NON V. JUDGE DAMES GR 89317, 20 May 1990
FACTS:
Petitioners (Ariel Non, Rex Magana, Alvin Agura, Normandy Occiano, Jorge Dayaon, Lourdes Banares, Bartolome Ibasco, Emmanuel Barba, Sonny Moreno. Giovani Palma, Joselito Villalon, Luis Santos and Daniel Torres), students in Mabini Colleges, Inc. in Daet, Camarines Norte, were not allowed to re-enroll by the school for the academic year 1988-1989 for leading or participating in student mass actions against the school in the preceding semester. They thus filed a petition in the Regional Trial Court of Daet (Branch 38) seeking their re-admission or re-enrollment to the school, but the trial court dismissed the petition in an order dated 8 August 1988.
A motion for reconsideration was filed, but this was denied by the trial court on 24 February 1989; stating that they waived-their privilege to be admitted for re-enrollment with respondent college when they adopted, signed, and used its enrollment form for the first semester of school year 1988-89.
In addition, for the same semester, they duly signed pledges "to abide and comply with all the rules and regulations laid down by competent authorities in the College Department or School in which I am enrolled."
Hence, the affected students filed the petition for certiorari with prayer for preliminary mandatory injunction before the Supreme Court.
ISSUE:
WON there was a violation of the students’ right to freedom of speech and assembly.
HELD:
YES. The contract between the school and the student is not an ordinary contract. It is imbued with public interest, considering the high priority given by the Constitution to education and the grant to the State of supervisory and regulatory powers over all educational institutions. The authority for schools to refuse enrollment to a student on the ground that his contract, which has a term of one semester, has already expired, cannot be justified. Still, institutions' discretion on the admission and enrollment of students as a major component of the academic freedom guaranteed to institutions of higher learning.
The right of an institution of higher learning to set academic standards, however, cannot be utilized to discriminate against students who exercise their constitutional rights to speech and assembly, for otherwise there will be a violation of their right to equal protection.
Thus, an institution of learning has a contractual obligation to afford its students a fair opportunity to complete the course they seek to pursue.
However, when a student commits a serious breach of discipline or fails to maintain the required academic standard, he forfeits his contractual right; and the court should not review the discretion of university authorities. Excluding students because of failing grades when the cause for the action taken against them undeniably related to possible breaches of discipline not only is a denial of due process but also constitutes a violation of the basic tenets of fair play.
Further, the failures in one or two subjects by some cannot be considered marked academic deficiency. Neither can the academic deficiency be gauged from the academic standards of the school due to an insufficiency of information. Herein, the students could have been subjected to disciplinary proceedings in connection with the mass actions, but the penalty that could have been imposed must be commensurate to the offense committed and it must be imposed only after the requirements of procedural due process have been complied with (Paragraph 145, Manual of Regulations for Private Schools).
But this matter of disciplinary proceedings and the imposition of administrative sanctions have become moot and academic. Petitioners, who have been refused readmission or re-enrollment and who have been effectively excluded from respondent school for four (4) semesters, have already been more than sufficiently penalized for any breach of discipline they might have committed when they led and participated in the mass actions that, according to respondents, resulted in the disruption of classes. To still subject them to disciplinary proceedings would serve no useful purpose and would only further aggravate the strained relations between petitioners and the officials of respondent school which necessarily resulted from the heated legal battle here, in the Court of Appeals and before the trial court.
WHEREFORE, the petition is GRANTED. The orders of respondent judge dated August 8, 1988 and February 24, 1989 are hereby ANNULLED. Respondent Mabini College is ORDERED to readmit and to allow the re- enrollment of petitioners, if they are still so minded, without prejudice to its taking the appropriate action as to petitioners Ariel Non, Joselito Villalon, George (Jorge) Dayaon and Daniel Torres, if it is shown by their records (Form 137) that they have failed to satisfy the school's prescribed academic standards.