| Perry v. Sindermann
(No. 70-36)
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| Syllabus
| Opinion
[ Stewart ] | Concurrence
[ Burger ] | Dissent
[ Brennan ] | Dissent
[ Marshall ] |
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Perry v. Sindermann
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER, concurring. [*]
I concur in the Court's judgments and opinions in Sindermann and Roth, but there is one central point in both decisions that I would like to underscore, since it may have been obscured in the comprehensive discussion of the cases. That point is that the relationship between a state institution and one of its teachers is essentially a matter of state concern and state law. The Court holds today only that a state employed teacher who has a right to reemployment under state law, arising from either an express or implied contract has, in turn, a right, guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, to some form of prior administrative or academic hearing on the cause [p604] for nonrenewal of his contract. Thus, whether a particular teacher in a particular context has any right to such administrative hearing hinges on a question of state law. The Court's opinion makes this point very sharply:
Property interests . . . are created and their dimensions are defined by existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent source such as state law. . . .
Board of Regents v. Roth, ante at 577.
Because the availability of the Fourteenth Amendment right to a prior administrative hearing turns in each case on a question of state law, the issue of abstention will arise in future cases contesting whether a particular teacher is entitled to a hearing prior to nonrenewal of his contract. If relevant state contract law is unclear, a federal court should, in my view, abstain from deciding whether he is constitutionally entitled to a prior hearing, and the teacher should be left to resort to state courts on the questions arising under state law.
* This opinion applies also to No. 71-162, Board of Regents of State Colleges et al. v. Roth, ante, p. 564.