Beilan v. Board of Public Education

In Beilan v. Board of Public Education (1958), the U.S. Supreme Court was faced with the issue of whether a teacher's dismissal for incompetence, due to a failure to respond to a superintendent's questions, violated his rights to due process under the U.S. Constitution. At least one of the superintendent's questions inquired as to whether the teacher had held a position with the Communist Political Association eight years earlier. Based on the relevancy of the questions posed and the teacher's failure to respond, the Court, by a five-to-four margin, ruled that the teacher's dismissal did not deprive him of his due process rights.

Beilan is typically placed in juxtaposition with the line of First Amendment loyalty cases placed before the courts as well as with Fifth ...