Goss v. Board of Education, City of Knoxville

• Decision Date: 07 June 1967
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 3984.
• Citation: 270 F. Supp. 903
• Parties: Josephine GOSS et al. v. BOARD OF EDUCATION, CITY OF KNOXVILLE.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Tennessee

270 F. Supp. 903

Josephine GOSS et al. v. BOARD OF EDUCATION, CITY OF KNOXVILLE.

Civ. A. No. 3984.

United States District Court E. D. Tennessee, N. D.

June 7, 1967.

Carl A. Cowan, Knoxville, Tenn., Z. Alexander Looby, Avon N. Williams, Jr., Nashville, Tenn., Jack Greenberg, New York City, for plaintiff.

S. Frank Fowler, Knoxville, Tenn., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM

ROBERT L. TAYLOR, Chief Judge.

This case has had a long history. Seventeen students attending school in the Knoxville preparatory and school systems, joined by their parents or guardians, filed suit on December 11, 1959 against the Board of Education of the City of Knoxville, the Members of the School Board, Superintendent of Schools, and a number of principals of schools, seeking: an injunction against the defendant from refusing to admit or transfer them to the respective schools which they had sought to enter and which they were prevented from entering because they were members of the Negro race; an order declaring the policy and practices of defendants to be unconstitutional, in excluding plaintiffs and other persons similarly situated from the elementary or secondary schools of Knoxville because of their race pursuant to Article II, Section 12 of the Constitution of Tennessee, Section 49-3701, 49-3702 and 49-3703 of the Tennessee Code; an injunction prohibiting the defendants from engaging in any other actions that limit or affect admission to the Knoxville schools of the infant plaintiffs, or any Negro children similarly situated under defendants' jurisdiction; and, an order requiring the defendants to present to the Court a complete plan designed to bring about good faith compliance with the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L. Ed. 873, at the earliest practicable date throughout the public school system of the City of Knoxville and of Knox County which shall provide for a prompt and reasonable start towards desegregation of the public schools of said City and a systematic and effective method for achieving such desegregation, with all deliberate speed.

Following the answer of the defendants to the complaint, a hearing was had on February 8, 1960. An order was entered on that date by the Court directing the School Board to submit on or before April 8, 1960 a plan to bring about a good faith compliance with the decision in Brown v. Board of Education, supra. On April 8, 1960, the Board of Education complied with that order, and submitted a plan of desegregation called Plan 9.¹

Plaintiffs objected to the plan upon a number of grounds, the main one being that it did not provide for elimination of racial segregation as required by the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

An extended evidentiary hearing was held on the objections to the plan on August 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12, 1960. On August 19, the Court filed a detailed memorandum approving the plan, with the single exception of the provision relating to technical and vocational courses offered in the Fulton High School to which Negro children would not have access, and directed the Board to submit a plan which would give the Negro students who desired technical and vocational courses an opportunity to take them. (186 F.Supp. 559).

On September 2, 1960, plaintiffs filed a motion for a new trial and for appropriate relief from the operation of the judgment entered on August 26, 1960 pursuant to the memorandum opinion. On September 6, 1960 the Court entered an order denying the motion. An appeal was taken by plaintiffs following the denial of a new trial.

While the appeal was pending, defendants filed a plan to provide vocational and technical training for Negro students similar to those provided for white students at Fulton High School.²

Defendants also filed a statement entitled "Transfer Policy—Vocational Division —Knoxville City Schools—`Procedures.'"³

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in affirming this Court's judgment in some respects and in modifying it in others (301 F.2d 164), stated at page 168:

"In conclusion, we affirm the judgment of the District Court in the following respects: the approval of the plan insofar as it pertains to school grades already integrated; the approval of the plan as to items three and four thereof, providing for zoning or districting based upon location and capacity of school buildings and the permission of students to attend schools designated for their zones; the approval of the plan as to transfers subject to it being used for proper school administration purposes and not for perpetuation of segregation; the rejection of the plan so far as it pertains to Fulton High School and the order to the board to resubmit a plan in a reasonable time that will permit Negro students to have the advantage of the special courses of that high school and the denial of injunctive relief.

