Connecticut requires nonresidents enrolled in the state
university system to pay tuition and other fees at higher rates
than state residents and provides an irreversible and irrebuttable
statutory presumption that, because the legal address of a student,
if married, was outside the State at the time of application for
admission, or, if single, was outside the State at some point
during the preceding year, he remains a nonresident as long as he
is a student in Connecticut. Appellees challenge that presumption,
claiming that they have a constitutional right to controvert it by
presenting evidence of
bona fide residence in the State.
The District Court upheld their claim.
Held: The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment does not permit Connecticut to deny an individual the
opportunity to present evidence that he is a
bona fide
resident entitled to in-state rates, on the basis of a permanent
and irrebuttable presumption of nonresidence, when that presumption
is not necessarily or universally true in fact, and when the State
has reasonable alternative means of making the crucial
determination. Pp.
412 U. S.
446-454.
346 F.
Supp. 526, affirmed.
STEWART, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
BRENNAN, MARSHALL, BLACKMUN, and POWELL, JJ., joined. MARSHALL, J.,
filed a concurring opinion, in which BRENNAN, J., joined,
post, p.
412 U. S. 454.
WHITE, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment,
post, p.
412 U. S. 456.
BURGER, C.J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which REHNQUIST, J.,
joined,
post, p.
412 U. S. 459.
REHNQUIST, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BURGER, C.J.,
and DOUGLAS, J., joined,
post, p.
412 U. S.
463.
Page 412 U. S. 442
MR. JUSTICE STEWART delivered the opinion of the Court.
Like many other States, Connecticut requires nonresidents of the
State who are enrolled in the state university system to pay
tuition and other fees at higher rates than residents of the State
who are so enrolled. Conn. Gen.Stat.Rev. § 1329(b) (Supp. 1969), as
amended by Public Act No. 5, § 122 (June Sess.1971). [
Footnote 1] The constitutional validity of
that requirement is not at issue in the case before us. What is at
issue here is Connecticut's statutory definition of residents and
nonresidents for purposes of the above provision.
Section 126(a)(2) of Public Act No. 5, amending § 1329(b),
provides that an unmarried student shall be classified as a
nonresident, or "out of state," student if his
"legal address for any part of the one-year period immediately
prior to his application for admission at a constituent unit of the
state system of higher education was outside of Connecticut."
With respect to married students, § 126(a)(3) of the Act
provides that such a student, if living with his spouse, shall be
classified as
Page 412 U. S. 443
"out of state" if his "legal address at the time of his
application for admission to such a unit was outside of
Connecticut." These classifications are permanent and irrebuttable
for the whole time that the student remains at the university,
since § 126(a)(5) of the Act commands that:
"The status of a student, as established at the time of his
application for admission at a constituent unit of the state system
of higher education under the provisions of this section, shall be
his status for the entire period of his attendance at such
constituent unit."
The present case concerns the constitutional validity of this
conclusive and unchangeable presumption of nonresident status from
the fact that, at the time of application for admission, the
student, if married, was then living outside of Connecticut, or, if
single, had lived outside the State at some point during the
preceding year.
One appellee, Margaret Marsh Kline, is an undergraduate student
at the University of Connecticut. In May, 1971, while attending
college in California, she became engaged to Peter Kline, a
lifelong Connecticut resident. Because the Klines wished to reside
in Connecticut after their marriage, Mrs. Kline applied to the
University of Connecticut from California. In late May, she was
accepted and informed by the University that she would be
considered an in-state student. On June 26, 1971, the appellee and
Peter Kline were married in California, and soon thereafter took up
residence in Storrs, Connecticut, where they have established
Page 412 U. S. 444
a permanent home. Mrs. Kline has a Connecticut driver's license,
her car is registered in Connecticut, and she is registered as a
Connecticut voter. In July, 1971, Public Act No. 5 went into
effect. Accordingly, the appellant, Director of Admissions at the
University of Connecticut, irreversibly classified Mrs. Kline as an
out-of-state student, pursuant to § 126(a)(3) of that Act. As a
consequence, she was required to pay $150 tuition and a $200
nonresident fee for the first semester, whereas a student
classified as a Connecticut resident paid no tuition; and upon
registration for the second semester, she was required to pay $425
tuition plus another $200 nonresident fee, while a student
classified as a Connecticut resident paid only $175 tuition.
[
Footnote 2]
The other appellee, Patricia Catapano, is an unmarried graduate
student at the same University. She applied for admission from Ohio
in January, 1971, and was accepted in February of that year. In
August, 1971, she moved her residence from Ohio to Connecticut and
registered as a full-time student at the University. Like Mrs.
Kline, she has a Connecticut driver's license, her car is
registered in Connecticut, and she is registered as a Connecticut
voter. Pursuant to § 126(a)(2) of the 1971 Act, the appellant
classified her permanently as an out-of-state student.
Consequently, she, too, was required to pay $150 tuition and a $200
nonresident fee for her first semester, and $425 tuition plus a
$200 nonresident fee for her second semester.
Appellees then brought suit in the District Court pursuant to
the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, contending that
they were
bona fide residents of Connecticut, and that §
126 of Public Act No. 5, under which they were classified as
nonresidents for purposes of their tuition and fees, infringed
their rights to due process of law
Page 412 U. S. 445
and equal protection of the laws, guaranteed by the Fourteenth
Amendment to the Constitution. [
Footnote 3] After the convening of a three-judge District
Court, that court unanimously held §§ 126(a)(2), (a)(3), and (a)(5)
unconstitutional, as violative of the Fourteenth Amendment, and
enjoined the appellant from enforcing those sections.
