Thurgood Marshall Law Student Loses Challenge to Expulsion

A law student at Texas Southern University’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law expelled for bad grades won’t be reinstated, after the Texas Supreme Court held that dismissal for academic reasons doesn’t implicate a protected liberty interest under the state constitution.

Dismissal of Ivan Villarreal for academic reasons doesn’t carry a stigma or limit his ability to pursue a profession to such a degree that it deprives him of a liberty interest under the Texas constitution, the court said.

The court distinguished the case from a1992 ruling that a student expelled for disciplinary reasons had a constitutionally protected liberty interest because ...