Takeaway
In short, Roth established that procedural due process protects only liberty or property interests, and a nontenured employee's hope of contract renewal is not enough without a state-law, contractual, policy-based, or similarly established entitlement.
David Roth was hired as an assistant professor at Wisconsin State University-Oshkosh for a single academic year, from September 1, 1968, through June 30, 1969. He had no tenure rights. Under Wisconsin law, faculty generally obtained permanent status only after four years of continuous service, while probationary teachers had no statutory right to renewal after their one-year appointments ended.
The university notified Roth before the required February 1 deadline that it would not rehire him for the following year. It gave no reason and offered no hearing or internal review. Roth alleged both that the decision was retaliation for his criticism of the university administration, in violation of the First Amendment, and that the lack of reasons and a hearing violated procedural due process.
The District Court granted Roth partial summary judgment on the procedural claim and ordered the university to provide reasons and a hearing. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari, limiting its review at this stage to whether Roth had a constitutional right to reasons and a hearing before the university declined to renew his appointment.
Issue #1
Whether procedural due process applies merely because a public employee has an important personal interest in being rehired.
Holding
No. Procedural due process is triggered only when the government deprives a person of an interest in liberty or property protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Reasoning
The Court rejected the lower courts' approach of balancing Roth's substantial interest in continued employment against the university's interest in acting summarily to decide whether due process applied at all. Balancing may help determine what procedures are required after a protected interest is identified, but it cannot itself create a constitutional entitlement to procedures.
The Fourteenth Amendment does not protect every important personal interest. Although the Court had discarded the old distinction between governmental "rights" and "privileges," due process still applies only when state action deprives a person of liberty or property within the amendment's meaning.
Issue #2
Whether the university's decision not to renew Roth's one-year appointment deprived him of a protected liberty interest.
Holding
No. The nonrenewal neither stigmatized Roth nor foreclosed other employment opportunities, and it therefore did not deprive him of liberty.
Reasoning
A government employer may implicate liberty when it makes accusations that seriously damage an employee's good name, reputation, honor, or integrity, such as charges of dishonesty or immorality. In that circumstance, notice and a hearing are necessary to give the employee a meaningful opportunity to clear his name.
Liberty may also be implicated if government action imposes a stigma or legal disability that forecloses a person's freedom to pursue other employment. But Wisconsin did not bar Roth from other public employment, make charges against him, or otherwise restrict his ability to seek another teaching position.
The bare fact that Roth was not rehired for one job did not establish a deprivation of liberty. Any possibility that a record of nonrenewal might make him less attractive to future employers was too speculative and insufficiently connected to a state-imposed restriction on employment opportunities.
Issue #3
Whether Roth had a protected property interest in re-employment for the following academic year.
Holding
No. Roth had only a unilateral expectation of renewal, not a legitimate claim of entitlement created by his appointment, state law, or university policy.
Reasoning
A protected property interest requires more than an abstract need, desire, or unilateral expectation of a benefit. A person must instead have a legitimate claim of entitlement to it, derived from an independent source such as state law, a contract, rules, policies, or established understandings.
Roth's appointment expressly ran only through June 30, 1969. It secured his employment during that stated term, but it made no promise of renewal and did not condition nonrenewal on cause or any stated standard.
Wisconsin law and university rules likewise gave probationary teachers no entitlement to another year of employment. The law left re-employment decisions to university officials' discretion, required only timely notice of nonretention, and expressly provided that no reason, review, or appeal was required.
Roth therefore had an understandable personal concern about being rehired, but no constitutionally protected property interest in future employment at the university. Because no protected property interest was at stake, the university was not constitutionally required to provide reasons or a hearing.
Issue #4
Whether Roth's allegation that the university retaliated against him for protected speech established a due-process right to reasons and a hearing in this appeal.
Holding
No. The Court did not decide the First Amendment retaliation claim, because the lower court had not resolved the factual basis for it; the allegation alone did not establish a liberty or property interest requiring procedures.
Reasoning
Roth alleged that the true reason for nonrenewal was his public criticism of the university administration. The District Court, however, stayed that substantive claim and made no finding about the actual reason for the decision not to rehire him.
The Court emphasized that a proven decision to penalize protected speech would present a distinct constitutional question. But the interest in retaining a state university teaching job, by itself, is not a First Amendment interest, and an unresolved allegation of retaliation could not transform Roth's nonrenewal into a deprivation of liberty or property for procedural-due-process purposes.