346 F.
Supp. 526 (1972). The court also found that, before the
commencement of the spring semester in 1972, each appellee was a
bona fide resident of Connecticut; and it accordingly
ordered that the appellant refund to each of them the amount of
tuition and fees paid in excess of the amount paid by resident
students for that semester. On December 4, 1972, we noted probable
jurisdiction of this appeal. 409 U.S. 1036.
The appellees do not challenge, nor did the District Court
invalidate, the option of the State to classify students as
resident and nonresident students, thereby obligating nonresident
students to pay higher tuition and fees than do
bona fide
residents. The State's right to make such a classification is
unquestioned here. Rather, the appellees attack Connecticut's
irreversible and irrebuttable statutory presumption that, because a
student's legal address was outside the State at the time of his
application for admission or at some point during the preceding
year, he remains a nonresident for as long as he is a student
there. This conclusive presumption, they say, is invalid in that it
allows the State to classify as "out-of-state students" those who
are, in fact,
bona fide residents of the State. The
appellees claim that they have a constitutional right to
controvert
Page 412 U. S. 446
that presumption of nonresidence by presenting evidence that
they are
bona fide residents of Connecticut. The District
Court agreed:
"Assuming that it is permissible for the state to impose a
heavier burden of tuition and fees on nonresident than on resident
students, the state may not classify as 'out of state students'
those who do not belong in that class."
346 F. Supp. at 528. We affirm the judgment of the District
Court.
Statutes creating permanent irrebuttable presumptions have long
been disfavored under the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and
Fourteenth Amendments. In
Heiner v. Donnan, 285 U.
S. 312 (1932), the Court was faced with a constitutional
challenge to a federal statute that created a conclusive
presumption that gifts made within two years prior to the donor's
death were made in contemplation of death, thus requiring payment
by his estate of a higher tax. In holding that this irrefutable
assumption was so arbitrary and unreasonable as to deprive the
taxpayer of his property without due process of law, the Court
stated that it had
"held more than once that a statute creating a presumption which
operates to deny a fair opportunity to rebut it violates the due
process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment."
Id. at
285 U. S. 329.
See, e.g., Schlesinger v. Wisconsin, 270 U.
S. 230 (1926);
Hoeper v. Tax Comm'n,
284 U. S. 206
(1931).
See also Tot v. United States, 319 U.
S. 463,
319 U. S.
468-469 (1943);
Leary v. United States,
395 U. S. 6,
395 U. S. 29-53
(1969).
Cf. Turner v. United States, 396 U.
S. 398,
396 U. S.
418-419 (1970).
The more recent case of
Bell v. Burson, 402 U.
S. 535 (1971), involved a Georgia statute which provided
that, if an uninsured motorist was involved in an accident and
could not post security for the amount of damages claimed, his
driver's license must be suspended without any hearing on the
question of fault or responsibility. The Court held that, since the
State purported to be concerned with fault in suspending a driver's
license, it
Page 412 U. S. 447
could not, consistent with procedural due process, conclusively
presume fault from the fact that the uninsured motorist was
involved in an accident, and could not, therefore, suspend his
driver's license without a hearing on that crucial factor.
Likewise, in
Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.
S. 645 (1972), the Court struck down, as violative of
the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Illinois'
irrebuttable statutory presumption that all unmarried fathers are
unqualified to raise their children. Because of that presumption,
the statute required the State, upon the death of the mother, to
take custody of all such illegitimate children, without providing
any hearing on the father's parental fitness. It may be, the Court
said,
"that most unmarried fathers are unsuitable and neglectful
parents. . . . But all unmarried fathers are not in this category;
some are wholly suited to have custody of their children."
Id. at
405 U. S. 654.
Hence, the Court held that the State could not conclusively presume
that any individual unmarried father was unfit to raise his
children; rather, it was required by the Due Process Clause to
provide a hearing on that issue. According to the Court,
Illinois
"insists on presuming rather than proving Stanley's unfitness
solely because it is more convenient to presume than to prove.
Under the Due Process Clause, that advantage is insufficient to
justify refusing a father a hearing. . . ."
Id. at
405 U. S. 658.
[
Footnote 4]
Page 412 U. S. 448
The same considerations obtain here. It may be that most
applicants to Connecticut's university system who apply from
outside the State or within a year of living out of State have no
real intention of becoming Connecticut residents, and will never do
so. But it is clear that not all of the applicants from out of
State inevitably fall in this category. Indeed, in the present
case, both appellees possess many of the indicia of Connecticut
residency, such as year-round Connecticut homes, Connecticut
drivers' licenses, car registrations, voter registrations, etc.;
and both were found by the District Court to have become
bona
fide residents of Connecticut before the 1972 spring semester.
Yet, under the State's statutory scheme, neither was permitted any
opportunity to demonstrate the
bona fides of her
Connecticut residency for tuition purposes, and neither will ever
have such an opportunity in the future so long as she remains a
student.
The State proffers three reasons to justify that permanent
irrebuttable presumption. The first is that the State has a valid
interest in equalizing the cost of public higher education between
Connecticut residents and nonresidents, and that, by freezing a
student's residential status as of the time he applies, the State
ensures that its
bona fide in-state students will receive
their full subsidy. The State's objective of cost equalization
between
bona fide residents and nonresidents may well be
legitimate, but basing the
bona fides of residency solely
on where a student lived when he applied for admission
Page 412 U. S. 449
to the University is using a criterion wholly unrelated to that
objective. As is evident from the situation of the appellees, a
student may be a
bona fide resident of Connecticut even
though he applied to the University from out of State. Thus,
Connecticut's conclusive presumption of nonresidence, instead of
ensuring that only its
bona fide residents receive their
full subsidy, ensures that certain of its
bona fide
residents, such as the appellees, do
not receive their
full subsidy, and can never do so while they remain students.
