Due process means that the legal rights of an individual must be upheld. In regard to due process in the cases of the violation of school policy, the right to receive notice and hearing can vary, depending on the amount of time a student is expelled or suspended. It is a general rule of thumb that school administrators must inform a student, either in writing or orally, of the accusations against her and the supporting evidence. School policies are usually published in a handbook given to students. However, there are times when school policies are general or unclear on due process regarding rule violations (Gesaman, n.d.). If the policy is vague or open to interpretation, that opens the door to law suits and misinterpretation of student rights. All 50 states have enacted laws that provide free public education, which means they cannot take away those rights to students without a notice and hearing. The Supreme Court has held that public school students therefore have the right to due process (Gesaman, n.d.)
The first case of due process having to do with students suspended or expelled from school for violating policies took place in 2007 at Blue Mountain Middle School in Pennsylvania. An eighth grade student was reprimanded for violating the school’s dress code. To retaliate, she created a fake social media profile of the school’s principal, claiming he was bisexual and made sexual advances to students (Gesaman, n.d.). The administration found out and gave her a ten day out-of-school suspension. The student, claiming her First Amendment rights had been violated, filed a lawsuit against the school.
The court heard the case “en banc” with the judges voting in the student’s favor, stating that the suspension did in fact violate her rights to free speech and she was entitled to monetary compensation. The ruling found that schools cannot punish a student for exercising her right to free speech regardless of whether or not it contained vulgar language and defamatory claims. The dissenters disagreed and found that the student’s speech “posed a threat of substantial disruption to the educational environment” leaving schools “defenseless to protect teachers and school officials against such attacks . . . “(Leddy, 2012, par. 24). The student had challenged her suspension claiming that her actions took place off-campus and the school acted outside the boundaries of its authority. While the school has clear policies in place regarding the improper use of school computers, that does not extend to the use of personal home computers.
The second case is Gross v. Lopez from the mid1970s in which nine students from an Ohio public junior high school were suspended for ten days for disruptive and disobedient behavior, such as damaging school property during the school day. Dwight Lopez claims he was not involved in the incident but rather a bystander. In addition, no one from the school testified regarding the alleged misconduct and there was no record of evidence. Lopez was never notified of or granted a hearing. Subsequently, Lopez, along with the other nine students, were suspended (Gesaman, n.d.).
The Supreme Court held a ten-day suspension cannot be imposed and is in “disregard of the Due Process Clause” (Gesaman, n.d.). The ruling stated that a hearing is “essential to make sure that a student is not excluded from the educational process based on a mistake or misunderstanding” (Gesaman, n.d., par. 8). In addition, a district court ruled that the “appellees were denied due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment,” having been suspended without a prior hearing (Gross v. Lopez, n.d., par. 1). The requested injunction was granted and it was determined that not only were the students not notified in advance of their right to a hearing, but that their reputation could be damaged, thus possibly having a negative impact on future employment.
