John M. Bates v. Harold E. Sponberg

ENGEL, Circuit Judge.

This appeal presents the question of whether plaintiff, a tenured faculty member at Eastern Michigan University, was denied his right to procedural due process where the hearing on his dismissal was before a body other than that which passed final judgment on his discharge for cause. The district judge held that the University Board of Regents had a self-imposed duty to review the record of plaintiff’s discharge hearing, and that its refusal to do so violated plaintiff’s Fourteenth Amendment rights. Accordingly, summary judgment was entered for plaintiff. 1

The plaintiff,…