## Facts

- The College of William and Mary was founded in Virginia in 1693 under a royal charter of incorporation.
- The charter provided for a president and six masters or professors in areas such as divinity, philosophy, and languages, and it created a governing body of Visitors.
- The charter authorized the Visitors to make rules, laws, statutes, and orders for the good of the college.
- In 1727, the Visitors enacted a statute creating a Grammar School to teach Latin and Greek and providing for appointment of a grammar master.
- In 1777, the Visitors appointed Rev. John Bracken as grammar master and professor under the college’s internal arrangements.
- In 1779, the Visitors passed a statute discontinuing the Grammar School, seeking to shift the college’s program toward subjects such as law, science, and modern languages.
- As a result of discontinuing the Grammar School, Bracken was removed from his post as grammar master and professor.
- Bracken sought a writ of mandamus in the trial court to compel the Visitors to reinstate him; because of the difficulty of the questions presented, the matter was transferred to Virginia’s highest court.

## Issues

1. Whether a writ of mandamus could issue to compel the Visitors of William & Mary to reinstate Bracken after the Visitors, acting under the charter, discontinued the Grammar School and eliminated the position.
2. Whether decisions about the college’s internal academic organization and offices were committed by the charter to the Visitors, limiting judicial intervention.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia refused to grant mandamus.
- Bracken was not reinstated to the former Grammar School position.

## Legal Principles

- Mandamus is not available to control discretionary governance choices of a chartered educational corporation when the charter commits those matters to the corporation’s designated Visitors.
- Where a charter grants Visitors authority to make statutes and orders for the institution’s welfare, that authority generally includes deciding whether to continue, change, or discontinue internal schools and offices created by the institution’s own statutes.
- Courts will not use mandamus to substitute judicial judgment for the Visitors’ judgment on internal academic structure and staffing when no clear ministerial duty to reinstate exists.

## Conclusion

The court denied Bracken’s request for mandamus, treating the discontinuance of the Grammar School and the resulting removal of Bracken as an internal governance decision within the authority granted to the college’s Visitors by the 1693 charter, rather than a matter for judicial compulsion through reinstatement.


Bracken v. Visitors of William & Mary College, 7 Va. 573 (1790)