Cato v. Parham

• Decision Date: 25 July 1968
• Docket Number: No. PB-67-C-69.,PB-67-C-69.
• Parties: Samuel Wayne CATO et al., Plaintiffs, v. Lee PARHAM et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Arkansas

293 F. Supp. 1375

Samuel Wayne CATO et al., Plaintiffs, v. Lee PARHAM et al., Defendants.

No. PB-67-C-69.

United States District Court E. D. Arkansas, Pine Bluff Division.

July 25, 1968.

George Howard, Jr., Pine Bluff, Ark., for plaintiffs.

Robert V. Light, of Smith, Williams, Friday & Bowen, Little Rock, Ark., for defendants.

Memorandum Opinion

HENLEY, Chief Judge.

This cause is now before the Court on the latest desegregation plan submitted by the Board of Directors of the Dollarway School District No. 2, Jefferson County, Arkansas. The plan in the form of a motion and a supporting statement was submitted on June 26. Objections to it have been filed by plaintiffs and intervenors.

The Court has given the plan careful consideration in the light of its contents, the entire record in this case, the record in its predecessor case, Dove v. Parham, E.D.Ark., 196 F.Supp. 944, and ruling opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States and of the Court of Appeals for this Circuit. The Supreme Court cases considered include, of course, the trilogy of decisions handed down by the Court on May 27 of the current year involving the public schools of New Kent County, Virginia; Gould, Arkansas; and Jackson, Tennessee, in all of which districts the school boards were trying to comply with the Brown decisions by employing the so-called "freedom of choice" or "free transfer" method of pupil assignment. Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, 391 U.S. 430, 88 S.Ct. 1689, 20 L.Ed.2d 716; Raney v. Board of Education of Gould School District, 391 U.S. 443, 88 S.Ct. 1697, 20 L.Ed.2d 727; Monroe v. Board of Commissioners of the City of Jackson, Tenn., 391 U.S. 450, 88 S.Ct. 1700, 20 L.Ed.2d 733.

The Court sees no occasion for an extended opinion dealing with the Board's present plan; enough has been written already in the course of this protracted litigation. The Court and counsel on both sides are thoroughly familiar with the history of the litigation and of the progress that has been made toward desegregation of student bodies and faculty down to this time.

The Court will emphasize that there can now be no question that the "Briggs v. Elliott" approach which this Court has used in years past in this case and in others, and which the Board has used in this case, is no longer permissible. Under the Supreme Court decisions above cited it is the duty of local school boards to disestablish dual schools systems based on race, and to establish unitary systems in which there are no identifiable "white" schools and no identifiable "Negro" schools, but just "schools." And that duty must be discharged promptly; there is no longer room for mere "deliberate speed." Prior to the Supreme Court decisions of May 27 the Court of Appeals for this Circuit had so held in a number of cases with which counsel are familiar, and this Court had so defined the Board's duty in its unpublished memorandum opinion of January 12, 1968.

Nor is there any question that the schools in the Dollarway District are racially identifiable, and that the Board is still operating an unconstitutional dual system of schools. There are not now and never have been any white students assigned to the Townsend Park Schools; only slightly more than 50 Negroes attended the formerly all-white schools during the school term just past, and it is contemplated that only 71 of such students will be in attendance at those schools during the coming year. The percentage of Negroes heretofore enrolled and to be enrolled in the formerly all white schools in the District is less than the percentages involved in the New Kent County, Gould, and Jackson cases. The staff and faculty of the District are only partially desegregated.

It is not now the function of the Board merely to ameliorate the situation by assigning more Negro students and teachers to the formerly all white schools or by assigning more white teachers or even some white students to the Townsend Park System. It is the duty of the Board to eliminate the dual system itself, and to do so promptly.

The Supreme Court did not define the term "promptly" and did not set any hard and fast deadline to be met by all school districts or by any school district. But, the urgency of the language of the opinions and the urgency of the language of earlier opinions of the Court of Appeals for this Circuit makes it crystal clear that the time for "transitional plans" is running out. The Court thinks it a fair prediction that in general school districts will not be permitted to remain "in transition" beyond the beginning of the 1969-70 school term. In that connection the Court observes that in the El Dorado case, the Altheimer case, and the Marvell case, the Court of Appeals set September 1969 as the deadline for faculty desegregation, and this Court has set that deadline for such desegregation in this case.

The record in the case indicates that the Board has made some additional interracial staff and faculty assignments for the coming year and has assigned students for that year in accordance with the choices expressed by them in April. The Board proposes to operate without change during 1968-69 while it undertakes to decide what it is going to do after that session.

In view of the imminence of the opening of school this fall, in view of the plans for the term which have been made already, and in view of the fact that radical reorganization of the District's schools and...