Second, the State argues that, even if a student who applied to
the University from out of State may at some point become a
bona fide resident of Connecticut, the State can
nonetheless reasonably decide to favor with the lower rates only
its established residents, whose past tax contributions to the
State have been higher. According to the State, the fact that
established residents or their parents have supported the State in
the past justifies the conclusion that applicants from out of State
-- who are presumed not to be such established residents -- may be
denied the lower rates, even if they have become
bona fide
residents.
Connecticut's statutory scheme, however, makes no distinction on
its face between established residents and new residents. Rather,
through § 122, the State purports to distinguish, for tuition
purposes, between residents and nonresidents by granting the lower
rates to the former and denying them to the latter. [
Footnote 5] In these circumstances, the State
cannot now seek to justify its classification of certain
bona
fide residents as nonresidents on the basis that their
Connecticut residency is "new."
Moreover, § 126 would not always operate to effectuate the
State's asserted interest. For it is not at all clear that the
conclusive presumption required by that section prevents only "new"
residents, rather than "established"
Page 412 U. S. 450
residents, from obtaining the lower tuition rates. For example,
a student whose parents were lifelong residents of Connecticut, but
who went to college at Harvard, established a legal address there,
and applied to the University of Connecticut's graduate school
during his senior year, would be permanently classified as an
"out-of-state student," despite his family's status as
"established" residents of Connecticut. Similarly, the appellee
Kline may herself be a "new" resident of Connecticut; but her
husband is an established, lifelong resident, whose past tax
contribution to the State, under the State's theory, should entitle
his family to the lower rates. Conversely, the State makes no
attempt to ensure that those students to whom it does grant
in-state status are "established" residents of Connecticut. Any
married person, for instance, who moves to Connecticut before
applying to the University would be considered a Connecticut
resident, even if he has lived there only one day. Thus, even in
terms of the State's own asserted interest in favoring established
residents over new residents, the provisions of § 126 are so
arbitrary as to constitute a denial of due process of law.
[
Footnote 6]
Page 412 U. S. 451
The third ground advanced to justify § 126 is that it provides a
degree of administrative certainty. The State points to its
interest in preventing out-of-state students from coming to
Connecticut solely to obtain an education and then claiming
Connecticut residence in order to secure the lower tuition and
fees. The irrebuttable presumption, the State contends, makes it
easier to separate out students who come to the State solely for
its educational facilities from true Connecticut residents, by
eliminating the need for an individual determination of the
bona fides of a person who lived out of State at the time
of his application. Such an individual determination, it is said,
would not only be an expensive administrative burden, but would
also be very difficult to make, since it is hard to evaluate when
bona fide residency exists. Without the conclusive
presumption, the State argues, it would be almost impossible to
prevent out-of-state students from claiming a Connecticut residence
merely to obtain the lower rates.
In
Stanley v. Illinois, supra, however, the Court
stated that "the Constitution recognizes higher values than speed
and efficiency." 405 U.S. at
405 U. S. 656.
The State's interest in administrative ease and certainty cannot,
in and of itself, save the conclusive presumption from invalidity
under the Due Process Clause where there are other reasonable and
practicable means of establishing the pertinent facts on which the
State's objective is premised. In the situation before us,
reasonable alternative means for determining
bona fide
residence are available. Indeed, one such method has already been
adopted by Connecticut; after § 126 was invalidated by the District
Court, the State established reasonable criteria for evaluating
bona fide residence for purposes of tuition and fees at
its university system. [
Footnote
7] These criteria,
Page 412 U. S. 452
while perhaps more burdensome to apply than an irrebuttable
presumption, are certainly sufficient to prevent abuse of the
lower, in-state rates by students who come to Connecticut solely to
obtain an education. [
Footnote
8]
In sum, since Connecticut purports to be concerned with
residency in allocating the rates for tuition and fees in its
university system, it is forbidden by the Due Process Clause to
deny an individual the resident rates on the basis of a permanent
and irrebuttable presumption of nonresidence when that presumption
is not necessarily or universally true in fact, and when the State
has reasonable alternative means of making the crucial
determination. Rather, standards of due process require that the
State allow such an individual the opportunity to present evidence
showing that he is a
bona fide resident entitled to the
in-state rates. Since § 126 precluded the appellees from ever
rebutting the presumption that they were nonresidents of
Connecticut, that statute operated to deprive them of a significant
amount of their money without due process of law.
We are aware, of course, of the special problems involved in
determining the
bona fide residence of college students
who come from out of State to attend that State's public
university. Our holding today should in no wise be taken to mean
that Connecticut must classify the students in its university
system as residents for purposes of tuition and fees just because
they go to school there. Nor should our decision be construed to
deny a State the right to impose on a student, as one element in
demonstrating
bona fide residence, a reasonable durational
residency requirement, which can be met while in student status.
[
Footnote 9] We fully recognize
that a State
Page 412 U. S. 453
has a legitimate interest in protecting and preserving the
quality of its colleges and universities and the right of its own
bona fide residents to attend such institutions on a
preferential tuition basis.
