Court Opinion

ID: 9845290
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:18:28.910972+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:59.910740
License: Public Domain

SHEPARD, Justice
(dissenting).
I regret that I am forced to dissent in this case. This is a “long hair” case. I have no objection, dislike or distaste for any particular hair style worn by either male or female of any age. My acceptance of the hair styling of other human beings is tempered by my thinking that whatever the style it should be clean, reasonably neat (whatever that means) and present no danger to the health or safety of the individual or to others. In the case at hand, there appears to be no question but that the hair in question was clean, neat and presented no danger to the health or safety of Murphy or anyone else. My distaste is further compounded when I view the facts of this case in light of the opening language of the opinion of the court in Cordova v. Chonko, 315 F.Supp. 953 (U.S.D.C., N.D. Ohio, 1970) :
“This is another ‘long hair’ case. The plaintiff is a fourteen year old boy. The defendant school authorities and the boy’s parents appear from the evidence to be functioning at about the same level of maturity. This simplifies the application of the old maxim ‘All parties stand equal before the law.’ ”
We are not to speculate that the denial of certiorari by the United States Supreme Court carries with it any inference as to tacit affirmation of a lower court’s decision. I think in the present matter, however, we may assume from the continued denial of certiorari by that court in “long hair” cases that that court is unwilling to devote its time and energies to dealing and coping with that large, constitutionally important question involving the length of hair. Or perhaps the court, in light of the dissent in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503, 89 S.Ct. 733, 21 L.Ed.2d 731, had decided to devote its energy to more significant tasks.
In any event, there is a large question in my mind as to whether any justiciable controversy is presented to this Court at this time. We are informed via the public press (but not by any of the parties hereto) that the regulation governing the length of hair of Pocatello School District No. 25 has been rescinded and presumably from the date of such rescission Murphy was free to take *39up his student career in the Pocatello School system. See Mr. Justice Black’s concurrence in Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97, 89 S.Ct. 266, 21 L.Ed.2d 228.
I further disagree and respectfully dissent from certain of the language contained in the majority opinion. That opinion states:
“It must be noted that the traditional presumption of legislative validity does not apply to the substantive issues appellant raises under the First, Fifth, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments. The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly required something more of legislation involving fundamental rights than merely some reasonableness or some relation to the public health, safety and welfare.” (Emphasis added)
As hereinbefore pointed out, the United States Supreme Court has yet to hold that the desire of a student in the public schools to wear his hair in a fashion contrary to rules and regulations of the school district is a constitutional and “fundamental right” which automatically overcomes the “traditional presumption of legislative validity.” The majority opinion cites as authority for its statements Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510. I suggest that Griswold provides no authority for the statement of the majority herein and in fact dealt with another area of family life. The court therein stated:
“The present case, then, concerns a relationship lying within the zone of privacy created by several fundamental constitutional guarantees. And it concerns a law which, in forbidding the use of contraceptives rather than regulating their manufacture or sale, seeks to achieve its goals by means having a maximum destructive impact upon that relationship. * * * Would we allow the police to search the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms for telltale signs of the use of contraceptives? The very idea is repulsive to the notions of privacy surrounding the marriage relationship.
“We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights — older than our political parties, older than our school system.” (Emphasis original)
I suggest that the long step from the privacy of the marital bedroom to the corridors of the Pocatello School District building is one not to be taken as lightly and effortlessly as is done by the majority opinion.
I regret that, as pointed out in the majority opinion, a number of courts (almost, exclusively federal district or circuit courts)' have seen fit to devote their time, talent and energies to coping with that very large problem of the protection of the constitutional right to wear one’s hair longer than might be desired by certain local school authorities. While deciding the case before it on a different basis, the court in Cordova v. Chonko, supra, stated:
“Whether a proper spirit and good judgment require that the students in Perrysburg High School must wear their hair cut short is a question to be determined by the Board of Education, after a proper study of the mores and wishes of the public, including the students and the faculty of its school, and not by this, or perhaps properly by any, court.”
At this point one thing must be made clear. The record in the matter herein simply does not support the decision of the majority opinion. The witnesses called by plaintiff merely testified to the appearance of plaintiff while attending school and the fact that he, as an individual, did not disrupt or cause excessive disruption in the school. Plaintiff testified only that he wore his hair in the style complained of herein because he liked it that way and his father testified that he believed his son should be so entitled to wear his hair. On the other side of the coin, the school administration officials testified that there had been disruption caused by the wearing of long hair within the school building. What is even more important, however, is that the school board officials elected by the people of the Pocatello School District employed certain *40administrative officials to operate that school system. One of those officials stated that in his opinion there was a direct relationship between the behavioral pattern of students in the schools and their appearance and dress, including the length of hair. The opinion was based upon the opinions of educators and school administrators, not only in the Pocatello School District but throughout the state. That testimony stands unchallenged and uncontroverted.
