No. 71-162
Argued: January 18, 1972Decided: June 29, 1972
446 F.2d 806, reversed and remanded. [408 U.S. 564, 565]
STEWART, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER, C. J., and WHITE, BLACKMUN, and REHNQUIST, JJ., joined. BURGER, C. J., filed a concurring opinion, post, p. 603. DOUGLAS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 579. BRENNAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which DOUGLAS, J., joined, post, p. 604. MARSHALL, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 587. POWELL, J., took no part in the decision of the case.
Charles A. Bleck, Assistant Attorney General of Wisconsin, argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the brief were Robert W. Warren, Attorney General, and Robert D. Martinson, Assistant Attorney General.
Steven H. Steinglass argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Robert L. Reynolds, Jr., Richard Perry, and Richard M. Klein.
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed by Robert H. Quinn, Attorney General, Walter H. Mayo III, Assistant Attorney General, and Morris M. Goldings for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; by Evelle J. Younger, Attorney General of California, Elizabeth Palmer, Acting Assistant Attorney General, and Donald B. Day, Deputy Attorney General, for the Board of Trustees of the California State Colleges; by J. Lee Rankin and Stanley Buchsbaum for the City of New York; and by Albert E. Jenner, Jr., Chester T. Kamin, and Richard T. Dunn for the American Council on Education et al.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed by David Rubin, Michael H. Gottesman, George H. Cohen, and Warren Burnett for the National Education Association et al.; by Herman I. Orentlicher and William W. Van Alstyne for the American Association of University Professors; by John Ligtenberg and Andrew J. Leahy for the American Federation of Teachers; and by Richard L. Cates for the Wisconsin Education Association. [408 U.S. 564, 566]
MR. JUSTICE STEWART delivered the opinion of the Court.
In 1968 the respondent, David Roth, was hired for his first teaching job as assistant professor of political science at Wisconsin State University-Oshkosh. He was hired for a fixed term of one academic year. The notice of his faculty appointment specified that his employment would begin on September 1, 1968, and would end on June 30, 1969. 1 The respondent completed that term. But he was informed that he would not be rehired for the next academic year.
The respondent had no tenure rights to continued employment. Under Wisconsin statutory law a state university teacher can acquire tenure as a “permanent” employee only after four years of year-to-year employment. Having acquired tenure, a teacher is entitled to continued employment “during efficiency and good behavior.” A relatively new teacher without tenure, however, is under Wisconsin law entitled to nothing beyond his one-year appointment. 2 There are no statutory [408 U.S. 564, 567] or administrative standards defining eligibility for re-employment. State law thus clearly leaves the decision whether to rehire a nontenured teacher for another year to the unfettered discretion of university officials.
The procedural protection afforded a Wisconsin State University teacher before he is separated from the University corresponds to his job security. As a matter of statutory law, a tenured teacher cannot be “discharged except for cause upon written charges” and pursuant to certain procedures. 3 A nontenured teacher, similarly, is protected to some extent during his one-year term. Rules promulgated by the Board of Regents provide that a nontenured teacher “dismissed” before the end of the year may have some opportunity for review of the “dismissal.” But the Rules provide no real protection for a nontenured teacher who simply is not re-employed for the next year. He must be informed by February 1 “concerning retention or non-retention for the ensuing year.” But “no reason for non-retention need be given. No review or appeal is provided in such case.” 4 [408 U.S. 564, 568]
In conformance with these Rules, the President of Wisconsin State University-Oshkosh informed the respondent before February 1, 1969, that he would not be rehired for the 1969-1970 academic year. He gave the respondent no reason for the decision and no opportunity to challenge it at any sort of hearing.
The respondent then brought this action in Federal District Court alleging that the decision not to rehire him for the next year infringed his Fourteenth Amendment rights. He attacked the decision both in substance and procedure. First, he alleged that the true reason for the decision was to punish him for certain statements critical of the University administration, and that it therefore violated his right to freedom of speech. 5 [408 U.S. 564, 569] Second, he alleged that the failure of University officials to give him notice of any reason for nonretention and an opportunity for a hearing violated his right to procedural due process of law.
The District Court granted summary judgment for the respondent on the procedural issue, ordering the University officials to provide him with reasons and a hearing. 310 F. Supp. 972. The Court of Appeals, with one judge dissenting, affirmed this partial summary judgment. 446 F.2d 806. We granted certiorari. 404 U.S. 909 . The only question presented to us at this stage in the case is whether the respondent had a constitutional right to a statement of reasons and a hearing on the University’s decision not to rehire him for another year. 6 We hold that he did not.