We hold only that a permanent irrebuttable presumption of
nonresidence -- the means adopted by Connecticut to preserve that
legitimate interest -- is violative of the Due Process Clause,
because it provides no opportunity for students who applied from
out of State to demonstrate that they have become
bona
fide Connecticut residents. The State can establish such
reasonable criteria for in-state status as to make virtually
certain that students who are not, in fact,
bona fide
residents of the State, but who have come there solely for
educational
Page 412 U. S. 454
purposes, cannot take advantage of the in-state rates. Indeed,
as stated above, such criteria exist; and since § 126 was
invalidated, Connecticut, through an official opinion of its
Attorney General, has adopted one such reasonable standard for
determining the residential status of a student. The Attorney
General's opinion states:
"In reviewing a claim of in-state status, the issue becomes
essentially one of domicile. In general, the domicile of an
individual is his true, fixed and permanent home and place of
habitation. It is the place to which, whenever he is absent, he has
the intention of returning. This general statement, however, is
difficult of application. Each individual case must be decided on
its own particular facts. In reviewing a claim, relevant criteria
include year-round residence, voter registration, place of filing
tax returns, property ownership, driver's license, car
registration, marital status, vacation employment, etc. [
Footnote 10]"
Because we hold that the permanent irrebuttable presumption of
nonresidence created by subsections (a)(2), (a)(3), and (a)(5) of
Conn. Gen.Stat.Rev. § 10-329(b) (Supp. 1969), as amended by Public
Act No. 5, § 126 (June Sess.1971), violates the Due Process Clause
of the Fourteenth Amendment, the judgment of the District Court is
affirmed.
It is so ordered.
[
Footnote 1]
Section 122 of that Act provides that
"the board of trustees of The University of Connecticut shall
fix fees for tuition of not less than three hundred fifty dollars
for residents of this State and not less than eight hundred fifty
dollars for nonresidents. . . ."
Pursuant to this statute, the University promulgated regulations
fixing the tuition per semester as follows:
Fall semester Spring semester
1971-72 1972 and thereafter
In-state student None $175.00
Out-of-state student $150.00 $425.00
In addition, out-of-state students must pa a 200 nonresident fee
per semester.
[
Footnote 2]
See n 1,
supra.
[
Footnote 3]
While the case was pending in the District Court, the
Connecticut Legislature passed a bill relating to tuition payments
by nonresidents, House Bill No. 5302, which would have repealed the
particular portions of the statute that were under constitutional
attack. On May 18, 1972, however, the Governor of Connecticut
vetoed that bill.
[
Footnote 4]
Moreover, in
Carrington v. Rash, 380 U. S.
89 (1965), the Court held that a permanent irrebuttable
presumption of nonresidence violated the Equal Protection Clause of
the Fourteenth Amendment. That case involved a provision of the
Texas Constitution which prohibited any member of the Armed Forces
who entered the service as a resident of another State and then
moved his home to Texas during the course of his military duty,
from ever satisfying the residence requirement for voting in Texas
elections, so long as he remained a member of the Armed Forces. The
effect of that provision was to create a conclusive presumption
that all servicemen who moved to Texas during their military
service, even if they became
bona fide residents of Texas,
nonetheless remained nonresidents for purposes of voting. The Court
held that
"[b]y forbidding a soldier ever to controvert the presumption of
nonresidence, the Texas Constitution imposes an invidious
discrimination in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment."
Id. at 96.
See also Dunn v. Blumstein,
405 U. S. 330,
405 U. S.
349-352 (1972);
Shapiro v. Thompson,
394 U. S. 618
(1969).
[
Footnote 5]
See n 1,
supra.
[
Footnote 6]
But even if we accepted the State's argument that its statutory
scheme operates to apportion tuition rates on the basis of old and
new residency, that justification itself would give rise to grave
problems under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment. For in
Shapiro v. Thompson, supra, the Court
rejected the contention that a challenged classification could be
sustained as an attempt to distinguish between old and new
residents on the basis of the contribution they have made to the
community through past payment of taxes. That reasoning, the Court
stated,
"would logically permit the State to bar new residents from
schools, parks, and libraries or deprive them of police and fire
protection. Indeed, it would permit the State to apportion all
benefits and services according to the past tax contributions of
its citizens. The Equal Protection Clause prohibits such an
apportionment of state services."
394 U.S. at
394 U. S.
632-633.
Cf. Carrington v. Rash, 380 U.S. at
380 U. S. 96;
Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. at
405 U. S.
354.
[
Footnote 7]
See infra at
412 U. S.
454.
[
Footnote 8]
Cf. Carrington v. Rash, supra, at
380 U. S. 95-96;
Dunn v. Blumstein, supra, at
405 U. S.
349-352;
Shapiro v. Thompson, supra, at
394 U. S.
636.
[
Footnote 9]
In
Starns v. Malkerson, 326 F.
Supp. 234 (Minn.1970), the District Court upheld a regulation
of the University of Minnesota providing that no student could
qualify as a resident for tuition purposes unless he had been a
bona fide domiciliary of the State for at least a year
immediately prior thereto. This Court affirmed summarily. 401 U.S.
985 (1971). Minnesota's one-year durational residency requirement,
however, differed in an important respect from the permanent
irrebuttable presumption at issue in the present case. Under the
regulation involved in
Starns, a student who applied to
the University from out of State could rebut the presumption of
nonresidency, after having lived in the State for one year, by
presenting sufficient other evidence to show
bona fide
domicile within Minnesota. In other words, residence within the
State for one year, whether or not in student status, was merely
one element which Minnesota required to demonstrate
bona
fide domicile. By contrast, the Connecticut statute prevents a
student who applied to the University from out of State, or within
a year of living out of State, from ever rebutting the presumption
of nonresidence during the entire time that he remains a student,
no matter how long he has been a
bona fide resident of the
State for other purposes. Under Minnesota's durational residency
requirement, a student could qualify for in-state rates by living
within the State for a year in student status, whereas, under
Connecticut's scheme, a person who applied from out of State can
never so qualify so long as he remains in student status.
See
also Kirk v. Board of Regents of Univ. of
California, 273 Cal. App.
