Brown

Opinion by Judge GRABER; Concurrence by Judge FERGUSON; Partial Concurrence and Partial Dissent by Judge REINHARDT.

ORDER

The mandate is recalled for the limited purpose of correcting the caption. The Opinion filed on August 12, 2002, is amended as follows:

On slip opinion page 11773 [ 299 F.3d 1092 ], in the caption after “CHARLES LI, in his” insert “individual and” so it reads, “CHARLES LI, in his individual and official capacity as Dean.”

On slip opinion page 11773 [299 F.3d at 1092], in the caption after “GALEN STUCKY,” change “Material” to “Materials.”

On slip opinion page 11773 [299 F.3d at 1092], in the caption after “SARAH PRITCHARD,” delete “in her individual and” so it reads, “SARAH PRITCHARD, in her official capacity as Director.”

The mandate shall reissue forthwith.

OPINION

In this appeal, we consider the extent to which the First Amendment and due process guarantees are implicated when a graduate student’s thesis committee declines to approve a thesis that meets academic and professional standards in all respects except one: The acknowledgments section does not conform to established academic and professional standards. We conclude that the Amendment does not…

concurring in part and dissenting in part:

Although the underlying dispute may appear to some to be trivial, and perhaps not worthy of serious First Amendment deliberation, the extreme positions taken by the parties during the course of their disagreement and the erroneous legal rule advocated by one of my colleagues leaves me with little choice but to discuss the constitutional questions in some depth. I agree that we should affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment with respect to Brown’s procedural due process claim and that we should remand the state law claims for further consideration. I respectfully dissent, however, from my colleagues’ decision to affirm the award of summary judgment to the university with respect to Brown’s First Amendment claims.

First, I emphasize that there is no agreement between my colleagues in the *957 majority as to the legal standard applicable to Brown’s First Amendment claims. Thus, there is no majority opinion and no binding precedent with respect to any First Amendment principles. Although Judges Graber and Ferguson reach the same conclusion, they do so for wholly different reasons. Judge Graber would apply the First Amendment…