## Facts

- Mary Alice Brown obtained a South Carolina teaching certificate after Educational Testing Service (ETS) reported that she earned a passing National Teacher Examination (NTE) score.
- Brown began working as a second-grade teacher based on that certificate.
- Midway through the school year, ETS canceled Brown’s NTE scores without disclosing the reason.
- Under state law, cancellation of an NTE score invalidated any teaching certificate issued on the basis of that score; the Department of Education notified Brown that her certificate was no longer valid.
- Brown challenged the withdrawal; a State Board of Education committee held a hearing and affirmed the revocation, without providing Brown the ETS basis for cancellation.
- The Board argued Brown could have pursued ETS’s internal review procedures; Brown maintained those procedures did not provide a meaningful opportunity to confront adverse evidence.

## Issues

1. Whether a state-issued teaching certificate (and the employment it enables) is a protected property interest requiring procedural due process before revocation.
2. Whether due process is satisfied when revocation is automatic upon a private testing entity’s score cancellation and the licensee receives no disclosed reasons and no meaningful opportunity to challenge or confront the evidence supporting cancellation.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of South Carolina reversed the trial court’s judgment upholding the Board’s action.
- The court held Brown had a protected property interest in her teaching certificate and related employment.
- The court held the statutory/administrative scheme, as applied, denied procedural due process because Brown did not receive meaningful notice of the grounds for ETS’s cancellation and lacked a meaningful opportunity to contest the deprivation, including through confrontation and cross-examination where applicable.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with due process requirements.

## Legal Principles

- A state-issued professional license that permits an individual to pursue an occupation is a protected property interest; revocation must comply with procedural due process.
- When loss of livelihood turns on third-party allegations or credibility-dependent information, due process often requires confrontation and cross-examination.
- A state may not effectively delegate decisive control over licensure to a private entity in a way that deprives the licensee of adequate notice and a meaningful opportunity to be heard.
- The state’s constitutional obligation to provide due process is not satisfied merely by pointing to a private organization’s internal review procedures, particularly where those procedures do not supply the safeguards required before a state deprivation.

## Conclusion

The court held that South Carolina could not revoke a teacher’s certificate solely because a private testing company canceled her score without providing disclosed reasons and a meaningful chance to contest the basis for the cancellation, and it required further proceedings consistent with due process.


Brown v. S.C. State Bd. of Educ., 391 S.E.2d 866 (S.C. 1990)