I
The requirements of procedural due process apply only to the deprivation of interests encompassed by the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection of liberty and property. When protected interests are implicated, the right [408 U.S. 564, 570] to some kind of prior hearing is paramount. 7 But the range of interests protected by procedural due process is not infinite.
The District Court decided that procedural due process guarantees apply in this case by assessing and balancing the weights of the particular interests involved. It concluded that the respondent’s interest in re-employment at Wisconsin State University-Oshkosh outweighed the University’s interest in denying him re-employment summarily. 310 F. Supp., at 977-979. Undeniably, the respondent’s re-employment prospects were of major concern to him – concern that we surely cannot say was insignificant. And a weighing process has long been a part of any determination of the form of hearing required in particular situations by procedural due process. 8 But, to determine whether [408 U.S. 564, 571] due process requirements apply in the first place, we must look not to the “weight” but to the nature of the interest at stake. See Morrissey v. Brewer, ante, at 481. We must look to see if the interest is within the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection of liberty and property.
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- “Liberty” and “property” are broad and majestic terms. They are among the “[g]reat [constitutional] concepts . . . purposely left to gather meaning from experience. . . . [T]hey relate to the whole domain of social and economic fact, and the statesmen who founded this Nation knew too well that only a stagnant society remains unchanged.” National Ins. Co. v. Tidewater Co., 337 U.S. 582, 646 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). For that reason, the Court has fully and finally rejected the wooden distinction between “rights” and “privileges” that once seemed to govern the applicability of procedural due process rights.
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- The Court has also made clear that the property interests protected by
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- procedural due process extend well beyond actual ownership of real estate, chattels, or money.
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- By the same token, the Court has required due process protection for deprivations of liberty beyond the sort of formal constraints imposed by the criminal process.
Yet, while the Court has eschewed rigid or formalistic limitations on the protection of procedural due process, it has at the same time observed certain boundaries. For the words “liberty” and “property” in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment must be given some meaning.
II
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- “While this Court has not attempted to define with exactness the liberty . . . guaranteed [by the Fourteenth Amendment], the term has received much consideration and some of the included things have been definitely stated. Without doubt, it denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint but also the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and generally to enjoy those privileges long recognized . . . as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.” Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399 . In a Constitution for a free people, there can be no doubt that the meaning of “liberty” must be broad indeed. See, e. g., Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497, 499 -500; Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645 .
There might be cases in which a State refused to re-employ a person under such circumstances that interests in liberty would be implicated. But this is not such a case.
The State, in declining to rehire the respondent, did not make any charge against him that might seriously damage his standing and associations in his community. It did not base the nonrenewal of his contract on a charge, for example, that he had been guilty of dishonesty, or immorality. Had it done so, this would be a different case. For “[w]here a person’s good name, reputation, honor, or integrity is at stake because of what the government is doing to him, notice and an opportunity to be heard are essential.” Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U.S. 433, 437 . Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U.S. 183, 191 ; Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath, 341 U.S. 123 ; United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. 303, 316 -317; Peters v. Hobby, 349 U.S. 331, 352 (DOUGLAS, J., concurring). See Cafeteria Workers v. McElroy, 367 U.S. 886, 898 . In such a case, due process would accord an opportunity to refute the charge before University officials. 12 In the present case, however, there is no suggestion whatever that the respondent’s “good name, reputation, honor, or integrity” is at stake.
