holding that dismissal was academic when it “rested on the academic judgment of school officials that [student] did not have the necessary clinical ability to perform adequately as a medical doctor and was making insufficient progress toward that goal. Such judgment is by its nature more subjective and evaluative than the typical factual questions presented in the average disciplinary decision.”
How later courts described this case
- holding that dismissal was academic when it “rested on the academic judgment of school officials that [student] did not have the necessary clinical ability to perform adequately as a medical doctor and was making insufficient progress toward that goal. Such judgment is by its nature more subjective and evaluative than the typical factual questions presented in the average disciplinary decision.”
- holding that a student was “awarded at least as much due process as the Fourteenth Amendment requires” because the ”school fully informed respondent of the faculty’s dissatisfaction with her clinical progress and the danger that this posed to timely graduation and continued enrollment” and the “ultimate decision to dismiss the respondent was careful and deliberate”
- explaining that there are “far less stringent procedural requirements in the case of an academic dismissal” and noting that “the determination whether to dismiss a student for academic reasons requires an expert evaluation of cumulative information and is not readily adapted to the procedural tools of judicial or administrative decisionmaking”
- holding that “[t]he need for flexibility is well illustrated by the significant difference between the failure of a student to meet academic standards and the violation by a student of valid rules of conduct. This difference calls for far less stringent procedural requirements in the case of an academic dismissal
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by Morris v. Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University, 2009 Fla. App. LEXIS 15617 (2009)
Horowitz is easily distinguishable because in that case the dismissal was for purely academic reasons, whereas here, FAMU is clearly basing its dismissal of Morris on alleged fraudulent conduct.
Distinguished by Ezekwo v. NYC Health & Hospitals Corp., 940 F.2d 775 (1991)
Moreover, Horowitz is distinguishable from the instant case.
The opinion
Mr. Justice Blackmun,
with whom Mr. Justice Brennan joins, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
The Court’s opinion, and that of Mr. Justice Marshall, together demonstrate conclusively that, assuming the existence of a liberty or property interest, respondent received all the procedural process that was due her under the Fourteenth *109 Amendment. That, for me, disposes of this case, and compels the reversal of the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
I find it unnecessary, therefore, to indulge in the arguments and counterarguments contained in the two opinions as to the extent or type of procedural protection that the Fourteenth Amendment requires in the graduate-school-dismissal situation. Similarly, I also find it unnecessary to choose between the arguments as to whether respondent’s dismissal was for academic or disciplinary reasons (or, indeed, whether such a distinction is relevant). I do agree with Mr. Justice Marshall, however, that we should leave to the District Court and to the Court of Appeals in the first instance the resolution of respondent’s substantive due process claim and of any other claim presented to, but not decided by, those courts.
Accordingly, I, too, would reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings.