situations in which institutions serve and the individual educators responsible, necessarily dictates that no uniform language is intended nor specified by parietal rules bond covenants. Louisiana Polytechnic has successfully operated within this context.”
In my view the State Board of Education resolutions and the Louisiana Tech mandate to undergraduates to live on campus violate the First Amendment right of students to come and go as they please, associate with whomever they desire, and live with whom they choose. Their right of privacy is also infringed. See Griswold v. State of Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965); Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 89 S.Ct. 1322, 22 L.Ed.2d 600 (1969); West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 63 S.Ct. 1178, 87 L.Ed. 1628 (1943); Keyishian v. Board of Regents of U. of St. of N. Y„ 385 U.S. 589, 87 S.Ct. 675, 17 L.Ed.2d 629 (1967); Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U.S. 500, 84 S.Ct. 1659, 12 L.Ed.2d 992 (1964); and N. A. A. C. P. v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 83 S.Ct. 328, 9 L.Ed.2d 405 (1963). As to those students under 21 years of age who are still minors and therefore under parental authority, the mandates are an unwarranted interference with the right of parents to decide whether they wish their college children to live in campus dormitories or off campus. Communal life for students is therefore imposed by a State agency, and is involuntary. Students do not abandon their constitutional rights as American citizens when they *889enter the portals of State colleges. Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Com. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 89 S.Ct. 733, 21 L.Ed.2d 731 (1969). However, the resolutions of the State Board attempt to deprive students of fundamental rights of freedom of association and equal protection of the laws. It should be a student’s decision or a parent’s decision as to whether a student will live on campus or off campus.4 This right should not be subject to the whim or caprice of the school officials as to whether an exemption may be granted, even if the present policy relative to exemption is apparently liberal.
The numerous exemptions listed from the on-campus residence requirement and the unlimited right at the discretion of college officials to grant exemptions, deny plaintiffs the equal protection of the laws in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment — some are favored with exemption, some are not.
The fact that students or parents on behalf of students, choose to enroll in a State college where parietal rules prevail, cannot bind them, without their consent, to accept unconstitutional regulations pertaining to the place of residence of such students. After all these are public, State-supported schools, and it is the right and privilege of students to select the college they wish to attend without being ipso facto bound to every unreasonable regulation which school authorities may wish to impose on their extra-academic activities. See Dixon v. Alabama State Board of Education, 5 Cir., 1961, 294 F.2d 150, 156, cert, denied, 368 U.S. 930, 82 S.Ct. 368, 7 L.Ed. 2d 193.
The voluntary nature of campus residence in the past has been the Louisiana tradition. Prior to 1969 the State Board had never enacted any parietal rules. Now to require on-campus residence by State Board of Education resolutions and college order is to change a policy which has long prevailed in Louisiana college life. The 1951 case of Pyeatte v. Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma, W.D.Okla., 1951, 102 F.Supp. 407, affirmed 342 U.S. 936, 72 S.Ct. 567, 96 L.Ed. 696 (1952), cited by defendants, is not apposite since the Court held that the plaintiff, a boarding house owner, was without standing to contest a University of Oklahoma compulsory rule requiring students to live in campus dormitories. Language tending to support defendants’ position is clearly dicta. I do not believe that the Louisiana State Board of Education or Louisiana Tech may validly enforce resolutions or orders that all unmarried, undergraduate students mandatorily reside on campus as a condition of attendance at a State Col*890lege, whether they wish to do so or not and whether their parents desire them to or not. I therefore dissent from the majority opinion which declines to hold the State Board of Education resolutions unconstitutional.
APPENDIX
STATE OF LOUISIANA
Seal BOARD OF EDUCATION
BATON ROUGE 70804
Louis J. Michot Second
P. O. Box 52169 Public Service Commission
Lafayette, Louisiana 70501 District
July 17, 1970
Mr. L. L. Richard
Richard Dormitory
1416 Johnston Street
Lafayette, Louisiana
Dear Mr. Richard:
As a member of the Louisiana State Board of Education, I am aware of the resolutions adopted by said Board pertaining to requirements that students reside in ONJ3AMPUS DORMITORIES as more fully set forth in these resolutions.
Even though the trend across the United States is for students to live off-campus, the colleges in the State of Louisiana were faced with the problem of not being able to raise sufficient revenues to pay off bond indebtedness on dormitories constructed on college campuses for the reason that insufficient numbers of students resided in college dormitories, many of whom preferred living in private dormitories off campus.
The resolutions in question were designed to meet the financial crisis that would face the colleges where these dormitories were located because of the lack of occupancy, and to obtain necessary funds to retire said bonds, the said resolutions were adopted to require students to reside therein, which I might mention was a requirement in the bond resolution when the various bond issues were sold to investors.
As I mentioned to you, the Board had to effect policies assuring on-campus residence in spite of the fact that the trend has been for students to live off campus not only in the State of Louisiana but all over the nation. I can certainly sympathize and appreciate the problem that our state colleges face; however, clearly I recognize that the resolutions were adopted as a fiscal measure to alleviate the dilemma faced by our colleges who needed dormitory revenues and, of course, the Louisiana State Board of Education was required to honor its obligation by adopting said resolutions to comply with the abovesaid bond resolution requirements.
Yours very truly,
(s) Louis J. Michot, Member
Louisiana State Board of Education
LJM/al

