Briggs v. Elliott

• Decision Date: 15 July 1955
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 2657.
• Citation: 132 F. Supp. 776
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of South Carolina
• Parties: Harry BRIGGS, Jr., et al., Plaintiffs, v. R. W. ELLIOTT et al., Defendants.

132 F. Supp. 776

Harry BRIGGS, Jr., et al., Plaintiffs, v. R. W. ELLIOTT et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 2657.

United States District Court E. D. South Carolina, Charleston Division.

July 15, 1955.

Thurgood Marshall, New York, N. Y., Harold R. Boulware, Columbia, S. C., for plaintiffs.

S. E. Rogers, Summerton, S. C., Robert McC. Figg, Jr., Charleston, S. C., for defendants.

Before PARKER and DOBIE, Circuit Judges, and TIMMERMAN, District Judge.

PER CURIAM.

This Court in its prior decisions in this case, 98 F.Supp. 529; 103 F.Supp. 920, followed what it conceived to be the law as laid down in prior decisions of the Supreme Court, Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 16 S.Ct. 1138, 41 L.Ed. 256; Gong Lum v. Rice, 275 U.S. 78, 48 S.Ct. 91, 72 L.Ed. 172, that nothing in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States forbids segregation of the races in the public schools provided equal facilities are accorded the children of all races. Our decision has been reversed by the Supreme Court, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 349 U.S. 294, 75 S.Ct. 753, 757, which has remanded the case to us with direction "to take such proceedings and enter such orders and decrees consistent with this opinion as are necessary and proper to admit to public schools on a racially non-discriminatory basis with all deliberate speed the parties to these cases".

Whatever may have been the views of this court as to the law when the case was originally before us, it is our duty now to accept the law as declared by the Supreme Court.

Having said this, it is important that we point out exactly what the Supreme Court has decided and what it has not decided in this case. It has not decided that the federal courts are to take over or regulate the public schools of the states. It has not decided that the states must mix persons of different races in the schools or must require them to attend schools or must deprive them of the right of choosing the schools they attend. What it has decided, and all that it has decided, is that a state may not deny to any person on account of race the right to attend any school that it maintains. This, under the decision of the Supreme Court, the state may not do directly or indirectly; but if the schools which it maintains are open to children of all races, no violation of the Constitution is involved even though the children of different races voluntarily attend different schools, as they attend different churches. Nothing in the Constitution or in the decision of the Supreme Court takes away from the people freedom to choose the schools they attend. The Constitution, in other words, does not require integration. It merely forbids discrimination. It does not forbid such segregation as occurs as the result of voluntary action. It merely forbids the use of governmental power to enforce segregation. The Fourteenth Amendment is a limitation upon the exercise of power by the state or state agencies, not a limitation upon the freedom of individuals.

The Supreme Court has pointed out that the solution of the problem in accord with its decisions is the primary responsibility of school authorities and that the function of the courts is to determine whether action of the school authorities constitutes "good faith implementation of the governing constitutional principles". With respect to the action to be taken under its decision the Supreme Court said:

"Full implementation of these constitutional principles may require solution of varied local school problems. School authorities have the primary responsibility for elucidating, assessing, and solving these problems; courts will have to consider whether the action of school authorities constitutes good faith implementation of the governing constitutional principles. Because of their proximity to local conditions and the possible need for further hearings, the courts which

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