Cite as: 520 U. S. 924 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
their tenure and cannot be fired without due process, see Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth, 408 U. S. 564, 578 (1972); Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U. S. 593, 602-603 (1972), we have not had occasion to decide whether the protections of the Due Process Clause extend to discipline of tenured public employees short of termination. Petitioners, however, do not contest this preliminary point, and so without deciding it we will, like the District Court, "[a]ssum[e] that the suspension infringed a protected property interest," App. to Pet. for Cert. 59a, and turn at once to petitioners' contention that respondent received all the process he was due.
A
In Cleveland Bd. of Ed. v. Loudermill, 470 U. S. 532 (1985), we concluded that a public employee dismissable only for cause was entitled to a very limited hearing prior to his termination, to be followed by a more comprehensive post-termination hearing. Stressing that the pretermination hearing "should be an initial check against mistaken decisions—essentially, a determination of whether there are reasonable grounds to believe that the charges against the employee are true and support the proposed action," id., at 545-546, we held that pretermination process need only include oral or written notice of the charges, an explanation of the employer's evidence, and an opportunity for the employee to tell his side of the story, id., at 546. In the course of our assessment of the governmental interest in immediate termination of a tenured employee, we observed that "in those situations where the employer perceives a significant hazard in keeping the employee on the job, it can avoid the problem by suspending with pay." Id., at 544-545 (emphasis added; footnote omitted).
Relying on this dictum, which it read as "strongly suggest-[ing] that suspension without pay must be preceded by notice and an opportunity to be heard in all instances," 89 F. 3d, at 1015 (emphasis added), and determining on its own that
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