Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth

Summary

The Supreme Court held that a nontenured public university professor hired for a fixed one-year term had no constitutional right to a statement of reasons or a hearing when the university declined to rehire him. Because the appointment created no legitimate claim of entitlement to future employment and the nonrenewal did not implicate a protected liberty interest on the record presented, procedural due process did not apply. The Court reversed and remanded, while noting that the professor’s separate First Amendment retaliation claim remained unresolved.

Holdings

1. A person has a constitutionally protected property interest only when existing rules or understandings from an independent source, such as state law, create a legitimate claim of entitlement to the benefit. Roth's fixed-term appointment and applicable Wisconsin law created no entitlement to reemployment, so its nonrenewal did not implicate a protected property interest.
2. The nonrenewal of Roth's appointment did not deprive him of a protected liberty interest because the State made no charge damaging his reputation and imposed no stigma or disability foreclosing his freedom to pursue other employment.
3. The Court did not decide whether Roth's nonrenewal was retaliation for protected speech because that issue had been stayed below and Roth had not yet established that the decision was based on his speech activities.

Questions Presented

1. Whether a nontenured public university teacher whose fixed-term appointment expires, and whose governing law provides no entitlement to renewal, has a Fourteenth Amendment property interest in reemployment requiring notice and a hearing.
2. Whether the nonrenewal of Roth's appointment, without a charge of wrongdoing or a state-imposed disability foreclosing other employment, deprived him of a liberty interest requiring procedural due process.
3. Whether the Court should decide Roth's separate allegation that the nonrenewal was retaliatory for protected speech at this stage of the proceedings.