I thoroughly and emphatically disagree with the opinion as stated by the school administration officials. In my judgment, there is no such necessary relationship between behavioral pattern and attitude or disciplinary problems and the length of hair. My opinion is otherwise. I, for example, can remember when the butch or crew haircut was decidedly frowned upon by school officials as being too great a departure from the norm and therefore bound to bring about problems if permitted in the schools. I can also remember the coming and the going of the popularity of the so-called “mohawk” haircut in which the entire head was shaved with the exception of one strip an inch or so wide of hair standing straight up running front to back across the skull. I can also remember the stir caused by the adoption of certain young ladies in the wearing of the Veronica Lake style hair. I imagine that much the same type of stir was caused when girls hair first came to be bobbed. It is a matter of record that the female of the species was not too long ago forbidden to wear lipstick or other makeup while attending school. All of these things have and will continue to come and then pass away much I suppose as the more recent controversy about the length or lack thereof of the skirts of female students.
But nevertheless, the fact that my judgment differs from that of the school administrators is of no significance. They have been hired by the public to administer the affairs of our schools, supposedly on the basis of education, training, experience and expertise. I have always assumed that the public employed me in a somewhat different capacity. While I may disagree with their judgment, I must admit that my credentials in the educational field are less impressive than those of the administrators. Evidently the majority labors under no such problem.
The majority opinion, in my judgment, goes far afield in attempting to find a reason to strike down the regulation of the school board in the case at bar. The majority opinion indicates that the courts will “albeit [it] reluctantly, intervene in conflicts which arise in the operation of the school system if such conflicts ‘directly and sharply implicate basic constitutional values.’ ” Epperson v. Arkansas, supra. As has been previously pointed out herein, there is no ruling to date from the United States Supreme Court indicating that the ability to wear hair at a longer length than that prescribed by school board regulations is a “basic constitutional value.” Further, I would point out that Epperson involved a school teacher allegedly caught between the horns of a dilemna, one of which required her to teach the Darwinian theory of evolution and the other which, under the sanction of criminal penalties, forbade her to teach such a doctrine. That case was decided by the court on the basis of the establishment of religion clause of the first amendment to the United States Constitution, and I suggest that since Murphy did not claim or assert any religious basis for the length of his hair, that there is no solace for the majority opinion in Epperson. Correctively, however, the court in Epperson did state:
“By and large, public education in our Nation is committed to the control of state and local authorities. Courts do not and cannot intervene in the resolution of conflicts which arise in the daily operation of school systems and which do not directly and sharply implicate basic constitutional values.”
Perhaps it is on the basis of such language that the high court has been reluctant to grant certiorari in long hair cases.
*41The majority opinion cites as additional authority West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 63 S.Ct. 1178, 87 L.Ed. 1628, and Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, supra. Barnette involved the compelling of pupils in public schools to salute the flag although their religious beliefs forbade them to do so and was decided by the court on an entirely different basis than any urged or used by the majority herein. Tinker involved the wearing of black armbands as a symbolic act of protest to the Viet Nam war by grammar school pupils. Although the court upheld the right of those children to so act, it did so on the basis that the pupils were entitled to freedom of speech. The opinion of the court in Tinker stated, among other things:
“On the other hand, the Court has repeatedly emphasized the need for affirming the comprehensive authority of the States and of school officials, consistent with fundamental constitutional safeguards, to prescribe and control conduct in the schools. * * *
“The problem posed by the present case does not relate to regulation of the length of skirts or the type of clothing, to hair style, or deportment.”
Mr. Justice Black points out in his dissent that some of the defiant pupils who sought the assistance of the United States Supreme Court to assure them their “constitutional” right to protest the Viet Nam war by wearing black armbands to school were as young as eight years old.
The majority opinion, and I believe properly, rejects the first amendment to the United States Constitution as a basis for overturning the regulation in the case at bar. The majority opinion then hints that it might strike down the regulation under the language of the fifth and fourteenth amendments, but does not specifically do so. The maj ority opinion states :
“ * * * but probably the most relevant constitutional premise of all, is the Ninth Amendment: ‘The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.’ ”
The court then states :
“What is clear from an examination of the history and origin of the Ninth Amendment is that the absence of a specific constitutional provision dealing with the rights of privacy, personal taste, the right to be left alone, and the like, does not compel the conclusion that no such right exists.”
In short, what the majority opinion tells us today is that all discipline or regulation in any public school in the state of Idaho which is repugnant to the feelings of any child from kindergarten through high school that his “right of privacy,” “right of personal taste,” “the right to be left alone,” and “the like,” is prima facie unconstitutional if challenged by that child, and the administration is required to prove by a “substantial burden of justification” that the validity of the regulation is essential. I suggest that such theory logically terminates in this, or some other court, administering the public school system of the state. This I am unwilling to do.