Mapp v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF CITY OF CHATTANOOGA, TENN.

• Decision Date: 27 February 1967
• Docket Number: No. 16877.,16877.
• Citation: 373 F.2d 75
• Parties: James Jonathan MAPP and Deborah L'Tanya Mapp, Minors, By James R. Mapp, their Father and next friend et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. The BOARD OF EDUCATION OF the CITY OF CHATTANOOGA, HAMILTON COUNTY, TENNESSEE et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

373 F.2d 75 (1967)

James Jonathan MAPP and Deborah L'Tanya Mapp, Minors, By James R. Mapp, their Father and next friend et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. The BOARD OF EDUCATION OF the CITY OF CHATTANOOGA, HAMILTON COUNTY, TENNESSEE et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 16877.

United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.

February 27, 1967.

Avon N. Williams, Jr., Nashville, Tenn., for appellants, Jack Greenberg, Derrick A. Bell, Jr., New York City, Z. Alexander Looby, Nashville, Tenn., on the brief.

Raymond B. Witt, Jr., Chattanooga, Tenn., for appellees, Witt, Gaither, Abernathy & Wilson, Chattanooga, Tenn., on the brief, Eugene N. Collins, Chattanooga, Tenn., of counsel.

Before WEICK, Chief Judge, and O'SULLIVAN and EDWARDS, Circuit Judges.

WEICK, Chief Judge.

The history of these proceedings dates back more than six years to the time when plaintiffs-appellants filed their original action in the District Court to compel the desegregation of the Chattanooga Public School System. Since the original order directing submission and execution of a plan of desegregation, both parties have prosecuted appeals to this Court involving various features of the plan and its administration. See 295 F.2d 617 (1961) and 319 F.2d 571 (1963).

The present appeal stems from plaintiffs' motion for further relief, filed March 29, 1965. At that time the School System was operating under a plan which provided for gradual integration, beginning with grades 1 through 3, in September, 1962, and culminating in complete dissolution of the preexisting dual system in September, 1968, when all grades in the high school would be integrated. Plaintiffs asked that this plan be accelerated to achieve full integration by September, 1965; that faculty and other professional personnel be assigned to schools without regard to race; and that all other practices which they deemed racially discriminatory be eliminated immediately.

After hearing the evidence, the District Judge ruled that the plan should be accelerated to provide for full integration of all grades in September, 1966. He further held that plaintiffs' evidence was not sufficient to support their claim that the School Board had administered its transfer regulations to defeat desegregation, and that the time was not ripe to enter any judgment on the sufficiency of the Board's efforts to desegregate its teacher assignments. It is from this order that plaintiffs appeal.

Both parties agree that the issue of faculty assignments is governed by Bradley v. School Board of City of Richmond, 382 U.S. 103, 86 S.Ct. 224, 15 L. Ed.2d 187 (1965), which was decided after the District Court's order. In that case the Supreme Court held that a full evidentiary hearing on the issue of faculty allocation on a racial basis is a necessary part of any decision on the adequacy of a plan of desegregation. While some evidence on this issue was offered at the last hearing in this case, the District Court declined to rule on it, preferring to allow the Board more time to cope with it. However, Bradley clearly indicates that this issue must be decided at the same time that the rest of the desegregation plan is formulated.

Therefore, we remand the case to the District Court for consideration of the issue in the light of Bradley.

The plaintiffs' attack on the Board's use of transfer regulations centers on provision 2(i), and particularly subsection 2 of that section. Actually 2(i)-2 is less a transfer rule than a policy of repose. It provides in substance that if a student has started classes in one school and is subsequently rezoned to another school, he may choose to remain at his original school, building capacity permitting. This has been a long standing school policy, its aim being to prevent undue disruption in a child's social and educational adjustment.

In this case, the appellants attack the administration of section 2(i)-2, not its validity per se. While in one instance in the past, the change of the Clara Carpenter School from white to Negro before the desegregation case was filed, the good faith of the Board might be suspect, for the future this issue appears almost moot.

It is obvious that to be eligible for a 2(i)-2 transfer (or, more appropriately a freeze) a child must have enrolled in a school out of his present zone. In previous years up to 1966, such enrollment was possible because of the dual school zones prevailing in the undesegregated grades of the School System. However, under the accelerated plan put into effect in September, 1966, no child may enroll in a school out of his desegregated zone, no matter at what level he enters the school. Thus, within the next two years all transfers under 2(i)-2 granted with reference to the earlier segregated zones, will be phased out of the system.

The extreme example is a child who entered the second grade in September, 1963. Under 2(i)-2 that child could remain in his original school only until September, 1967...