00-2522 Townsend v. Vallas

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“In Mr. Townsend’s case, however, the Board only temporarily transferred him from his teaching position, pending an investigation regarding the death of a child, and it provided Mr. Townsend with his full teacher’s salary while it did so. Within two months, the Board alerted him that it would not seek more than a thirty-day suspension in the matter; soon after that, it indicated that he would be returned to his teaching position at Julian in the future. This type of temporary reassignment in the wake of a serious safety incident is a foreseeable aspect of the duties of being a teacher. We do not believe that Illinois courts would say that the defendants ‘rearrange[d] teaching positions or assignments in ways which defeat the rights of tenured teachers and circumvent the purpose and spirit of the tenure laws.’ Hansen, 502 N.E.2d at 471. Consequently, such a temporary removal from the classroom, specifically circumscribed for an important educational purpose, does not constitute a removal from a teaching position that can be characterized as the deprivation of a cognizable property right.”

Affirmed in part and reversed and remanded in part.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Hart, J., Ripple, J.