Shelton v. McKinley

Decision Date08 June 1959
Docket NumberCiv. No. 3708.
PartiesB. T. SHELTON et al., Plaintiffs, v. Ed. I. McKINLEY, Jr., et al., Defendants.
CourtU.S. District Court — Eastern District of Arkansas

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

J. R. Booker, Christopher C. Mercer, Jr., Harold B. Anderson and Thad D. Williams, Little Rock, Ark., for plaintiffs.

Herschel H. Friday, of Mehaffy, Smith & Williams, Little Rock, Ark., and Louis L. Ramsay, Jr., of Coleman, Gantt & Ramsay, Pine Bluff, Ark., for defendants.

Before SANBORN, Circuit Judge, and MILLER and HENLEY, District Judges.

PER CURIAM.

This is a class action in which the plaintiffs1 seek declaratory and injunctive relief against the enforcement of Act 10 of the Second Extraordinary Session of the Arkansas Legislature, held in August, 1958, and of Act 115 of the regular 1959 session of that body. It is claimed that those statutes are violative of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. Upon the filing of the complaint, a statutory court of three judges was convened, and the case has been tried to that court.

Act 10 provides in substance that no person shall be employed or elected to employment as a superintendent, principal or teacher in any public school in Arkansas, or as an instructor, professor or teacher in any public institution of higher learning in that State until such person shall have submitted to the appropriate hiring authority an affidavit listing all organizations to which he at the time belongs and to which he has belonged during the past five years, and also listing all organizations to which he at the time is paying regular dues or is making regular contributions, or to which within the past five years he has paid such dues or made such contributions. The Act further provides, among other things, that any contract entered into with any person who has not filed the prescribed affidavit shall be void; that no public moneys shall be paid to such person as compensation for his services; and that any such funds so paid may be recovered back either from the person receiving such funds or from the board of trustees or other governing body making the payment. The filing of a false affidavit is denounced as perjury, punishable by a fine of not less than five hundred nor more than one thousand dollars, and, in addition, the person filing the false affidavit is to lose his teaching license.

Section 1 of Act 115 makes it unlawful for any member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (hereinafter called NAACP) to be employed by the State of Arkansas or any of its subdivisions, or by any school district, and declares that the prohibition of such employment shall continue so long as membership in the NAACP exists. Section 2 authorizes employing agencies to require from any employee an affidavit as to whether he is a member of the NAACP and a refusal to furnish the affidavit is made a ground for dismissal from employment.

Section 3 of the Act provides in substance that any person discharged from or declared ineligible for public employment on account of NAACP membership may, within four months of such dismissal or declaration, petition the circuit court for an order to show cause why a hearing on the charges against him should not be had; that until the final judgment on such hearing the dismissal or declaration of ineligibility shall be stayed; that the hearing shall consist of the taking of evidence with the right of cross-examination, and that the burden of sustaining the validity of an order of dismissal or declaration of ineligibility by a fair preponderance of the credible evidence shall be upon the person making such dismissal or declaration of ineligibility.

The operative sections of this statute are preceded by a preamble, the gist of which is that the NAACP has been guilty of creating racial strife and turmoil in the State of Arkansas; that it has threatened progress in race relations in the State; that it has striven to stir up dissatisfaction and unrest among Negroes, and that because of its purposes and activities membership therein is incompatible with the "peace, tranquility and progress that all citizens have a right to enjoy." The preamble also contains a recitation that the Special Education Committee of the Arkansas Legislative Council2 has found that the NAACP "is a captive of the international communist conspiracy".

When the suit was originally filed, B. T. Shelton was the only named plaintiff, and the original defendants were the Little Rock, Arkansas Special School District, the members of the Board of Directors of that District, and the Superintendent of Schools. Subsequently, an amended complaint was filed adding ATA and its executive secretary as plaintiffs, and adding as defendants the Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Special School District, the members of the School Board of that District and the Superintendent of Schools, and the Board of Trustees and President of the Arkansas A. M. & N. College for Negroes.

