"Accused Plaintiff of Calling Her the 'F-Word'"

In Winfree v. Warren County School Dist., decided last month by Judge Travis McDonough (E.D. Tenn.), plaintiff was a girls’ high school basketball player, who “had been offered a full scholarship to play basketball at Trevecca Nazarene University”:

On November 15, 2023, Defendant Mendy Stotts, the women’s basketball coach, pulled Plaintiff out of practice to speak with her in the hallway. Stotts “yell[ed]” at Plaintiff, “saying she was tired of [Plaintiff's] disrespect towards her” and accused Plaintiff of calling her the “f-word” during practice. Stotts told Plaintiff that “[Stotts] no longer wanted her as part of the basketball team.” That same night, Plaintiff emailed Phillip King, one of the school’s athletic directors, to request a meeting.

The next day, on November 16, 2023, Plaintiff and her mother met with King and Assistant Principal Anna Geesling to discuss the incident. Plaintiff’s mother explained that she had never heard about any disciplinary proceedings prior to Plaintiff being kicked off the team. Another meeting was held the next day, this time with King, Principal Chris Hobbs, Stotts, Plaintiff, her parents, her grandparents, and a family friend.

At the meeting, Stotts said she had evidence that Plaintiff said “the f-word,” while Plaintiff stated that there were witnesses who would testify that she did not say the “f-word.” Plaintiff was not allowed to present those witnesses. At the end of meeting, Stotts dismissed Plaintiff from the basketball team. Hobbs upheld Stotts’s decision. Two weeks after Plaintiff was dismissed from the team, Trevecca Nazarene rescinded her scholarship offer. Plaintiff alleges she also “had anticipated” scholarship offers from Middle Tennessee State University and Tennessee Tech University, but these offers never came….

Plaintiff alleges that Defendants violated her due process rights by dismissing her from the team without a hearing and defamed her by falsely stating that she had said “the f-word.” …

Plaintiff argues that students have a property interest in playing on a school sports team “when they are faced with suspension or removal from their respective teams, and that removal results in the student-athlete losing one or more athletic scholarships to colleges or universities.”

[But] the Sixth Circuit has repeatedly held that “[a student] has neither a liberty nor a property interest in interscholastic athletics subject to due process protection.” … Furthermore, courts have held that the due process analysis is no different when a student has an athletic scholarship. Courts that have assumed that a scholarship could constitute a property interest have noted that the mere offer of a scholarship is not enough.

{The Second Circuit recently recognized a student’s property interest in a one-year athletic scholarship that the student had already accepted. However, the court limited its holding to scholarships that were “for a fixed period and terminable only for cause,” reasoning that a student could “reasonably expect[] to retain the scholarship’s benefits for that set period.” Here, Plaintiff only had “a [] scholarship offer” from one school and “anticipated [] scholarship offer[s]” from two more….}

Plaintiff points to a handful of non-binding cases where courts have found a property interest in participation in school sports. This is hardly a deep bench of cases, and, regardless, Plaintiff’s argument runs afoul of binding precedent. While the Court recognizes the practical impact that a scholarship offer often has on the ability of a student to obtain a higher education, it does not have the discretion to ignore the weight of binding precedent….

Plaintiff also brings a state-law defamation claim, arguing that Defendants defamed her by falsely alleging that she said the “f-word.” {Plaintiff never actually explains what “the f-word” is, or even the context in which it was allegedly used. Such details are important when they form the basis of a defamation claim. There are certainly contexts in which the use of “the f-word” would be more offensive than others.}

“[A] federal court that has dismissed a plaintiff’s federal-law claims should not ordinarily reach the plaintiff’s state-law claims.” … The Court finds that the interests of judicial economy and abstaining from needlessly deciding state-law issues weigh in favor of declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state-law defamation claim….

For other examples where expurgation led to confusion, see n.73 (pp. 19-20) of Randy Kennedy’s and my The New Taboo: Quoting Epithets in the Classroom and Beyond.

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