Court Opinion

ID: 9531258
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:09:14.237943+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:22.936816
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE MURRAY, dissenting: The majority may be correct that the Illinois School Code affords no relief to an assistant principal who, despite over three years’ service, is unjustly removed from that position and assigned a less remunerative role. I do not agree with the majority’s conclusion that the fourteenth amendment of the United States Constitution is not applicable to Bart’s cause. In Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill (1985), 470 U.S. 532, 84 L. Ed. 2d 494,105 S. Ct. 1487, it was claimed that Loudermill, a board of education security guard, had no State property rights because he obtained his job by lying on his application. The United States Supreme Court held that the security guard may not have State property rights in his job, but he or she does have fourteenth amendment due process rights, saying: "While the legislature may not elect to confer a property interest in [public employment], it may not constitutionally authorize the deprivation of such interest, once conferred, without appropriate procedural safeguards.” Arnett v. Kennedy (1974), 416 U.S. 134, 167, 40 L. Ed. 2d 15, 40-41, 94 S. Ct. 1633, 1650 (Powell, J., concurring). I think Bart, as an assistant principal, has the same United States constitutional rights of due process as a Cleveland security guard. I would reverse and remand for a due process hearing on the serious charges of discriminatory conduct reflected in Bart’s complaint.