"We modify the judgment of the District Court insofar as it approved the board's plan for continued segregation of all grades not reached by its grade-a-year plan. It is not the function of this Court to formulate or dictate to the board a plan for the operation of the Knoxville schools. It is, likewise, not our intention to require immediate total desegregation. We do believe, however, that more grades than contemplated by the board's plan should now be desegregated. In the light of the board's experience with the present plan. It should be enabled to submit an amended plan that will accelerate desegregation and more nearly comply with the mandate of the Supreme Court for `good faith compliance at the earliest practicable date.'

"The case is remanded to the District Court with instructions to require the board to promptly submit an amended and realistic plan for the acceleration of desegregation, in accordance with the views herein expressed."

Plaintiffs' petition for certiorari was granted and this case was heard by the Supreme Court on March 20, 21, 1963 along with a case from Davidson County involving a similar question, and was decided by it on June 3, 1963. (373 U.S. 683, 83 S.Ct. 1405, 10 L.Ed.2d 632). In the Goss case, the Supreme Court considered only Section 6 of the plan, which was the transfer section (supra, Footnote 1). This Section the Supreme Court held invalid because it promoted racial discrimination. It observed that transfers are available to those who choose to attend school where their race is in the majority, but that there was no provision whereby a student might transfer upon request to a school in which his race was in the minority, unless he qualified for a good cause transfer. The Court further observed:

"This is not to say that appropriate transfer provisions, upon the parents' request, consistent with sound school administration and not based upon any state-imposed racial conditions, would fall. Likewise, we would have a different case here if the transfer provisions were unrestricted, allowing transfers to or from any school regardless of the race of the majority therein. But no official transfer plan or provision of which racial segregation is the inevitable consequence may stand under the Fourteenth Amendment." pp. 688, 689, 83 S.Ct. p. 1409.

The Board submitted a plan for Fulton Vocational High School on March 31, 1961 and an evidentiary hearing was held by this Court thereon. The Court in a memorandum opinion rendered on June 19, 1961 approved the plan with the single reservation that: "A student who lives near Fulton and who possesses the necessary vocational qualifications to enter Fulton should not be required to travel across town to attend Austin when Fulton is much nearer."

Plaintiffs' second appeal involving the Fulton School was decided by the Court of Appeals on July 6, 1962 (305 F.2d 523), in which this Court was affirmed in approving the plan except insofar as it pertained to the transfer procedures. The case was remanded by the appellate court with instructions to require an amendment that would permit all students to transfer as a matter of right when they qualified for the courses which they desired to take in one of the two high schools involved (Fulton and Austin), and such course was not available to them in the school they were attending.

On June 18, 1962 plaintiffs filed a motion to require defendants to file immediately a supplemental plan for accelerating desegregation of the City Schools of Knoxville as of the beginning of the 1962-63 academic school year, in accordance with the mandate of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit filed in this Court on June 8, 1962.

On June 25, 1962 the Board stepped up the integration schedule so as to include the fourth grade, as well as the third, effective September 1, 1962.

Plaintiffs filed objections to the amended plan and urged in support a number of grounds and requested that the case be advanced on the docket for an immediate hearing on the objections.

On March 14, 1963 the plan was further amended so as to desegregate the fifth and sixth grades, effective with the school year 1963-64. Objections were filed to this plan. The Board desegregated the summer junior and senior daytime high schools to be held at Tyson Junior High School and West High School beginning June, 1963 so that anyone could attend these schools on the basis of his or her record and qualifications, without regard to race.

The hearing was held on the amendments to the plan on April 1, 1963 and this Court held that desegregation of the fifth and sixth grades complied with the mandate of the Court of Appeals. The Board was ordered to file an amended plan with respect to the Fulton High School showing that it had complied with the mandate. The Board was directed to make schools available to all retarded children.

The Board submitted a plan on May 15, 1963 regarding Austin and Fulton High Schools, and regarding schools for retarded children.

On February...