Louisiana State Board of Education v. Baker

• Decision Date: 11 December 1964
• Docket Number: No. 21138.,21138.
• Citation: 339 F.2d 911
• Parties: LOUISIANA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION et al., Appellants, v. Edward BAKER et al., Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

339 F.2d 911 (1964)

LOUISIANA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION et al., Appellants, v. Edward BAKER et al., Appellees.

No. 21138.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

December 11, 1964.

William P. Schuler, Asst. Atty. Gen., Arabi, La., Jack P. F. Gremillion, Atty. Gen. of Louisiana, Baton Rouge, La., George M. Ponder, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellants.

A. P. Tureaud, New Orleans, La., A. M. Trudeau, Jr., Ernest N. Morial, New Orleans, for appellees.

Before RIVES and WISDOM, Circuit Judges, and MORGAN, District Judge.

WISDOM, Circuit Judge:

Six times in recent years the Attorney General of Louisiana has contended in a "school segregation" case that the Eleventh Amendment shields the State and its agencies from being sued without the consent of the State. Ex parte Young, 1908, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714, is no stranger to the Attorney General of Louisiana, but he takes the stand that the Ex parte Young doctrine is limited to actions against individual public officials and does not apply to an action against a State agency. Again we reject this notion. We hold that the Eleventh Amendment provides no haven for a state agency when it violates federally protected constitutional rights.

The plaintiffs, Negroes seeking admission to Nicholls State College in Thibodaux, Louisiana, filed suit against The Francis T. Nicholls State College; its President, Vernon F. Galliano; its registrar, James Lynn Powell; Louisiana State Board of Education; William J. Dodd, its President; and Shelby M. Jackson, its Secretary. The district judge issued a preliminary injunction, enjoining the defendants from refusing to admit appellees or members of their class to Nicholls State College solely on the basis of their race. On appeal, the defendants contend that the court has no jurisdiction over Nicholls State College and the Louisiana State Board of Education.

We answered this contention in McCoy v. Louisiana State Board of Education, 5 Cir. 1964, 332 F.2d 915, in these words:

"The district court held that since Art. XIX, Sec. 26 of the Louisiana Constitution, as amended in 1956, LSA, makes the State Board of Education a `special agency\' of the State of Louisiana and withdraws consent to be sued, the State Board of Education was immune from suit except as against the individual members thereof. The district court was aware that this circuit has expressly rejected this same contention in Orleans Parish School Board v. Bush, 5 Cir., 1957, 242 F.2d 156, 160-161; cert. denied 354 U.S. 921, 77 S.Ct. 1380, 1 L.Ed.2d 1436; Board of Supervisors of L. S. U. v. Ludley, 5 Cir., 1958, 252 F.2d 372, 375-376, cert. denied 358 U.S. 819, 79 S.Ct. 31, 3 L.Ed.2d 61; Board of Supervisors of L. S. U. v. Fleming, 5 Cir. 1959, 265 F.2d 736, 737-738; Louisiana State Board of Education v. Allen, 5 Cir., 1961, 287 F.2d 32, 33, cert. denied 368 U.S. 830, 82 S.Ct. 52, 7 L.Ed.2d 33; Louisiana State Board of Education v. Angel, 5 Cir., 1961, 287 F.2d 33, 34, but it declined to follow these cases since it was of the opinion that they are contrary to Ex Parte Young, 1907, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714, 13 L.R. A.,N.S., 932, and the Eleventh Amendment. Five times this court has held that there is no immunity for a state agency from a suit to enjoin it from enforcing an unconstitutional statute which requires segregation of the races and that the individual members of the Board need not be joined. The Supreme Court has recently indicated agreement. See Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, 377 U.S. 218 84 S.Ct. 1226, 12 L.Ed.2d 256. See also Dorsey v. State Athletic Commission, 359 U.S. 533, 79 S.Ct. 1137, 3 L.Ed.2d 1028, affirming D.C., 168 F.Supp. 149, 151, (1958). We see no reason why this court (or the district court) should depart from our previous holdings."

The Attorney General points out that McCoy and all the decisions cited in McCoy are "segregation" cases. He asserts that in all other types of cases the Eleventh Amendment protects the State from a suit against a state board sued as an entity, citing, among other cases, Hans v. State of Louisiana, 1898, 134 U.S. 1, 10 S.Ct. 504, 33 L.Ed. 842; Georgia R. R. & Banking Co. v. Redwine, 1952, 342 U.S. 299, 72 S.Ct. 321, 96 L.Ed. 335; Ex parte Young, 1908, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714; J. Ray McDermott & Co. v. Department of Highways, 5 Cir. 1959, 267 F.2d 317, cert. denied 361 U.S. 914, 80 S.Ct. 259, 4 L.Ed.2d 184; Louisiana Land & Exploration Co. v. State Mineral Board, 5 Cir. 1956, 229 F.2d 5, cert. denied 351 U.S. 965, 76 S.Ct. 1029, 100 L.Ed. 1485.

The principle we stated in McCoy and reaffirm here is not a special dispensation for a class of preferred litigants; litigants in civil rights cases stand on the same footing as other litigants. The Attorney General of Louisiana misunderstands the Ex parte Young doctrine. In the foundation case, Edward T. Young, Attorney General of Minnesota, was sued and, of course, Justice Peckham spoke of that official's act, sought to be enforced, as the act of an individual. "If the act which the state attorney general seeks to enforce be a violation of the Federal Constitution, the officer, in proceeding under such enactment comes into conflict with the superior authority of that Constitution, and he is in that case stripped of his official or representative character and is subjected in his person to the consequences of his individual conduct." 209 U.S. 123 at 159-160, 28 S.Ct. 441 at 454. The vital principle, however, is not the difference between an individual and a board; it is the difference between the State (the principal granted immunity) and its agents (public officials or public boards) when the act in question exceeds the agent's constitutional authority.

As Judge Tuttle wrote in Orleans Parish School Board v. Bush, "If in fact the laws under which the board here proposes to act are invalid, then the board is acting without authority from the State and the State is in nowise involved." In School Board of City of Charlottesville v. Allen, 4 Cir. 1956, 240 F.2d 59, cert. denied School Bd. of Arlington County v. Thompson, 353 U.S. 910, 77 S.Ct. 667, 1 L.Ed.2d 664, Judge Parker articulated the rationale in these terms:

"It is argued that the doctrine thus laid down must be confined to individuals and may not be applied to corporate agencies of the state such as school boards. We see no grounds for such distinction. If high officials of the state and of the federal government, see Philadelphia Co. v. Stimson, 223 U.S. 605, 32 S.Ct. 340, 56 L.Ed. 570 supra may be restrained and enjoined from unconstitutional action, we see no reason why a school board should be exempt from such a suit merely because it has been given corporate powers. A state can act only through agents; and whether the agent be an individual officer or corporate agency, it ceases to represent the state when it attempts to use state power in violation of the Constitution and may be enjoined from such unconstitutional action. While no such question was raised in the cases heard by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873, and 349 U.S. 294, 75 S.Ct. 753, 99 L.Ed. 1083, the question was inherent in the record in those cases; and it is not reasonable to suppose that the Supreme Court would have directed injunctive relief against school boards acting as state agencies, if no such relief could be granted because of the provisions of the Eleventh Amendment of the Constitution."

In the Charlottesville School case Judge Parker pointed out that efforts to enforce performance of promises by a state agency are "a very different thing from enjoining a state officer or state...