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Home » Legal » High School Civil Liberties Project » Due Process and Fair Treatment
Frequently Asked Questions on: Due Process and Fair Treatment What does the right to “due process of law” mean? The Constitution mandates that all government agencies treat all persons fairly. Specifically, the Fourteenth Amendment states that the government may not “deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law.” The principal, the teachers, the coaches, the school security guards, and all other employees of schools are employees of the government and therefore under the Fourteenth Amendment have a legal duty to treat students fairly. This means that they may not impose any serious punishment for alleged misconduct without first having followed certain established procedures to determine if the suspect is in fact guilty. An important concern is the unequal treatment of students, when certain students are punished more often or harder than other students because of their race and/or gender (See “Racial Profiling”). Do I have a right to hearing every time a teacher or principal wants to punish me? Sometimes, but not always. The general rule is that a student has a right to a hearing for serious punishments, but not for minor ones. If a teacher makes a student sit in the back of the room for being noisy, there is no right to a hearing. But if the teacher reports that student to the principal and recommends suspension for the rest of the term, then the student is entitled to a hearing. Do schools discipline students discriminately? In study after study it has been found that students of color are suspended in disproportional numbers than white students. It is illegal to discriminate against students because of their religion, race, gender, sexual orientation, or any other distinguishing factor. If you think that your school has been discriminative, contact your local ACLU to try and get your school to adopt fairer procedures. What can my school suspend me for? Each year about 1.5 million students are suspended for a day or more from school. Most offences that result in suspension have to do with truancy or smoking on school grounds. What a school can suspend you for depends on what state you live in. Most school officials consider suspension an extreme punishment, and they often use it only as a last resort when a student is doing something illegal, dangerous, or extremely disruptive. The same thing goes for expulsions, although in many states expulsion is illegal because everyone has the right to an education. What are my rights if I am about to be suspended? If you are about to be suspended, you have a legal right to know the charges against you. A student also has the right to a hearing before impartial judges. If the student denies the charges, the school officials must tell the student what evidence they have against him or her and give the student a chance to defend him or herself. If the student is facing serious punishment, such as expulsion or suspension for more then 10 days, he or she has the right to be represented by a lawyer who can call witnesses. Students have the right to question and cross-examine accusers and their witnesses. Additionally, a student may legally request a record to be made of everything that happens at the hearing. The record if an appeal is made. The only way that a school can suspend or expel a student without a hearing is if the student is a danger to other students or to school property. But even then, by law, the school is obligated to give the student notice and a hearing as quickly as possible after the expulsion. If I am suspended do I have the right to a hearing every time? Yes. In a important decision, Goss v. Lopez, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a “student’s legitimate entitlement to a public education is a property interest which is protected by the Due Process Clause … and may not be taken away for misconduct without adherence to the minimum procedures required by that Clause.” Can I be punished for violating a rule I didn’t know existed? Schools may not punish you for violating a policy you had no reason to believe existed, even if the rules are unwritten. If, for example, you sometimes leave school during a free period instead of going to study hall, and students have never been told of a rule or policy forbidding this, it would be illegal to punish you without prior warning. If, however, a teacher specifically tells you not to leave and you do, it is likely that you can be punished even in the absence of a written rule. Indeed, just disobeying school officials is grounds for suspension in many school districts. If I am excluded from transportation from school, do I have a right to due process before I am excluded? Yes. If you have no other way to get to school, exclusion from the school bus is as serious as suspension or expulsion. However, a court ruled that a hearing on exclusions from the bus may take place after bus service to the student was suspended. Can I be punished for what I do outside of school, in school? It depends mostly on whether your behavior impacts your conduct in school. In some states, schools have authority over student activities only on school grounds and at school sponsored activities. While in some states the courts have given schools authority to suspend students who commit serious crimes off school grounds, schools would violate an accused student’s due process rights if that student was not granted a hearing before the suspension. Web Links: |
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