## Facts

- A municipal public technical college required first-year students to take physical education, including compulsory kendo practical training that heavily affected the course grade.
- A student, a Jehovah’s Witness, informed instructors before classes began that participating in kendo sparring conflicted with sincere religious beliefs and requested substitutes (e.g., reports or alternative exercises).
- Instructors and the principal refused to consider or implement any alternative measures and warned that nonparticipation would result in academic failure and non-promotion.
- The student attended lectures, warm-ups, and noncombat exercises, but did not participate in kendo sparring; he attempted to submit reports, which instructors declined to accept.
- Because kendo practical was graded as absence/nonperformance, the student failed physical education in his first year and was not promoted.
- The same pattern occurred when he repeated the year: he again failed physical education, was not promoted a second consecutive time, and the principal issued an expulsion order under internal rules tied to two consecutive non-promotions.
- The student’s performance in other subjects was strong, and he did not refuse other physical education activities.
- Lower courts split: the trial court upheld the college’s actions; the appellate court annulled them as an abuse of discretion.

## Issues

1. Under what circumstances may a public school principal’s academic and disciplinary decisions (non-promotion and expulsion) be annulled as an unlawful abuse of discretion.
2. Whether refusing to provide any accommodation for a student’s sincere religious objection to compulsory kendo, and then imposing non-promotion and expulsion, unlawfully burdens freedom of religion.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court dismissed the college’s appeal and affirmed the judgment annulling the two non-promotion decisions and the expulsion order.
- The Court held the principal’s actions were markedly inappropriate by social norms and therefore exceeded or abused the scope of permissible educational discretion.
- The Court rejected the argument that offering substitute measures would constitute impermissible state support of a particular religion.

## Legal Principles

- Academic evaluation and school discipline by public educational authorities are generally committed to the principal’s reasonable educational discretion.
- Courts may annul such decisions only when they lack any factual basis or are, in light of social norms, markedly inappropriate, thereby exceeding or abusing discretionary power.
- When a compulsory curricular requirement conflicts with a student’s sincere religious conviction closely connected to the core of the faith, a public school must reasonably consider whether substitute measures are feasible before imposing severe disadvantages.
- Denying any consideration of feasible alternatives and imposing severe sanctions that effectively pressure a student to act against core religious convictions can render school measures unlawful.
- Reasonable accommodation to avoid penalizing religious observance does not, without more, amount to prohibited governmental aid to religion.

## Conclusion

The Supreme Court annulled the student’s non-promotion and expulsion because the college refused to consider feasible alternatives to compulsory kendo practical training despite the student’s sincere, core religious objection, making the sanctions an unlawful abuse of educational discretion and an unjustifiable burden on religious freedom.


Kobe Mun. Tech. Coll. v. Kobayashi, 50 Minshū 469 (Sup. Ct. Japan 1996)