Brands v. Sheldon Community School

Tom Brands (plaintiff) attended Sheldon Community High School (defendant) and was a member of the school’s wrestling team. Brands had amassed a nearly perfect record in four years of competition and was the defending state champion. After receiving reports that Brands and three other male youths had engaged in multiple acts of sexual intercourse with a 16-year-old female student at a party in Brands’s home, the school principal began an investigation. Brands and his parents were notified, and Brands has an opportunity to explain his side of the story. The principal determined that Brands’s actions were detrimental to the best interests of the school district and that Brands had committed a breach of discipline by engaging in conduct interfering with the maintenance of school discipline and infringing on another student’s right to an education. Based on these findings, the principal declared Brands ineligible to participate in the sectional, district, and state wrestling tournaments. Brands’s parents appealed to the superintendent, who granted their request for a closed hearing before the school board. After hearing testimony and deliberating for several hours, the board issued detailed findings of fact, concluding that Brands had engaged in the alleged acts and upholding the disciplinary action against him. Brands filed suit, seeking a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction allowing him to compete in the state wrestling tournament. Brands asserted that he had been deprived of, among other things, his Fourteenth Amendment rights to procedural and substantive due process. The trial court granted a temporary restraining order. Brands moved for a preliminary injunction.