A student drives his car into a crowd of other students. He is suspended for ten (10) days. In the old days, he would have been afraid to go home. Today, his parents incur over $25,000 in attorney's fees challenging the suspension. The question -- what process is due process. The answer:
In short-term suspension cases “once administrators tell a student what they heard or saw,
ask why they heard or saw it, and allow a brief response, a student has received all the
process that the Fourteenth Amendment demands.”
The court, however, did not address any potential claims under the Tennessee Constitution -- presumably because the parents did not raise those claims. In addition, the Court limited its holding to short-term suspensions.
Next the Court addressed the issue of whether the disciplinary coordinator could act as prosecutor and decision maker during the course of the student's appeal. With respect to that issue, the court of appeals stated that it is not grounds for automatic disqualification. Instead, he stated that the student must show that "a risk of actual bias is intolerably high." As the student received the requisite due process hearing before his principal, the bias of the disciplinary coordinator on appeal was moot. Again, the Court did not address the Tennessee Constitution or any provision of the School Board Policy.
For now, students in public schools may be suspended for 10 days or less with the only hearing being the hearing before the school administrator.
See Heyne, et al. v. Metro Nashville Board of Education.
No comments:
Post a Comment