People ex rel. Workman v. Board of Education of Detroit

• Decision Date: 12 May 1869
• Citation: 18 Mich. 400
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: The People ex rel. Joseph Workman v. The Board of Education of Detroit

18 Mich. 400

The People ex rel. Joseph Workman v. The Board of Education of Detroit

Supreme Court of Michigan

May 12, 1869

Heard May 5, 1869 [Syllabus Material] [Syllabus Material] [Syllabus Material] [Syllabus Material] [Syllabus Material] [Syllabus Material]

Mandamus to the board of education of the city of Detroit.

It appeared that in April, 1868, the relator duly and properly applied for the admission of his child, a mulatto, of more than one-fourth African blood, into the Duffield Union or Tenth Ward school of the city of Detroit, and was refused.

That, at the time of said application, there was room for relator's child in said school; that at the present time there is room for scholars in said school; that the relator is a mulatto, residing and owning property in the city of Detroit, and paying taxes thereon, including a tax for the support of the primary schools of said city; that said city for many years heretofore has constituted one school district, under the direction and regulation of the board of education; that the respondents, many years since, established separate public schools for colored children exclusively, but in all other respects the same as the public schools for the white children, and that there are now two of said schools in operation in said city, one in the fourth and one in the seventh ward thereof, and that another is now being prepared in the sixth ward thereof; that relator's child is not entitled to enter any other grade of schools than that to which these colored schools belong; that out of all the colored children in said city, but thirty-eight live in wards distantly removed from said colored schools; that there are now vacant sittings in said colored schools to which the relator's child can be admitted upon proper application; that after the establishment of said colored schools, respondents made a resolution or by-law, requiring all colored children to attend said colored schools, and prohibiting their admission into the white schools of said city; that the regulation and government of the public schools of said city has been for many years past eminently successful, and the behavior of the scholars therein exceedingly conductive to the advantage and prosperity of said schools; that there is a strong prejudice against the colored people among a large majority of the white population of said city, and among many of the children in said schools, and that a careful consideration of the question has convinced respondents that the abolition of said colored schools, and the indiscriminate union and mingling of colored with white children in all the public schools, would be greatly prejudicial to the best interests of said public schools, and would engender strife and discord among the scholars thereof.

H. M. & W. E. Cheever, for relator:

The board of education of the city are a body corporate, created by special statute, and take the place of the board of school inspectors under the general law of the state. To them is committed the direction and regulation of the free schools of the city. The act was passed in 1842, and although various amendments have from time to time been made to it in other particulars, the provisions bearing upon the present case are unchanged. Section one of the act of 1842 provided that "the city of Detroit shall be considered as one school district, and hereafter all schools organized therein, in pursuance of this act, shall, under the direction and regulations of the board of education, be public and free to all children residing within the limits thereof, between the age of five and seventeen years, inclusive:" Act of 1842, § 1.

The act of 1869, now in force, changes this section only in the admission of scholars up to the age of twenty: Act of 1869 § 1.

The only ground upon which the respondents base their refusal to comply with the requirements of section one of the act is to be found, if it exists, in section nine of the old act of 1842, as amended in 1850 and 1855, and which is section eight of the act of 1869. This section gave them "full power and authority to make by-laws and ordinances relative to the regulation of schools, and relative to anything that may advance the interests of education, the good government and prosperity of the free schools in said city, and the welfare of the public concerning the same:" Act of 1842, p. 114, § 9; Act of 1869, § 8.

This seems to give a general discretionary power, it is true, and respondents may claim great latitude in the exercise of their powers under it, still they can do nothing which will conflict with the provisions of the act as a whole; they can do nothing which would be manifestly contrary to the intention of the legislature in the enactment as a whole. This intention clearly was to commit the care and custody of the free schools of the city of Detroit to the respondents, instead of a board of school inspectors (as elsewhere in the state), to be by them carried on as nearly as possible in accordance with the general state law, not to be "regulated" in such a way as to be virtually closed against one class of citizens, while open to others. What then is the meaning of section nine?

(The counsel here entered into a critical examination of the several acts of the legislature, together with the constitutional provisions bearing upon the subject.)

Without section nine, it will not be contended that colored children could be excluded from the nearest school to their homes in the city. Does this section give the respondents the power they claim under it?

This section will be claimed by the respondents as in the nature of a general authority to legislate upon this question. But granting this, for the argument, their legislation or regulations upon a subject committed to them must be in conformity, as far as practicable, with the general legislation of the state upon the same subject matter: Welch v. Stowell, 2 Doug. 336.

The object in making the city "one district," was to give the control of all the schools to one corporate body.

By the law of the state, children must attend in the district where they reside. As the city increased, this became inconvenient. A scholar might live across the street from a school-house, and yet be in another district. Hence the necessity of creating one district, and giving the board power to make school "limits" of territory contiguous to the school-house, without regard to ward lines.

A "regulation" requiring children to go from the tenth ward to the ninth, a distance of over two miles, and pass other schools on their way, becomes virtually a prohibition of the benefits of the school system.

Again, the Duffield school has its grades; the colored school is a primary school only; and the exclusion of the colored child from the union school is an absolute prohibition of an enjoyment of the higher grades of the free schools.

The power to regulate is not the power to prohibit: Nagle v. The City of Augusta, 5 Ga. 546; Ex Parte Burnet, 30 Ala. 461; Roberts v. City of Boston, 5 Cush. 198; Clark v. Board of Directors, 24 Iowa 60; People v. Auditor-General, 17 Mich. 175.

Applying the reasoning in said opinions to this case, the power to regulate should not be confounded with the power to create or change a system as previously fixed by the legislature, both in the general school law of the state, and in the act applicable to this city.

The primary intention of the act is to give free schools to all children in the city. If the construction contended for by the respondents, of section eight, be given, does it not, to a certain extent, prevent the schools being free to all?

D. B. & H. M. Duffield, for respondents:

Respondents insist that the relator is not entitled to the mandamus prayed, for the following reasons:

1. Because it is at this time impossible for the respondents to comply with it on account of the lack of room in the schools: Regina v. The London & N. W. Ry. Co., 6 Eng. R. and C. Cases, 479.

2. Because the relator has no such interest in the matter as entitles him to ask for a mandamus.

The petition should be made by the child excluded, by its next friend: Stephenson v. Hall, 14 Barb. 222; Sherman v. Charlestown, 8 Cush. 161; Donahoe v. Richards, 38 Me. 376.

3. Because the resolution of respondents requiring colored children to attend separate schools, established and maintained exclusively for them, is:

First. Authorized by statute.

Second. An exercise of their discretion, with which this court will not interfere; and,

Third. A reasonable regulation "for the good government and prosperity of the free schools of said city."

a. This authority is derived from the act of February, 1869, which in express terms repeals all other acts inconsistent therewith.

Section one of said act provides:

"That the city of Detroit shall be considered as one school district, and all schools now organized, and hereafter to be organized therein in pursuance of this act, shall, under the direction and regulations of the board of education, be public and free to all children residing within the limits thereof," etc.

Section eight gives the said board "full power and authority to make by-laws and ordinances * * * * relative to the regulations of schools, * * * * relative to anything whatever that may advance the interests of education, the good government and prosperity of free schools in said city, and the welfare of the public concerning the same."

The resolution of respondents relative to colored schools merely regulates the admission of children to the several schools.

There has been no exclusion of relator's child from the public schools of said city. The return expressly avers that the relator's child can, at any time, upon proper...