Warren County Board of Education V. Wilkinson
500 So. 2d 455 (1986)
Background
The student sought an injunction of the school board enforcement of a decision withholding the students entire second semester credits because of an alleged violation of school policy by drinking three sips of beer at home prior to coming to school.
The student and a classmate drank two or three sips of beer from her father’s beer at home before leaving to go to school for the last day of classes. The student neither smelled of alcohol, was otherwise unruly or disruptive and attended class during the day. The principal, however, confronted student and confirmed what the teachers learned of the student’s behavior after confronting her classmate and thereafter extracting an admission from her that they had drunk beer before coming to school. The student was exempt from examinations although she had perfect attendance and had no prior disciplinary history. The principal advised the student’s parents in writing that she would be required to appear for a hearing before the Warren County Board of Education because she had come to school after drinking beer at their home before school.
Relevancy for School Disciplinary Hearings
Answering questions of 8th amendment issues of proportionality and cruel and unusual punishment, the substantive protections of the le amendment property in education and due process requirements of notice, opportunity to be heard, and the right to confront witnesses and cross-examination.
Held
The Mississippi Supreme court affirmed the Chancery Court decision to issue the injunction reasoning that the student had a protected property interest under the U.S. Constitution because she faced suspension from school, that the board failed to adhere to procedural due process under the le amendment to the U.S. Constitution in not informing the student of the specific school rules she had violated, and had not afforded the student the opportunity to present witnesses as she had requested in writing per the school board policy.
The court noted that there was no opportunity to be heard because there was no hearing “de novo” by the school board as such and that the student was deprived of her 5th and 6th Amendment rights due to the failure of the school board to hear witnesses or allow cross examination of witnesses. The court further found that the school board did not identify a rule that the student had in fact violated, implying that the school board acted arbitrarily and capriciously without any basis whatsoever within the school board policy or within the school handbook to support its action. Finally, the court ruled that the action that was taken was cruel and unusual punishment that had no proportionality whatsoever to the alleged offense and thus the court determined that the school board violated fundamental principles of law.