  We suggest that quantum transitions of black holes comply with selection
rules, analogous to those of atomic spectroscopy. In order to identify such
rules, we apply Bohr's correspondence principle to the quasinormal ringing
frequencies of black holes. In this context, classical ringing frequencies with
an asymptotically vanishing real part \omega_R correspond to virtual quanta,
and may thus be interpreted as forbidden quantum transitions. With this
motivation, we calculate the quasinormal spectrum of neutrino fields in
spherically symmetric black-hole spacetimes. It is shown that \omega_R->0 for
these resonances, suggesting that the corresponding fermionic transitions are
quantum mechanically forbidden.
