California School Employees Assn. v. Foothill Community College Dist

In California School Employees Assn. v. Foothill Community College Dist. (1975) 52 Cal.App.3d 150, the court said (at pp. 155-156): "On its face, the rule proscribes conduct that is 'unbecoming an employee in the public service.' It is obvious that any apparent limitation on the employee's conduct through the use of this qualifying term is illusory, for 'unbecoming' has no inherent, objective content from which ascertainable standards defining the proscribed conduct can be fashioned. Like beauty, its content exists only in the eye of the beholder. The subjectivity implicit in the language of the rule permits district officials to enforce the rule with unfettered discretion, and it is precisely this potential for arbitrary enforcement which is abhorrent to the due process clause. Further, where, as here, a rule contains no ascertainable standards for enforcement, administrative and judicial review can be only a meaningless gesture. There is simply no benchmark against which the validity of the application of the rule in any particular disciplinary action can be tested."