Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593 (1972)

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER, concurring.*

I concur in the Court’s judgments and opinions in Sindermann and Roth, but there is one central point in both decisions that I would like to underscore, since it may have been obscured in the comprehensive discussion of the cases. That point is that the relationship between a state institution and one of its teachers is essentially a matter of state concern and state law. The Court holds today only that a state employed teacher who has a right to reemployment under state law, arising from either an express or implied contract has, in turn, a right, guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, to some form of prior administrative or academic hearing on the cause for nonrenewal of his contract. Thus, whether a particular teacher in a particular context has any right to such administrative hearing hinges on a question of state law. The Court’s opinion makes this point very sharply:

Board of Regents v. Roth, ante at 577.

Because the availability of the Fourteenth Amendment right to a prior administrative hearing turns in each case on a question of state law, the issue of abstention will arise in future cases contesting whether a particular teacher is entitled to a hearing prior to nonrenewal of his contract. If relevant state contract law is unclear, a federal court should, in my view, abstain from deciding whether he is constitutionally entitled to a prior hearing, and the teacher should be left to resort to state courts on the questions arising under state law.

* This opinion applies also to No. 71-162, Board of Regents of State Colleges et al. v. Roth, ante, p. 564.