Court Opinion

ID: 9676303
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:20:59.113241+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:47.413160
License: Public Domain

CHADICK, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
This is an appeal from a trial court order refusing a temporary injunction. The only issue to be resolved is whether or not the trial judge abused his discretion. Janus Films, Inc. v. City of Fort Worth, 163 Tex. 616, 358 S.W.2d 589 (1962); Manning v. Wieser, 474 S.W.2d 448 (Tex.Sup.1971). Abuse of discretion turns on whether or not the petitioner in the trial court showed himself entitled to the relief sought as a matter of law.
The school district, a state agency, offers all except married students an opportunity to participate in an athletic program, which includes football. The appellant is a married student that has been denied the privilege of playing on the school football team because he is married.1 Such discrimination cannot be sustained unless the rule that excludes him is a necessary restraint to promote a compelling public interest. In support of the school’s rule denying married students participation in the school’s athletic program, the school superintendent testified that the drop-out percentage among married students was higher than normal for the entire student body. He acknowledged that the rule was designed to discourage teenage marriage and thereby eliminate a cause of school drop*643outs. This evidence, though not particularly weighty or cogent, was received without objection and is undisputed in the record. Evidence of similar import served as a foundation for the decision in Kissick v. Garland Independent School District, 330 S.W.2d 708 (Tex.Civ.App.Dallas, wr. ref’d, n. r. e.) upholding a similar rule. The facts in the case were not fully developed. The surface was barely scratched. The record indicates the trial judge was required to decide a case in which he was presented with considerably more law than fact. He recognized, his judgment implies, that both marriage and public education can exist without one impinging upon the other. He had the difficult task of reaching a delicate balance between the two revered institutions. Apparently he thought there was room for both; he undertook to accommodate both. These institutions may be characterized as worthy favorites of the law, but the lawgivers, the courts and Legislature, have never paused, stood abashed, or lacked for zeal in regulating each of them. Special codes, numerous statutes, constitutional provisions, vast appropriations, as well as reams of court opinions and uncounted writs, orders, judgments and decrees boldly affirm the readiness of the lawgivers to regulate and are compelling evidence of the resilience and malleability of the institutions.
On the basis of the record before him, the trial judge was warranted in deciding that the rule in question did not unduly compromise the institution of marriage and that its effect fostered public education by eliminating or tending to eliminate a cause of students improvidently dropping out of school before completion of prescribed studies. In other words, the trial judge’s refusal to grant a temporary injunction implies that he found the appellant’s right to participate in school activities by playing on the school football team did not outweigh and rationally should not be paramount to the right and duty of the school board to promulgate a rule that was calculated to cause students to continue in the educational program offered by the school. From this record, it cannot be said the trial judge abused his discretion in finding the rule was a necessary restraint affecting only insubstantial marital and educational rights in order to promote a compelling state interest. The result of such implied findings is that the applicant did not show a right to an injunction as a matter of law.
At a trial on the permanent injunction issue plead by appellant, all relevant facts should be produced. In an appeal therefrom, this court may speak to the issues with more confidence. I would affirm the judgment in this appeal and await further development of the case before undertaking to write decisively upon the problems that a fully developed case might present. At this stage in the proceedings, respect for the burden carried by the school board in its largely unappreciated task of providing educational opportunities for the young mutely beseeches this court not to rush to a judgment that lets the athletic tail wag the educational dog.
The majority assumes, without bothering to hear what the facts may be, that no facts do or can exist that would show the rule has a rational relationship to a legitimate state objective. In much the same way, some people conclude the earth is flat. Before the majority of the court spoke, I thought the United States Supreme Court held the world’s record for jumping from a flimsy base to an unnecessary conclusion, but this calls for a measurement. I respectfully dissent.

. The qualification for team membership is not shown by the record, but from common knowledge it is known a very discriminating process is followed in the selection of the team membership. Only a small percentage of students are selected and those must have certain natural or acquired physical and mental skills and endowments. Desire to win, tenacity, and endurance are much sought after qualities. A big, fast man is always selected over a small, slow one, and no woman is considered. The student’s height, weight, speed, reactions, mental poise, etc., are placed in the balance and only those that have superior aptitude are selected.