Constitutional Law — due process — liberty interest

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Civil

Constitutional Law — due process — liberty interest

Banning an expelled student from school property does not take a constitutionally protected liberty interest.

“Case law also supports our holding that members of the public do not have a constitutional right to access school property. In Vukadinovich v. Board of School Trustees of Michigan City Area Schools, a principal banned a former teacher from a public school who had continued to enter school grounds after being terminated. 978 F.2d 403, 407 (7th Cir. 1992). We determined that Vukadinovich became a member of the public once discharged, and we stated that ‘[m]embers of the public have no constitutional right of access to public schools.’ Id. at 409. Hannemann seeks to distinguish Vukadinovich as only involving rights under the First Amendment, which Hannemann no longer alleges. Even though we did not analyze due process rights in Vukadinovich (due to defendants’ concession that Vukadinovich had a protected property interest in his employment), we recognized, as the baseline for our analysis, that the public has no constitutional right to access schools. The First Amendment framework then required Vukadinovich to allege that a governmental body or authority had transformed the school into a public form, which he failed to do. The same baseline determination—that the public has no constitutional right to access schools—applies to Hannemann’s claim. The ‘stigma plus’ due process framework requires Hannemann to establish that defamatory statements caused him to lose a right recognized by state law, which he has failed to do. Hannemann has at most alleged a right to access school grounds stemming from a Southern Door County School District policy, but this does not suffice. See Paul, 424 U.S. at 711.”

Affirmed.

11-2529 Hannemann v. Southern door County School District

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Griesbach, J., Flaum, J.