## Facts

- The University of Michigan operated “Inteflex,” a six-year combined undergraduate and medical program culminating in a bachelor’s degree and an M.D.
- To advance from pre-clinical study to the final two clinical years, students had to pass the NBME Part I examination.
- Scott Ewing failed NBME Part I with an exceptionally low score and failed five of seven subject areas.
- The Inteflex Promotion and Review Board unanimously voted to dismiss Ewing, citing both the exam failure and a weak overall academic record.
- Ewing sought internal review, arguing prior students who failed had been allowed to retake the exam; the University denied reinstatement and a retake.
- Ewing sued, alleging that dismissal from a public university program violated substantive due process because it was arbitrary and capricious; he also asserted state-law contract and promissory-estoppel theories.
- The district court ruled for the University; the Sixth Circuit reversed and ordered an exam retake and potential reinstatement.

## Issues

1. Whether, assuming a constitutionally protected property interest in continued enrollment, Ewing’s dismissal was arbitrary in violation of substantive due process.
2. What level of federal judicial review applies to academic judgments by public universities challenged on substantive due process grounds.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Sixth Circuit and reinstated judgment for the University.
- The Court assumed, without deciding, that Ewing had a protected property interest in continued enrollment.
- Applying a highly deferential standard, the Court held the dismissal was not arbitrary and did not violate substantive due process.
- The record showed the decision was reached conscientiously, after review of Ewing’s full academic performance and his unusually poor examination result.
- Justice Powell concurred in the judgment, disagreeing with treating continued enrollment as a substantive-due-process “property” interest.

## Legal Principles

- For substantive due process challenges to academic decisions, courts may not override a university’s academic judgment unless it is a substantial departure from accepted academic norms indicating that professional judgment was not actually exercised.
- Academic evaluations are generally ill-suited to extensive judicial oversight, and federal courts must give strong deference to faculty and academic committees.
- Past institutional practices (such as previously allowing retakes) do not, without a clear entitlement, create a federal constitutional right or establish constitutional arbitrariness.
- Even when a court assumes a student has a protected interest in continued enrollment, the burden to show unconstitutional arbitrariness in an academic dismissal is exceptionally demanding.

## Conclusion

The Court held that a public university’s academic dismissal decision, reached through careful academic review and grounded in performance-based judgment, does not violate substantive due process absent an extreme departure from accepted academic norms showing the absence of genuine professional judgment.


Regents of the Univ. of Mich. v. Ewing, 474 U.S. 214 (1985)