2d 430, 78 Cal. Rptr. 260 (1969),
appeal dismissed,
396 U. S. 554
(1970).
[
Footnote 10]
Opinion of the Attorney General of the State of Connecticut
Regarding Non-Resident Tuition, Sept. 6, 1972 (unreported).
MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL, with whom MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN joins,
concurring.
I join the opinion of the Court except insofar as it suggests
that a State may impose a one-year residency
Page 412 U. S. 455
requirement as a prerequisite to qualifying for in-state tuition
benefits.
See ante at
412 U. S. 452
and n. 9. That question is not presented by this case, since here
we deal with a permanent, irrebuttable presumption of nonresidency
based on the fact that a student was a nonresident at the time he
applied for admission to the state university system. I recognize
that, in
Starns v. Malkerson, 401 U.S. 985 (1971), we
summarily affirmed a district court decision sustaining a one-year
residency requirement for receipt of in-state tuition benefits. But
I now have serious question as to the validity of that summary
decision in light of well established principles, under the Equal
Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which limit the
States' ability to set residency requirements for the receipt of
rights and benefits bestowed on
bona fide state residents.
See Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U. S. 330
(1972);
Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.
S. 618 (1969). Because the Court finds sufficient basis
in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to dispose of
the constitutionality of the Connecticut statute here at issue, it
has no occasion to address the serious equal protection questions
raised by this and other tuition residency laws. In the absence of
full consideration of those equal protection questions, I would
leave the validity of a one-year residence requirement for a future
case in which the issue is squarely presented.
In addition, I cannot agree with my Brother REHNQUIST's
assertion in dissent that the Court's opinion today represents a
return to the doctrine of substantive due process. This case
involves only the validity of the conclusive presumption of
nonresidency erected by the State, and, as such, concerns nothing
more than the procedures by which the State determines whether or
not a person is a resident for tuition purposes.
Page 412 U. S. 456
MR. JUSTICE WHITE, concurring in the judgment.
In
Starns v. Malkerson, 401 U.S. 985 (1971), a
regulation issued by the Board of Regents provided that no student
could qualify for the lower, in-state tuition to the University of
Minnesota until he had been a
bona fide domiciliary of the
State for one year. The District Court upheld the law,
326 F.
Supp. 234 (Minn.1970), and we affirmed summarily, although the
effect of the Regents' regulation was to prevent an admitted
Minnesota domiciliary from being treated as such for a period of
one year. I thought the case warranted plenary treatment, but I did
not then, nor do I now, disagree with the judgment. Because I have
difficulty distinguishing, on due process grounds, whether deemed
procedural or substantive or whether put in terms of conclusive
presumptions, between the Minnesota one-year requirement and the
Connecticut law that, for tuition purposes, does not permit
Connecticut residence to be acquired while attending Connecticut
schools, I cannot join the Court's opinion.
I concur in the judgment, however, because Connecticut, although
it may legally discriminate between its residents and nonresidents
for purposes of tuition, here invidiously discriminates among at
least three classes of
bona fide Connecticut residents.
First, there are those unmarried students who have resided in
Connecticut one year prior to application or who later reside in
Connecticut for a year without going to school. They pay the
substantially lower in-state tuition. Second, there are the married
students who have a legal address in Connecticut at the time of
application. They also pay the lower tuition, whether or not they
have resided in Connecticut for a year prior to application. Third,
there are the unmarried students whose legal address has been
outside Connecticut at some time during the year prior to
application but who later become legal residents of
Page 412 U. S. 457
Connecticut, before or after application or before or after
matriculation, and remain such for at least one year. These
students, although year-long residents, must continue to pay
out-of-state tuition for as long as they are in school.
This discrimination between classes of
bona fide
residents of the State is sought to be justified, as I understand
it, on the sole ground that too few students from out of State
actually become Connecticut residents to require the State to sort
out this small number by investigating the inevitably larger number
of residency claims which would be submitted if the rule were
otherwise but which for the most part would be bogus.
In
Bell v. Burson, 402 U. S. 535
(1971), under the applicable state law, a driver's license could
not be revoked without proof of fault, but, upon the occurrence of
an accident, the State automatically suspended the license without
showing even probable fault and without an opportunity to prove
non-fault. The State neither argued nor claimed that there was a
more likely than not inference of fault from the mere event of an
accident.
In
Carrington v. Rash, 380 U. S.
89 (1965), the State refused those in active military
service the opportunity to prove residence in the State, and thus
their eligibility to vote. The Court struck down this restriction.
The State's interest in avoiding the task of verifying claims of
residency was insufficiently weighty to warrant interference with
the right to vote of the military personnel who had actually become
domiciled in the State.
In
Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.
S. 645 (1972), the state standard for separating child
and parent was unfitness of parent. Accepting the State's argument
that most unwed fathers are unfit, we nevertheless required the
State to give those fathers a hearing on their fitness prior to
depriving them of the custody of their children. It was
administratively convenient for the State to presume
Page 412 U. S. 458
unfitness and so avoid hearings to identify the perhaps smaller
number of fit, unwed fathers, but this justification was found
insufficient in view of the strong interest of a natural parent in
the custody of his child, an interest that we thought came to this
Court "
with a momentum for respect lacking when appeal is made
to liberties which derive merely from shifting economic
arrangements.'" Id. at 405 U. S. 651,
quoting from Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U. S.
77, 336 U. S. 95
(1949) (Frankfurter, J., concurring). The unwed father's interest
was at least cognizable and substantial enough to prohibit the
State, in the name of administrative convenience, from denying the
unwed father a hearing on parental fitness prior to declaring his
child a ward of the State. The same considerations led us to
conclude that the unwed father was denied equal protection of the
laws.