Also named as defendants were Bruce Bennett, Attorney General of the State of Arkansas, and Frank Holt, Prosecuting Attorney of the Sixth Judicial Circuit of Arkansas, which includes Little Rock. Both the attorney general and the prosecuting attorney filed motions to dismiss, and at the commencement of the trial it was agreed that the complaint might be dismissed as to them without prejudice. Also named as members of the Pine Bluff School Board were Ralph Mitchell, Jr., and J. C. Langley. It developed that one of these gentlemen had never been a member of the Board, and that the other had resigned prior to the filing of the suit, and it was agreed that the case might be dismissed as to them.

Reduced to essentials, the claim of the plaintiffs is that the two statutes in question deprive the plaintiff Shelton and others similarly situated, and the members of ATA of liberty and property without due process of law, that they deny them the equal protection of the law; that they infringe upon their rights of freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of assembly and association and to petition for redress of grievances, and deny them privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States. It is further claimed that Shelton and the plaintiff class are threatened with irreparable injury and have no adequate remedy at law.

In their answers the defendants deny the claim of the plaintiffs that the statutes are unconstitutional; they further contend that this court is without jurisdiction, and that this is not a proper class action. In the alternative, they ask that proceedings herein be stayed until the two statutes can be construed by the Arkansas state courts.

It appears that plaintiff Shelton has been employed as a teacher in the Little Rock Public School System for a number of years, and that he is a member of the NAACP; that on April 3 of the current year he and other teachers in the Little Rock system were called upon to submit the affidavits required by Act 10; that he declined to do so on the ground that the statute violated his constitutional rights; and that subsequently he received a letter signed by three members of the Little Rock School Board advising him that his contract had not been renewed for the 1959-60 school year and would not be renewed. By reason of a somewhat peculiar situation that existed with respect to the Little Rock School Board when the suit was filed and on the day of trial, which situation we find it unnecessary to detail, there is some uncertainty with respect to the exact status of Shelton's contract and those of certain other teachers who declined to submit the Act 10 affidavits. It has been stipulated, however, that the Little Rock School Board will act in conformity with ruling State statutes, and it is plain that if those statutes stand, Shelton will inevitably feel their impact if he has not already done so. Thus, we are satisfied that Shelton's situation presents a case or controversy between him and the Little Rock School District with respect to which this court has jurisdiction.

The claim that this is not a proper class action calls for no extended comment, since it is now well settled that a suit of this kind, while not a "true class action" can be maintained for the benefit of the named plaintiff and "others similarly situated" under the provisions of Rule 23, F.R.Civ.P., 28 U.S.C.A. See the full discussion of such an action and of the effect of a judgment therein contained in 3 Moore's Federal Practice, 2d Ed., pp. 3442-3450, 3455-56, and 3465-68.

With regard to the contention that this court should not proceed herein until the statutes have been construed by the State courts, we, of course, respect the doctrine of "equitable abstention", as it is sometimes called, and it has been applied in this district not infrequently. However, this doctrine is discretionary in its application, not jurisdictional. We see no problems of statutory construction in this case which would move our discretion to stay proceedings as the defendants desire. Cf. NAACP v. Patty, D.C. Va., 159 F.Supp. 503; see also dissenting opinion of Judge Parker in Bryan v. Austin, D.C.S.C., 148 F.Supp. 563, 567. Moreover, this is contract time with the school districts in Arkansas. Both teachers and directors of those districts need to know where they stand with respect to both acts. Should proceedings herein be stayed, inevitably there would be undesirable delay and confusion likely to be accompanied by a multiplicity of suits in various sections of the State. Accordingly, we are of the view that the public interest calls for a determination of the Constitutional questions presented by the record.

While there is certain language in the complaint that may indicate that the plaintiffs feel, at least to a certain extent, that the two statutes must be read together, we feel that they should be considered separately. Cf. Garner v. Board of Public Works of City of Los Angeles, ...

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  • Smith v. Board of Education of Morrilton Sch. Dist. No. 32
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit
    • 14 Septiembre 1966
    ...seems not to have been challenged. See 364 U.S. at p. 482, 81 S.Ct. 247, 5 L.Ed. 2d 231, and the same case below, Shelton v. McKinley, 174 F.Supp. 351, 353, n. 1 (E.D.Ark.1959). Similarly, no such challenge to a teachers association appears to have been made in Franklin v. County School Bd.......
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