Similarly, there is no suggestion that the State, in declining to re-employ the respondent, imposed on him a stigma or other disability that foreclosed his freedom to take advantage of other employment opportunities. The State, for example, did not invoke any regulations to bar the respondent from all other public employment in state universities. Had it done so, this, again, would [408 U.S. 564, 574] be a different case. For “[t]o be deprived not only of present government employment but of future opportunity for it certainly is no small injury . . . .” Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath, supra, at 185 (Jackson, J., concurring). See Truax v. Raich, 239 U.S. 33, 41 . The Court has held, for example, that a State, in regulating eligibility for a type of professional employment, cannot foreclose a range of opportunities “in a manner . . . that contravene[s] . . . Due Process,” Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners, 353 U.S. 232, 238 , and, specifically, in a manner that denies the right to a full prior hearing. Willner v. Committee on Character, 373 U.S. 96, 103 . See Cafeteria Workers v. McElroy, supra, at 898. In the present case, however, this principle does not come into play. 13
To be sure, the respondent has alleged that the nonrenewal of his contract was based on his exercise of his right to freedom of speech. But this allegation is not now before us. The District Court stayed proceedings on this issue, and the respondent has yet to prove that [408 U.S. 564, 575] the decision not to rehire him was, in fact, based on his free speech activities. 14
Hence, on the record before us, all that clearly appears is that the respondent was not rehired for one year at one university. It stretches the concept too far to suggest that a person is deprived of “liberty” when he simply is not rehired in one job but remains as free as before to seek another. Cafeteria Workers v. McElroy, supra, at 895-896. [408 U.S. 564, 576]
III
The Fourteenth Amendment’s procedural protection of property is a safeguard of the security of interests that a person has already acquired in specific benefits. These interests – property interests – may take many forms.
Thus, the Court has held that a person receiving welfare benefits under statutory and administrative standards defining eligibility for them has an interest in continued receipt of those benefits that is safeguarded by procedural due process. Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254 . 15 See Flemming v. Nestor, 363 U.S. 603, 611 . Similarly, in the area of public employment, the Court has held that a public college professor dismissed from an office held under tenure provisions, Slochower v. Board of Education, 350 U.S. 551 , and college professors and [408 U.S. 564, 577] staff members dismissed during the terms of their contracts, Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U.S. 183 , have interests in continued employment that are safeguarded by due process. Only last year, the Court held that this principle “proscribing summary dismissal from public employment without hearing or inquiry required by due process” also applied to a teacher recently hired without tenure or a formal contract, but nonetheless with a clearly implied promise of continued employment. Connell v. Higginbotham, 403 U.S. 207, 208 .
Certain attributes of “property” interests protected by procedural due process emerge from these decisions. To have a property interest in a benefit, a person clearly must have more than an abstract need or desire for it. He must have more than a unilateral expectation of it. He must, instead, have a legitimate claim of entitlement to it. It is a purpose of the ancient institution of property to protect those claims upon which people rely in their daily lives, reliance that must not be arbitrarily undermined. It is a purpose of the constitutional right to a hearing to provide an opportunity for a person to vindicate those claims.
Property interests, of course, are not created by the Constitution. Rather, they are created and their dimensions are defined by existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent source such as state law – rules or understandings that secure certain benefits and that support claims of entitlement to those benefits. Thus, the welfare recipients in Goldberg v. Kelly, supra, had a claim of entitlement to welfare payments that was grounded in the statute defining eligibility for them. The recipients had not yet shown that they were, in fact, within the statutory terms of eligibility. But we held that they had a right to a hearing at which they might attempt to do so. [408 U.S. 564, 578]
Just as the welfare recipients’ “property” interest in welfare payments was created and defined by statutory terms, so the respondent’s “property” interest in employment at Wisconsin State University-Oshkosh was created and defined by the terms of his appointment. Those terms secured his interest in employment up to June 30, 1969. But the important fact in this case is that they specifically provided that the respondent’s employment was to terminate on June 30. They did not provide for contract renewal absent “sufficient cause.” Indeed, they made no provision for renewal whatsoever.
Thus, the terms of the respondent’s appointment secured absolutely no interest in re-employment for the next year. They supported absolutely no possible claim of entitlement to re-employment. Nor, significantly, was there any state statute or University rule or policy that secured his interest in re-employment or that created any legitimate claim to it. 16 In these circumstances, the respondent surely had an abstract concern in being rehired, but he did not have a property interest sufficient to require the University authorities to give him a hearing when they declined to renew his contract of employment.
IV
Our analysis of the respondent’s constitutional rights in this case in no way indicates a view that an opportunity for a hearing or a statement of reasons for nonretention would, or would not, be appropriate or wise in public [408 U.S. 564, 579] colleges and universities. 17 For it is a written Constitution that we apply. Our role is confined to interpretation of that Constitution.
We must conclude that the summary judgment for the respondent should not have been granted, since the respondent has not shown that he was deprived of liberty or property protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The judgment of the Court of Appeals, accordingly, is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
- It is so ordered.
MR. JUSTICE POWELL took no part in the decision of this case.
[For concurring opinion of MR. CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER, see post, p. 603.]
[For dissenting opinion of MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, see post, p. 604.]