From these and other cases, such as
Dandridge v.
Williams, 397 U. S. 471
(1970);
Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71
(1971);
Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U.
S. 677 (1973); and
Weber v. Aetna Casualty &
Surety Co., 406 U. S. 164
(1972), it is clear that we employ not just one, or two, but, as my
Brother MARSHALL has so ably demonstrated, a "spectrum of standards
in reviewing discrimination allegedly violative of the Equal
Protection Clause."
San Antonio Independent School District v.
Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 1,
411 U. S. 98-99
(1973) (MARSHALL, J., dissenting) Sometimes we just say the claim
is "invidious" and let the matter rest there, as MR. JUSTICE
STEWART did, for example, in concurring in the judgment in
Frontiero. But at other times we sustain the
discrimination, if it is justifiable on any conceivable rational
basis, or strike it down, unless sustained by some compelling
interest of the State, as, for example, when a State imposes a
discrimination that burdens or penalizes the exercise of a
constitutional right.
See, e.g., Shapiro v. Thompson,
394 U. S. 618
(1969). I am uncomfortable with the dichotomy,
Page 412 U. S. 459
for it must now be obvious, or has been all along, that, as the
Court's assessment of the weight and value of the individual
interest escalates, the less likely it is that mere administrative
convenience and avoidance of hearings or investigations will be
sufficient to justify what otherwise would appear to be irrational
discriminations.
Here, it is enough for me that the interest involved is that of
obtaining a higher education, that the difference between in-state
and out-of-state tuition is substantial, and that the State,
without sufficient justification, imposes a one-year residency
requirement on some students, but not on others, and also refuses,
no matter what the circumstances, to permit the requirement to be
satisfied through
bona fide residence while in school. It
is plain enough that the State has only the most attenuated
interest in terms of administrative convenience in maintaining this
bizarre pattern of discrimination among those who must or must not
pay a substantial tuition to the University. The discrimination
imposed by the State is invidious, and violates the Equal
Protection Clause.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER, with whom MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST joins,
dissenting.
I find myself unable to join the action taken today because the
Court in this case strays from what seem to me sound and
established constitutional principles in order to reach what it
considers a just result in a particular case; this gives meaning to
the ancient warning that "hard cases make bad law." The Court
permits this "hard" case to make some very dubious law.
A state university today is an establishment with capital costs
of many millions of dollars of investment. Its annual operating
costs likewise may run into the millions. Parents and other
taxpayers willingly carry this heavy burden because they believe in
the values of higher education. It is not narrow provincialism for
the State
Page 412 U. S. 460
to think that each State should carry its own educational
burdens. Until we redefine our system of government -- as we are
free to do by constitutionally prescribed means -- the States may
restrict subsidized education to their own residents. This much the
Court recognizes, and it likewise recognizes that the statutory
scheme under review reasonably tends to support that end.
Commendably, the Court has tried to cast the opinion in the
narrowest possible terms, but it seems nonetheless to accomplish a
transference of the elusive and arbitrary "compelling state
interest" concept into the orbit of the Due Process Clause. The
Court categorizes the Connecticut statutory classification as a
"permanent and irrebuttable presumption"; it explains that this
"presumption" leads to unseemly results in this and other isolated
cases; and it relies upon the State's stopgap guidelines for
determining
bona fide residency to demonstrate that "the
State has reasonable alternative means of making the crucial
determination." This is the language of strict scrutiny. We ought
not try to correct "unseemly results" of state statutes by
resorting to constitutional adjudication.
Distressingly, the Court applies "strict scrutiny" and
invalidates Connecticut's statutory scheme without explaining why
the statute impairs a genuine constitutional interest truly worthy
of the standard of close judicial scrutiny. The real issue here is
not whether holes can be picked in the Connecticut scheme; of
course, that is readily done with this "bad" statute. Whether we
deal with statutes of Connecticut or of Congress, we can find
flaws, gaps, and hard and unseemly results at times. But our
function in constitutional adjudication is not to see whether there
is some conceivably "less restrictive" alternative to the statutory
classifications under review. The Court's task is to explain why
the "strict scrutiny" test,
Page 412 U. S. 461
previously confined to other areas, should now in practical
effect be read into the Due Process Clause. The drift of
Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U. S. 645
(1972,), on which the Court relies heavily, was to apply a similar
test, but at least there the Court essayed to explain that the
rights of fatherhood and family were regarded as "
essential'"
and "`basic civil rights of man,'" id. at 405 U. S. 651,
and to provide an analytic basis for the result reached. To the
same effect was Bell v. Burson, 402 U.
S. 535 (1971), where the Court noted that suspension of
a driver's license might impair the pursuit of a livelihood,
thereby infringing "important interests of the licensees."
Id. at 402 U. S. 539.
Carrington v. Rash, 380 U. S. 89
(1965), an equal protection case, involved deprivation of the right
to vote, by the Court's and MR. JUSTICE STEWART's own description,
a matter "close to the core of our constitutional system."
Id. at 380 U. S. 96.
*
Page 412 U. S. 462
There will be, I fear, some ground for a belief that the Court
now engrafts the "close judicial scrutiny" test onto the Due
Process Clause whenever we deal with something like "permanent
irrebuttable presumptions." But literally thousands of state
statutes create classifications permanent in duration, which are
less than perfect, as all legislative classifications are, and
might be improved on by individualized determinations so as to
avoid the untoward results produced here due to the very unusual
facts of this case. Both the anomaly present here and the arguable
alternatives to it do not differ from those present when, for
example, a State provides that a person may not be licensed to
practice medicine or law unless he or she is a graduate of an
accredited professional graduate school; a perfectly capable
practitioner may, as a consequence, be barred "permanently and
irrebuttably" from pursuing his calling, without ever having an
opportunity to prove his personal skills. The doctrinal
difficulties of the Equal Protection Clause are indeed trying, but
today the Court makes an uncharted drift toward complications for
the Due Process Clause comparable in scope and seriousness with
those we are encountering in the equal protection area. Can this be
what we are headed for?
