Full Title:
Dixon v. Alabama State Board of Education, 294 F.2d 150
Excerpt:
The question presented by the pleadings and evidence, and decisive of this appeal, is whether due process requires notice and some opportunity for hearing before students at a tax-supported college are expelled for misconduct. We answer that question in the affirmative. The misconduct for which the students were expelled has never been definitely specified. Defendant Trenholm, the President of the College, testified that he did not know why the plaintiffs and three additional students were expelled and twenty other students were placed on probation. The notice of expulsion which Dr. Trenholm mailed to each of the plaintiffs assigned no specific ground for expulsion, but referred in general terms to “this problem of Alabama State College.” The acts of the students considered by the State Board of Education before it ordered their expulsion are described in the opinion of the district court reported in 186 F.Supp. 945, 947, from which we quote in the margin. As shown by the findings of the district court, just quoted in footnote 3, the only demonstration which the evidence showed that all of the expelled students took part in was that in the lunch grill located in the basement of the Montgomery County Courthouse. The other demonstrations were found to be attended “by several if not all of the plaintiffs.” We have carefully read and studied the record, and agree with the district court that the evidence does not affirmatively show that all of the plaintiffs were present at any but the one demonstration.
Source Citation:
Dixon v. Alabama State Board of Education. 1961. 294 F. 2d 150 (5th Cir. 1961).