Question for teachers here, although anyone else can chime in:
It’s common for students, over the course of a semester, to sit in one particular seat in a classroom, and for that to be “their” seat.
Suppose one day Student A sits in the seat that normally is Student B’s, and Student B says “That’s my seat” and Student A won’t give it up. What would you do?
(My view is that nobody has a “right” to a seat and that Student B should just go to another seat, but I wanted to ask Doper views first.)
I am a teacher and assign seats. However, some students have an IEP(indvidual education plan) that mandates they have a seat close to the front.
Does anyone have a right to their weekly seat in church? No, but if people know that someone sits there regular, most of us don’t intentionally take the seat. I guess that is how it is in some classrooms, though almost every teacher I work with assigns seats.
I picked my own seat in college , I had to sit up front to hear the teacher better and be able to see their face to read their lips .
I was in one class in college, and the professor offhandedly mentioned that he always had an easy time remembering names, because humans are creatures of habit and will sit in the same seat every class. My group of friends (and incidentally, most this professor’s students he was advising) took it upon ourselves to sit in different sections of the class each day, forcing the entire class to move around for each instructional session. Took the prof like three times longer to memorize everyone’s name. He was annoyed but respected that we’d figured that out (we ragged on each other a lot in his lab).
So no, nobody has a ‘right’ to a particular seat. If you want a particular seat, get to class first. Otherwise, deal with it.
I had a friend who had RP, and her IEP said that she had to sit in the back (RP restricts your visual field). A lot of teachers were suspicious of it, but the IEP said it, so they had to follow it. She was quiet and got good grades, though; after a few weeks most teachers weren’t suspicious anymore.
But yeah, 99.99% of the time, when IEPs mandate a seat, it’s in the front.
I’ve also seen IEPs mandate a seat near the center.
But even absent that, the matter doesn’t often come up, because student A probably has a habitual seat, too. And a student out of their habitual/assigned seat is usually so because they’re doing something else the teacher would crack down on anyway, like deliberately annoying some other student.
Most students seem to stick to a single seat, but I would not intervene in the OP’s example. The seats are not “owned”.
Depends on Student A. Depends on Student B. Depends on the class itself. Depends on whether I’ve had my coffee yet.
But no, no student has a “right” to a particular seat. It is possible for an IEP to say that a student will be allowed to sit where he or she is most comfortable or most familiar, and in that case Student A would be outta luck no matter what. If Student B’s IEP just says “must sit in a particular part of the room,” then we’re back into “depends” territory.
At the end of the day the teacher’s primary consideration is what actions will create the most productive learning environment while maintaining good classroom management. This often means letting students stick to the habits and procedures they create for themselves.
In the OP’s hypothetical, there’s probably an 80% chance that Student A is being a jerk and can go sit somewhere else.
Are we talking elementary school, high school or university here?
Yes, a student has a right to a seat. Just as a bus passenger has a right to a seat. And a ticket buyer has a right to his place in line. The question is, how is that right established? And how is the claim to the right announced?
For a teacher, the solution is simple. Assume that the students are civil enough to mutually agree on how seats are secured. If a dispute arises, the teacher simply reminds the students that his classroom is not a democracy, and arbitrarily assigns seats by edict. In some cases, there is already an edict (such as the IEP upthread) which takes priority over custom.
Not all cultures agree on how seats are allocated. In Panama, I discovered a unique system. At the bus station, you go aboard the bus, choose your seat, and place an article on the seat to hold it. Then get off the bus, go to the ticket counter, tell them the number of the seat you have chosen, and buy a ticket.
Depends on the age, and class history. As Johnny Bravo wrote, there’s a good chance Student A is just being a jerk. If it was high school and B had had that seat all year I’d tell A to stop being a jerk and sit elsewhere. If college I’d tell B that A’s a jerk but is only breaking the weakest of social rules so go sit somewhere else.
RP? 
I’m sorry, Google has nothin’.
Retinitis Pigmentosa, I’m assuming.
In my classes, the students get the first couple of days to figure out where they want to sit. After I make the seating chart, that’s where they stay. It’s the only way a sub or a TA can figure out who’s who.
Honestly, I find it hard to believe that there aren’t assigned seats. I was assigned a seat in every elementary and high school class I attended. Sometimes it was alphabetical, sometimes it was intended to separate troublemakers (yes, I was one), and sometimes it was to partner students for projects or lab work. And, of course, you’re assigned a seat in band class 
I was going to say the same thing about assigned seating and IEPs. I’m not sure from the OP’s post what age group we’re talking about. If it’s college, then everyone for themselves although usually patterns begin to develop.
When I went to my JRHS, my HRT always had us sit IAO. That was it! No one STO, so that’s where we sat AYL.
I managed to get through 12 years + pre-school + 4 year degree, with only 3 years of assigned seating.
Speaking of college, one of my friends was a psych major. The class decided to be more noisy when the lecturer was on the left side, and by the end of term had trained him to lecture from the right edge of the theatre.
I teach all ages and only a few have non-assigned seating. I asked my high school kids (free seating) yesterday and no one believed they had a right to a seat.
I can’t see what age would have a problem. Younger kids are generally going to have assigned seating just because it’s easier that way for the teacher as well as the students. Older kids are generally going to me mature enough to handle it.
Especially in the United States, there are VASTLY more “rights” that people imagine, assume, and rudely demand that they have, than they actually, logically, and legally have.
Non-existent “rights” include:
the right to stay in the lane you like on the highway, regardless of how fast or slow you drive;
the right to force other drivers to LEAVE the lane you prefer, because you want to drive faster than they do;
the right to an equal amount of cake at office parties;
the right to be respected after you post a vicious or stupid rant;
the right to be listened to at all;
the right to sit where you need to or want to, due to handicaps or preferences;
the right to say whatever you want, wherever you want in whatever way you want, at whatever volume you want;
the right to ignore signs and instructions if they annoy you;
...and so on.