. The Louisiana State Board of education has supervision of all higher educational institutions (except Louisiana State University). See La.Const. art. 12, § 7, ¶ 2.

. Though this suit is by plaintiffs on behalf of students at Louisiana Polytechnic Institute, it is nevertheless a class action and seeks an injunction against the enforcement of the State rule. The Louisiana State Board of Education resolutions attacked herein apply generally to the utilization of housing, dining, and student life facilities in the State of Louisiana as in the colleges and universities throughout the State under the jurisdiction of the Board. The Board’s resolutions are State wide in application and do not pertain only to Louisiana Polytechnic Institute. It is appropriate, therefore, that this matter be considered by a three-judge court under the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 2281. This is apparent from the language of the State Board resolution itself (Schedule 44, Section 2) which reads in pertinent part as follows :
“It is the policy and philosophy of higher education in the State of Louisiana as interpreted by this Board (subject to recognition by this Board of the differences that exist between the several colleges and universities and the need for reasonable flexibility in the administration thereof) that all unmarried full-time undergraduate students, regardless of age or whether or not emancipated, are required to live in on-campus residence halls as long as space is available * * * >»
The Board’s resolution (Schedule 44, Section 4) also makes it clear that the student is likewise required to use the dining halls and take his meals therein in connection with on-eampus residence.

. Use of the term “guise” is carefully considered and appropriate under the circumstances. The State Board of Education was not so much concerned with the welfare of the students and the purported benefits to be derived from communal life on campus. But it was primarily concerned “with the problem of not being able to raise sufficient revenues to pay off bond indebtedness on dormitories constructed on college campuses.” The resolutions were adopted “as a fiscal measure to alleviate the dilemma faced by our colleges who needed dormitory revenues.” That this is true is clearly and definitely established by the letter of Honorable Louis J. Michot, member of the Louisiana State Board of Education, dated July 17, 1970, to L. L. Richard, Lafayette, Louisiana, attached to the amicus brief of John W. Dupuis III, et al., which I include herewith as Appendix A. How it could be doubted that the purpose of the State Board resolutions was purely fiscal, in light of Board Member Michot’s letter, is difficult for me to understand.
There are a number of affidavits from college administrators, predominantly nonresidents of the State of Louisiana — none of whom purports to be familiar with the college dormitory situation in Louisiana or its financial needs — to the effect that communal living is an aid to education. These are irrelevant to the true issues when the Louisiana facts are known and as demonstrated by the candid admission of Board Member Michot that the Board resolutions were adopted as “a fiscal measure.”

. In this context plaintiffs state in their brief (and I am in agreement) that
“The effect of the resolutions upon the class to which the plaintiffs belong is complex and present both general and individual dilemmas. Obviously, the additional financial burden placed upon . the students in the classification contemplated by the resolutions will make it more difficult for some and impossible for others to pursue their education at Louisiana Tech. It is equally apparent that most, if not all students so disposed, could continue to negotiate off-campus room and board arrangements in an amount less than the current rates for on-campus room and board. Moreover, the on-campus rates are contracted for on a semester basis and each student must rent the room for the full semester. Rent must be paid for the full semester unless the student obtains special permission from the business manager to pay the amount in two equal installments; no refund is made for meals missed for less than a continuous period of seven days, and then only if the student also is absent from classes with an official excuse.
“Individual cases of hardship and injury are presented by situations whereby: students with medical and/or dietary problems; students who are gainfully employed in off-campus employment requiring on-the-job residency; older students and others who are unable to study in a communal atmosphere; students who have purchased house trailers or other housing accommodations; advanced students majoring in education participating in supervised directed teaching in off-campus schools located a great distance from Louisiana Tech, et cetera.”
Plaintiffs’ brief, p. 4.