Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur
(1974)
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Rule of Law:
Mandatory employment termination rules for pregnant public school teachers that use arbitrary, fixed cutoff dates several months before childbirth create a conclusive and unconstitutional presumption of physical incapacity, violating the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Facts:
- Jo Carol LaFleur and Ann Elizabeth Nelson were junior high teachers employed by the Board of Education of Cleveland, Ohio.
- The Cleveland school board's rule required every pregnant teacher to take unpaid maternity leave beginning five months before the expected birth of her child and prevented her from returning until the semester after her child turned three months old.
- Both LaFleur and Nelson became pregnant during the 1970-1971 school year and wished to continue teaching until the end of the school year, but were compelled to take leave in March 1971.
- Susan Cohen was a teacher employed by the School Board of Chesterfield County, Virginia.
- The Chesterfield County school board's rule required a pregnant teacher to leave work at least four months prior to the expected birth of her child.
- Cohen, who was expecting her child in late April 1971, requested to continue teaching until April 1, but was required to leave her job on December 18, 1970.
Procedural Posture:
- Jo Carol LaFleur and Ann Elizabeth Nelson filed separate suits against the Cleveland Board of Education in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.
- The District Court ruled in favor of the school board.
- LaFleur and Nelson, as appellants, appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which reversed the District Court's decision.
- Susan Cohen sued the Chesterfield County School Board in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
- The District Court ruled in favor of Cohen.
- The School Board, as appellant, appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which, after a rehearing en banc, reversed the District Court's decision and upheld the regulation.
- The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in both cases to resolve the conflict between the circuit courts.
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Issue:
Do mandatory maternity leave rules for public school teachers, which establish fixed cutoff dates several months before the expected birth and specific return-to-work dates based on the child's age, violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
Opinions:
Majority - Mr. Justice Stewart
Yes. Mandatory maternity leave rules that establish arbitrary and conclusive presumptions of incapacity violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court reasoned that freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is a liberty protected by the Due Process Clause. The school boards' rules, by forcing all pregnant teachers to leave at a fixed point (four or five months before birth), create an irrebuttable presumption that every teacher becomes physically incapable of performing her duties at that stage. This presumption is not universally true, as the ability to work during pregnancy is an individualized matter. While the state's interests in continuity of instruction and teacher fitness are legitimate, these arbitrary cutoffs are not rationally related to achieving those goals and sweep too broadly. The Cleveland rule requiring a teacher to wait until her child is three months old to return is similarly arbitrary and irrational. The Chesterfield return rule, which relies on a physician's certificate and re-employment at the start of the next school year, is constitutional because it is narrowly tailored to the state's interests.
Dissenting - Mr. Justice Rehnquist
No. The maternity leave rules do not violate the Due Process Clause. The dissent argues that the majority's 'irrebuttable presumption' analysis is a dangerous attack on the fundamental legislative power to draw lines and create classifications. All legislation involves creating general rules that may not perfectly fit every individual case, similar to age-based rules for voting or driving. The dissent contends that since medical evidence suggests the probability of physical impairment increases as pregnancy advances, it is not irrational for a legislative body like a school board to draw a line somewhere before the delivery room. The Court oversteps its judicial role by invalidating a legislative judgment simply because it prefers individualized determinations over a general rule.
Concurring - Mr. Justice Powell
Yes. The rules are unconstitutional, but the majority's 'irrebuttable presumption' analysis is flawed; the rules should be struck down on equal protection grounds. The concurrence argues that the 'irrebuttable presumption' doctrine is logically boundless and often masks an equal protection analysis. Instead, these regulations fail even rational-basis review under the Equal Protection Clause. The classifications are irrational because the fixed cutoff dates are counterproductive to the stated goal of ensuring continuity of instruction, often forcing capable teachers to leave mid-semester. The rules are based on factually unsupported assumptions about the ability of pregnant teachers to do their jobs. Therefore, the link between the school boards' legitimate goals and the means chosen is too attenuated to survive constitutional scrutiny.
Analysis:
This decision significantly curtailed the use of broad, generalized rules in employment based on sex-linked characteristics like pregnancy, establishing a preference for individualized assessments. By applying the 'irrebuttable presumption' doctrine from due process, the Court required the government to avoid conclusive presumptions that burden fundamental rights when the presumption is not universally true and less restrictive alternatives exist. While later cases have limited the scope of the irrebuttable presumption doctrine, this case was a landmark victory for working women, shifting employment policies away from paternalistic, stereotype-based rules and toward policies that evaluate an individual's actual ability to perform a job. It also highlighted the ongoing debate over whether such cases are better analyzed under the Due Process Clause or the Equal Protection Clause.
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