“That the school authorities have the right and the duty to screen the officials, teachers, and employees as to their fitness to maintain the integrity of the schools as a part of ordered society, cannot be doubted.” (cleaned up)
How later courts described this case
- “That the school authorities have the right and the duty to screen the officials, teachers, and employees as to their fitness to maintain the integrity of the schools as a part of ordered society, cannot be doubted.” (cleaned up)
- “By engaging in teaching in the public schools, petitioner did not give up his right to freedom of belief, speech or association. He did, however, undertake obligations of frankness, candor and cooperation in answering inquiries made of him by his employing Board examining into his fitness.to serve it as a public school teacher.”
- “We find no requirement in the Federal Constitution that a teacher’s classroom conduct be the sole basis for determining his fitness. Fitness for teaching depends on a broad range of factors”
- dismissal upon statutory ground of incompetence as broadly interpreted by state court
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Mr. Chief Justice Warren,
dissenting. *
I believe the facts of record in No. 63 compel the conclusion that Beilan’s plea of the Fifth Amendment before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Un-Ameri-can Activities was so inextricably involved in the Board’s decision to discharge him that the validity of the Board’s action cannot be sustained without consideration of this ground. The clearest indication of this is the fact that for 13 months following petitioner’s refusal to answer the Superintendent’s questions, he was retained as a school teacher and continually rated “satisfactory,” yet five days after his appearance before the House subcommittee petitioner was suspended. Since a plea of the Fifth Amendment before a congressional committee is an invalid basis for discharge from public employment, Slochower v. Board of Higher Education, 350 U. S. 551 , I would reverse the judgment approving petitioner’s dismissal.
I cannot agree that the invalidity of the Board’s action is cured by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s conclusion that the dismissal was “justified” if any charge against petitioner was sustained. Whether the first refusal alone *412 would “justify” the discharge we need not decide. This Court has previously held that where a conclusion of guilt may rest on a constitutionally impermissible basis, the adjudication must be set aside, notwithstanding a state court’s conclusion that permissible bases existed on which the decision might have rested. Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359, 368 ; see also Williams v. North Carolina, 317 U. S. 287, 292 . There may be exceptions to the application of this principle to the full range of state administrative action. Nevertheless, on the particular facts of this case, the invalid basis of the State’s action is too critical to be ignored.
For these reasons Mr. Justice Black, Mr. Justice Douglas and I dissent in No. 63. I also dissent in No. 165 for the reasons stated in the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Brennan.
[Note: This opinion applies also to No. 165, Lerner v. Casey, post, p. 468.]