The pressure of today's holding may well push the States to
enact reciprocal statutes to the end that Connecticut will
undertake to admit as "resident" students only those students from
other States that give the same status to Connecticut residents.
When a State allocates a large share of its resources to create and
maintain a university whose quality is found attractive to many
students from other States, its very success and stature may well
operate to cripple it because then, not unnaturally, it will be
flooded with applications from students from afar. Perhaps on less
"high ground," students who favor winter sports will flock to the
Northeast and
Page 412 U. S. 463
Northwest, and the sun worshipers will head South. Is the Court
willing to say that Connecticut may not grant partial scholarships
to persons who have attended a Connecticut secondary school for --
let us say -- at least one full school year and then set
nonresident tuition as it does now? We should not be surprised at
the natural response of States which, having placed high value on
universities, having developed great institutions at large cost,
believe that other States should do the same and therefore seek
ways to keep the institution in being for its own citizens. I do
not suggest these things ought to be done or that they are
desirable; rather, I submit, when we examine a statute of a State,
we should lay aside preferences for or against what the State does
in a few particular or isolated cases and look only to what the
Constitution forbids a State to do, so as to avoid putting pressure
on the States to engage in legislative devices to escape from the
hobbles we place on them on matters of purely state concern.
The urge to cure every disadvantage human beings can experience
exerts an inexorable pressure to expand judicial doctrine. But that
urge should not move the Court to erect standards that are
unrealistic, and indeed unexplained, for evaluating the
constitutionality of state statutes.
* Implicit in my dissenting vote, of course, is my disagreement
with MR. JUSTICE WHITE's suggestion that the weight and value of
the appellees' interest in obtaining a higher education require us
to pay something less than the usual deference to the judgment of
the Connecticut Legislature. If appellees' chances of securing
higher education were truly in jeopardy as a result of the tuition
differential at issue here, there would at least be an arguable
basis for special concern, though for me the
San Antonio
case would provide a serious obstacle to any departure from the
traditional "rational basis" test. In this case, there is, in any
event, no allegation by either appellee that the higher
out-of-state tuition charge does, will, or even may deprive her of
the opportunity to attend the University of Connecticut. Thus, try
as I may, I find it impossible to understand why the interest of
appellees at issue here amounts to any more or any less than the
number of dollars they are required to pay in excess of
Connecticut's in-state tuition rate. That amount may be
"substantial," but the Court has never suggested that financial
impact,
per se, requires abandonment of the "rational
basis" test of equal protection review as MR. JUSTICE WHITE
suggests. Indeed, I had always thought that a simple financial
deprivation was the classic case for judicial deference to
legislative choices.
MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and MR.
JUSTICE DOUGLAS join, dissenting.
The Court's opinion relegates to the limbo of
unconstitutionality a Connecticut law that requires higher tuition
from those who come from out of State to attend its state
universities than from those who come from within the State. The
opinion accomplishes this result by a highly theoretical analysis
that relies heavily on notions of substantive due process that have
been authoritatively repudiated by subsequent decisions of the
Court.
Page 412 U. S. 464
Believing as I do that the Connecticut statutory scheme is a
constitutionally permissible means of dealing with an increasingly
acute problem facing state systems of higher education, I
dissent.
This country's system of higher education presently faces a
serious crisis, produced in part by escalating costs of furnishing
educational services and in part by sharply increased demands for
those services. Because state systems have available to them state
financial resources that are not available to private institutions,
they may find it relatively easier to grapple with the financial
aspect of this crisis. But for this very reason, States have
generally felt that state resources should be devoted, at least in
large part, to the education of children of the State's own
residents, and that those who come from elsewhere to attend a state
university should have to make a more substantial contribution
toward the full costs of the education they would receive than the
all but nominal tuition required of those who come from within the
State.
One way to accomplish such a differentiation would be to make
the tuition differential turn on whether or not the student was a
"resident" or "nonresident" of the State at the time tuition is
paid. The Court, at least by implication, concedes that such a
differentiation would violate no command of the Constitution, but
even a casual examination of how such a plan would operate
indicates why it did not commend itself to the Connecticut
Legislature. The very act of enrolling in a Connecticut university
with the intention of completing a program of studies leading to a
degree necessitates the physical presence of the student in the
State of Connecticut. Additional indicia of residency, by which the
Court apparently sets great store -- obtaining a Connecticut motor
vehicle registration or driver's license, registering to vote in
Connecticut -- impose no significant burden
Page 412 U. S. 465
on the out-of-state student in comparison with the thousands of
dollars he will save in tuition and fees during the pursuit of a
four-year course in undergraduate studies. Thus, what the Court
concedes to the States in the way of distinguishing between
resident and nonresident students, while perhaps a valuable bit of
authority in issuing fishing and hunting licenses, is all but
useless in making students who come from out of State pay even a
portion of their fair share of the cost of the education that they
seek to receive in Connecticut state universities. The system to
which Connecticut has turned is one that limits the virtually
complete subsidy that is afforded to those who pay in-state tuition
to those who resided in Connecticut at the time of applying for
admission, and whose residence in Connecticut did not result from
their desire to attend the state universities. Some such plan must
be devised by any State that wishes to differentiate between those
who have paid taxes to the State over a period of years in order to
support the university, and those who have simply come to the State
in order to attend the university. Since institutions of higher
learning are not built in a year or in a decade, such a distinction
strikes me as entirely rational, and I do not understand the Court
to hold otherwise.
