Cook County College Teachers Union v. Byrd

Cook County College Teachers Union v. Byrd

Opinion

 [*883]  PELL, C. J.

This is an appeal from a judgment in a suit brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, concerning the nonrenewal of the teaching contracts of the two individual plaintiffs, Donald Paull and Ruth Nedelsky, formerly probationary faculty members at Chicago State College. The Cook County College Teachers Union, Local 1600, American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO (Union) joined in the action, purportedly on behalf of all the College's faculty. The defendants are officials at the College and the Board of Governors of State Colleges and Universities of Illinois, which by statute operates the College.

The amended complaint alleged that the defendants in denying Paull and Nedelsky teaching contracts for the 1970-71 academic year had violated their civil rights, their constitutional rights guaranteed by the first and fourteenth amendments, and "ancillary" guarantees of academic freedom incorporated into their teaching contracts. The complaint sought a declaration of the rights of the parties, injunctive relief and money damages.

More particularly, Paull [**2]  and Nedelsky claimed that the defendants' failure to provide them with statements of the reasons for the nonrenewals violated their rights to procedural due process. In their briefs, but not in their complaint, they contend that they were also entitled to a hearing prior to their termination to respond to the reasons for the nonrenewal. The defendants allegedly violated the teachers' substantive constitutional rights by refusing to offer them contracts in retaliation for their union activities, their opposition to defendant Clark's reappointment to the chairmanship of the Department of Psychology, their public positions on racism in educational  [*884]  institutions and their opposition to the use of city police on the College's campus. In addition, plaintiff Paull alleged that he was not retained because of a letter he had written to the Illinois Psychological Association charging ethical violations in the use of student I.Q. scores by personnel employed by the Chicago Board of Education.

The defendants in their answer to the amended complaint denied, inter alia, that the Union was a proper class representative and admitted that the defendants had not told Paull and Nedelsky [**3]  the reasons for the nonrenewal of their contracts.

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