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
- Whether, assuming a constitutionally protected property interest in continued enrollment, Ewing’s dismissal was arbitrary in violation of substantive due process.
- 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.