Understandably, any such general principle will have a number of
specific applications, and, just as understandably, a capable
lawyer will be able to focus on one or more of these specific
applications that appear to diverge from the principle that the
State is attempting to enforce. The Court's opinion deals with the
situation of the particular litigants here involved, doubtless
chosen with an eye to illustrating the Connecticut system at its
worst, and with still other hypothetical examples upon which it
expatiates during the course of its opinion. But the fact that a
generally valid rule may
Page 412 U. S. 466
have rough edges around its perimeter does not make it
unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment:
"[T]he law need not be in every respect logically consistent
with its aims to be constitutional. It is enough that there is an
evil at hand for correction, and that it might be thought that the
particular legislative measure was a rational way to correct
it."
"
Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S.
483,
348 U. S. 487-488
(1955)."
Throughout the Court's opinion are found references to the
"irrebuttable" presumption as to residency created by the
Connecticut statutes. But a fair reading of these laws indicates
that Connecticut has not chosen to define eligibility for a
state-subsidized education in terms of "residency" at the moment
that the applicant seeks admission to the university system, but
instead has insisted that the applicant have some prior connection
with the State of Connecticut independent of the desire to attend a
state supported university. Thus, it would not satisfy
Connecticut's goals in seeking to subsidize the education of
Connecticut's young people in Connecticut state universities to
impose a classic residency test as of the moment of entry into the
system of higher education. All students, and not only those with
substantial Connecticut connections, will be present in Connecticut
on this date, and those who have been astute enough to consult
counsel will have obtained Connecticut drivers' licenses,
registered their cars in Connecticut, and registered to vote in
Connecticut.
Meaningful differentiation between children of families who have
supported the state educational system by payment of taxes to the
State of Connecticut, and children from families who have not done
this, would be impossible if the test were residency as of the date
of
Page 412 U. S. 467
admission, or the date on which tuition is due, at least as the
Court enunciates such a test. But this is not what Connecticut
tried to do, and, as I read the Court's opinion, Connecticut is not
limited to the imposition of such an easily circumvented test. For
the Court reaffirms
Starns v. Malkerson, 326 F.
Supp. 234 (Minn.1970),
aff'd, 401 U.S. 985 (1971), in
which the State of Minnesota had, by regulation, provided that no
student could qualify as a resident for tuition purposes unless he
had been a
bona fide domiciliary of the State for at least
a year immediately prior thereto. A regulation such as Minnesota's
enables the State partially to maintain the distinction that
Connecticut has sought to protect here. The Court indicates that
the critical distinction between the Minnesota regulation and the
Connecticut statute is that the Minnesota regulation operated to
fix nonresidency only for the first year of attendance at the
university. But this supposed distinction merely highlights the
error in the Court's approach to this entire problem. Minnesota was
no more concerned during the first year than is Connecticut with
"residency" as that term is used in other legal contexts. One who
had his vehicle licensed in Minnesota, obtained a Minnesota
driver's license, and registered to vote in Minnesota could make
the same attack on the "irrebuttable" presumption of residency
involved in
Starns as these appellees do on the
Connecticut statute. The Court's response is that, while
Minnesota's fixing of residency as of a date prior to application
endured for only one year, Connecticut's endures for four years.
This is admittedly a factual difference, but one may read the
Court's opinion in vain to ascertain why it is a difference of
constitutional significance.
The majority's reliance on cases such as
Heiner v.
Donnan, 285 U. S. 312
(1932), harks back to a day when the principles of substantive due
process had reached
Page 412 U. S. 468
their zenith in this Court. Later and sounder cases thoroughly
repudiated these principles in large part. Ten years ago, the Court
reviewed these doctrines in
Ferguson v. Skrupa,
372 U. S. 726,
372 U. S. 730
(1963), and made the following observation:
"The doctrine that prevailed in
Lochner, Coppage, Adkins,
Burns, and like cases -- that due process authorizes courts to
hold laws unconstitutional when they believe the legislature has
acted unwisely -- has long since been discarded. We have returned
to the original constitutional proposition that courts do not
substitute their social and economic beliefs for the judgment of
legislative bodies, who are elected to pass laws. As this Court
stated in a unanimous opinion in 1941, 'We are not concerned . . .
with the wisdom, need, or appropriateness of the legislation.'"
The Court's highly abstract and theoretical analysis of this
practical problem leads to a conclusion that is contrary to the
teaching of
Ferguson, supra.
The typical 18-year-old entering college as a freshman,
doubtless typifying the largest group of entering students in
Connecticut as elsewhere, has in most cases made little or no
contribution by way of tax payment to the cost of his public higher
education, whether it be in Connecticut or elsewhere. More likely,
it is his parents, themselves long past college age, who have
supported the state universities over a period of years with the
thought that they would eventually realize some return from this
involuntary investment in the form of in-state tuition for their
own children who sought to attend a state university. The State of
Connecticut has sought to allow this hope to be realized through
the distinction that it has made between those who are to pay
nominal tuition and those who are to pay the more substantial
Page 412 U. S. 469
out-of-state tuition. To the extent that today's decision
requires students with no previous connection with the State of
Connecticut to be admitted to that State's university system as
in-state students, upon obtaining a driver's license and
registering to vote, it means that longtime Connecticut residents
will not only continue to support the state university system, but
that they will be required to support it in increased measure in
order to help subsidize the education of nonresidents. The Court's
invalidation of the Connecticut plan is quite inconsistent with
doctrines of substantive due process that have obtained in this
Court for at least a decade, and to which I would continue to
adhere.