Gantt v. Clemson Agricultural College of South Carolina

• Decision Date: 16 January 1963
• Docket Number: No. 8871.,8871.
• Citation: 320 F.2d 611
• Parties: Harvey B. GANTT, a minor, by his father and next friend, Christopher Gantt, Appellant, v. The CLEMSON AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE OF SOUTH CAROLINA, a public body corporate, R. M. Cooper, President of the Board of Trustees of The Clemson Agricultural College of South Carolina, Edgar A. Brown, et al., Members of the Board of Trustees, etc., Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

320 F.2d 611 (1963)

Harvey B. GANTT, a minor, by his father and next friend, Christopher Gantt, Appellant, v. The CLEMSON AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE OF SOUTH CAROLINA, a public body corporate, R. M. Cooper, President of the Board of Trustees of The Clemson Agricultural College of South Carolina, Edgar A. Brown, et al., Members of the Board of Trustees, etc., Appellees.

No. 8871.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued January 9, 1963.

Decided January 16, 1963.

Certiorari Denied October 14, 1963.

Matthew J. Perry, Columbia, S. C., and Constance Baker Motley, New York City (Jack Greenberg, New York City, Lincoln C. Jenkins, Jr., Columbia, S. C., Donald James Sampson, Willie T. Smith, Jr., Greenville, S. C., and Derrick Bell, New York City, on brief), for appellant.

William L. Watkins (Watkins, Vandiver, Freeman & Kirven, Anderson, S. C., and P. H. McEachin, Florence, S. C., on brief), for appellees.

Before SOBELOFF, Chief Judge, and SOPER and HAYNSWORTH, Circuit Judges.

Certiorari Denied October 14, 1963. See 84 S.Ct. 46.

PER CURIAM.

Harvey B. Gantt, a nineteen-year-old Negro resident of Charleston, South Carolina, is presently enrolled as a student in the Architectural School of Iowa State University. Since January, 1961, he has been seeking, without success, admission to Clemson College, the only institution in his native state that offers architectural courses.

In October 1962, we heard his appeal from the District Court's denial of an interlocutory injunction and an order admitting him to Clemson College. We declined to grant the desired relief at that stage of the proceedings, but, with the cooperation of the parties, the case was advanced and heard on the merits in the District Court and expedited on appeal when that court dismissed Gantt's complaint.

Gantt first applied for admission to Clemson College in January 1961. The incomplete application was first denied upon the ground that it appeared that he was doing satisfactory work at Iowa State University which he was attending. Renewed, it was again cancelled on August 31, 1961 for the reason that his College Board Test scores, received the preceding day, were received too late to permit consideration of his application. He did not take the examination until August, though one had been given in Charleston, where he lived, in late June 1961. On August 31, 1961 some fifty transfer applications were cancelled for similar reasons. Under the circumstances, the finding of the District Court that the August 31, 1961 cancellation of Gantt's application was not discriminatory is supported by substantial evidence.

Thereafter Gantt reapplied for admission to Clemson College for the 1962-63 session. That application was formally completed in June 1962 when the transcript of his credits earned at Iowa State for the Spring Quarter of 1962 was received by Clemson College. Though not a formal catalog requirement, however, the evidence indicates that in the School of Architecture at Clemson College the accent is upon original design work, and the Dean of that School routinely requires of transfer applicants submission of examples of their design work and a personal interview. The Dean wrote to Gantt asking that he submit a portfolio of his drawings for evaluation and that he come to Clemson for an interview with the Dean. When Gantt received this communication, however, he had already verified the complaint in this action and had authorized his attorney to file it. After this action had been filed, he responded to the Dean's letter, expressing a willingness to comply with the Dean's request, but, inquiring whether the Dean wished him to do so, in light of the fact that the action had been commenced. The Attorney for the College responded to Gantt's Attorney that he felt any further communication should be between counsel for the parties and not between the parties themselves.

The District Court, in its findings of fact, declared that the legislative policy of South Carolina does not prohibit, but discourages, integration of the races in its states-supported colleges. The distinction drawn between prohibition and discouragement is a novel one in legal literature, and we must hold it unacceptable. Under the Constitution of the United States a state may no more pursue a policy of discouraging and impeding admission to its educational institutions on the ground of race than it may maintain a policy of strictly prohibiting admissions on account of race.

The record shows that Clemson College, since the decision of Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954), has not done anything to change the pre-existing policy of exclusion of Negroes as theretofore commanded by state statutes which that decision invalidated. The only state-supported institution of higher learning for Negroes is maintained by South Carolina at Orangeburg. The State has continued as theretofore its policy and practice of offering financial assistance to Negro students to help pay for their education in out-of-state institutions of learning, if the courses they desire to take are not offered at Orangeburg, but they have not been admitted to other state institutions in South Carolina. Since no architectural courses are available at Orangeburg, Gantt has been receiving,...