Student Affairs
v.
Law Students of the Night
77 U.Va 7 (2024)
Allard, C.J., delivers the opinion of the Court, in which Jones, Demitry, & Coco, JJ., join.
Coleman, J., concurs.
Wu, J., dissents.
Allard, C.J., delivers the opinion of the Court.
In 2024, the Princeton Review ranked UVA Law second for quality of life, bumping the Law School from the number one spot that it had held for a decade. See Staci Zaretsky, Law School with the Most Competitive Students v. Law Schools with the Best Quality of Life (2024), Above the Law (July 19, 2024); Mike Fox, UVA Law Retains Top Spots in Princeton Review Rankings, UVA Law (Dec. 14, 2021). Is this suit related to the Law School’s dramatic loss at the hands of UCLA Law? I don’t know. The Court is just asking questions.[1]
The instant case comes before us on appeal from the District Court of Petty Claims. The district court granted summary judgment against Petitioner, Student Affairs, in favor of Respondent, Law Students of the Night (LSN), a group of late-rising law students. LSN alleged that Student Affairs scheduled the monthly free breakfast at an ungodly hour which unlawfully discriminates against students who prefer to spend their mornings wasting away in bed. Relying on this Court’s extensive alimentary rights jurisprudence, see, e.g., CRONCH v. Conagra Brands, 76 U.Va 17 (2024), the district court ordered Student Affairs to extend the timeframe of the monthly breakfast to accommodate night owl students. Student Affairs appealed the district court’s order, and we now reverse and remand for further proceedings.
I
The facts of the case are not in dispute. The Community Breakfast is a new event at the Law School. According to Student Affairs, the event is hosted during the fall semester “on the first Wednesday of every month in Purcell Reading Room.” The inaugural Breakfast was hosted on Wednesday, September 4. The hours for the breakfast are 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. Students are invited to “grab & go,” selecting from an assortment of bagels, muffins, fruit, coffee, and other breakfast essentials.
Law Students of the Night submitted evidence suggesting that close to one-third of law students are still in their beds at 9:30 a.m., let alone anywhere near the Law School. Student Affairs did not dispute this evidence but naggingly reminded LSN that most of them will get much less sleep in their future careers than they do now.
LSN argued that this Court’s alimentary rights precedent requires Student Affairs to schedule the breakfast at a time that will accommodate the late-rising students. LSN correctly points out that we have “repeatedly held that students’ alimentary rights may be asserted against parties providing or consuming food at the Law School.” CRONCH v. Conagra Brands, 76 U.Va 17 (2024); see also The Funding Cases, 77 U.Va 1 (2024) (granting damages to Chief Justice Allard for medical costs incurred from consuming salty snacks from Student Affairs); Hungry People v. Law School Student Orgs, 75 U.Va. 12 (2022) (enjoining all student organizations from preventing students from eating free lunch until after events conclude); Students v. Empty Food Table, 75 U.Va. 10 (2022) (enjoining 1Ls from taking food from events hosted by organizations of which they are not members). In its motion for summary judgment, LSN argued that free food must be made available to non-1L law students on equal terms.
II
Against the backdrop of our overwhelmingly pro-student food rights precedent, the district court concluded that LSN’s summary judgment motion must be granted. We disagree. The right to free food is perhaps the most fundamental right of UVA Law students, and its abridgment is subject to the highest scrutiny. But in this case, it is not clear that Petitioner has violated it.
By instituting the monthly breakfast, Student Affairs has increased both the quality and quantity of free food available to law students. Petitioner points out that LSN’s claim is not so much an alimentary rights claim as it is a discrimination claim in which that right is implicated. The proper inquiry, then, is whether our anti-discrimination law should protect late-rising law students. If late-rising law students are protected, then Student Affairs may not burden their fundamental food rights absent some compelling interest.
While Student Affairs timely raised the issue of late-rising law students’ protected status before the district court, we believe the record is not sufficiently developed to render a judgment on that question. Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s summary judgment order and remand for further argument on this question.
It is so ordered.
Coleman, J., concurring in the judgment.
While I agree with the ultimate disposition of the case, I write separately to clarify two points. First, breakfast means breakfast. Anti-discrimination law does not force the owners of public accommodations to fundamentally alter their services. See PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin, 532 U.S. 661, 666-68 (2001). Second, late-rising law students do not constitute a protected class. It is paramount that this final conclusion be settled clearly and forcefully, so that these bums do not return to our petty court.
Merriam-Webster defines “breakfast” as “the first meal of the day . . . taken in the morning” (emphasis added) (inconvenient language omitted). As we can see, the early timeframe of the meal defines what breakfast is. Serving it later in the day would constitute a “fundamental alteration.” Id. at 637. Therefore, Student Affairs is under no such obligation. While we are of course not bound by the Supreme Court’s interpretations of anti-discrimination law, we can incorporate those opinions when expedient. See ASSES, 77 U.Va. 3 (2024) (incorporating segments of federal law when doing so furthers the bit).
To my second point, late-rising students are not a protected class. You cannot point to them in a crowd. At some stages in life, people wake up early, while in others, they sleep late. Early birds have their advantages, but so do late risers. And to the extent there is discrimination against people who choose to wake up late, that is so baked into our society that I would throw out such claims under substantive honor analysis. Put simply, people who fail to get out of bed at a reasonable hour should not be welcomed in this Court.
Wu, J., dissents.
I dissent from the majority’s opinion for the court’s lack of sufficient consideration as to the full meaning intended under the “alimentary rights.”
The court dismisses the plaintiff’s claim on the basis that the Student Affairs monthly breakfasts increased “both the quality and quantity of free food,” which I find both peculiar and unjustly conclusory. While the quantity element can be conceded through relative ease, the element at issue here is whether—by providing these breakfasts at unreasonable early hours—Student Affairs has missed the “quality” element of alimentary rights. I argue that the quality of free food includes both the nourishment value of the tangible items provided and the access to said items. By providing these items for such an early limited one-hour window, Student Affairs has failed to provide reasonable access to both plaintiffs and other third parties, such as those students in classes for the full-hour window.
In CRONCH v. Conagra Brands, 76 U.Va 17 (2024), the court introduced the Stomach Formula, which outlined that a party would breach alimentary rights if “the burden of improving the quality of food is less than the probability of students’ being dissatisfied times the extent of students’ hanger.” In this case, it is only mildly burdensome for the breakfast to either be moved to a slightly later window or expanded to a longer period. Thus the plaintiffs have made a case for summary judgment and the trial court should be affirmed.
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.
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tya2us@virginia.edu, jxu6ad@virginia.edu, gcu2vn@virginia.edu
[1] Loaded questions, whose implied answers we decline to explicitly refute.