Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth

Supreme Court of the United States · 1972 · Property

Propertydue processproperty interestliberty interestpublic employmentnontenured teacherlegitimate claim of entitlementunilateral expectation

Facts

David Roth was hired by Wisconsin State University-Oshkosh as an assistant professor for a fixed one-academic-year term running from September 1, 1968, to June 30, 1969. Under Wisconsin law, a teacher obtained tenure only after four years of continuous service, and a nontenured teacher was entitled to nothing beyond the one-year appointment. University rules required notice of retention or nonretention by February 1, but stated that no reason for nonretention need be given and no review or appeal was available. Before February 1, Roth was informed that he would not be rehired for the next academic year, and he was given neither reasons nor a hearing.

Issue

Whether a nontenured state university teacher employed for a fixed one-year term had a Fourteenth Amendment procedural due process right to a statement of reasons and a hearing when the university decided not to rehire him for the following year. More specifically, the question was whether the nonrenewal deprived him of a protected liberty or property interest.

Rule

Procedural due process requirements apply only when the government deprives a person of interests protected as liberty or property by the Fourteenth Amendment. A property interest exists only when the person has more than an abstract desire, need, or unilateral expectation and instead has a legitimate claim of entitlement created and defined by existing rules or understandings stemming from an independent source such as state law; a liberty interest may be implicated when the government, in connection with nonretention, makes charges that seriously damage a person's standing or imposes a stigma or disability that forecloses future employment opportunities.

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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

Maya Chen was hired by the public arts college in Columbus, Ohio, for a single nine-month term as a lecturer in design. Her appointment letter stated a start date and an end date, and state law gave first-year lecturers no tenure or renewal rights; when the term ended, the college simply chose not to offer another contract.

Was Maya constitutionally entitled to notice of reasons and a hearing before the college declined to offer her another contract?

Explanation. The majority held that procedural due process applies only when the government deprives a person of a protected liberty or property interest. A fixed-term public employee with no tenure, no statutory renewal protection, and no rule securing reemployment has only an abstract desire or unilateral expectation of another contract, not a legitimate claim of entitlement. The old right-privilege distinction is not the rule, so the best answer is that no protected interest existed. (Derived from Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth (n.d.).)