Gaston County, North Carolina v. United States

Citation23 L.Ed.2d 309,395 U.S. 285,89 S.Ct. 1720
Decision Date02 June 1969
Docket NumberNo. 701,701
PartiesGASTON COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES
CourtUnited States Supreme Court

Grady B. Stott, Gastonia, N.C., for appellant.

Louis F. Claiborne, Washington, D.C., for appellee.

Mr. Justice HARLAN delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 suspends the use of any test or device1 as a prerequisite to registering to vote in any election, in any State or political subdivision which, on November 1, 1964, maintained a test or device, and in which less than 50% of the residents of voting age were registered on that date or voted in the 1964 presi- dential election.2 Suspension is automatic upon publication in the Federal Register of determinations by the Attorney General and the Director of the Census, respectively, that these conditions apply to a particular governmental unit. If the unit wishes to reinstate the test or device, it must bring suit against the Government in a three-judge district court in the District of Columbia and prove 'that no such test or device has been used during the five years preceding the filing of the action for the purpose or with the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color,' § 4(a). The constitutionality of these provisions was upheld in South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301, 86 S.Ct. 803, 15 L.Ed.2d 769 (1966).

On March 29, 1966, the Attorney General and the Director of the Census published the necessary determinations with respect to appellant, Gaston County, North Carolina. Use of the State's literacy test3 within the County was thereby suspended. On August 18, 1966, appellant brought this action in the District Court, making the requisite averments and seeking to reinstate the literacy test.

The United States opposed the granting of relief on the ground, inter alia, that use of the test had 'the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color' because it placed a specially onerous burden on the County's Negro citizens for whom the County had maintained separate and inferior schools.

After a full trial on this and other issues, the District Court denied the relief requested, holding that appellant had not met its burden of proving that its use of the literacy test, in the context of its historic maintenance of segregated and unequal schools, did not discriminatorily deprive Negroes of the franchise.4 Gaston County v. United States, 288 F.Supp. 678 (1968). The court made clear:

'(W)e do not rely solely on the fact that the schools in Gasto County have been segregated during the period when persons presently of voting age were of school age, but instead have reviewed the evidence adduced by the Government in this case and concluded that the Negro schools were of inferior quality in fact as well as in law.' Id., at 689—690, n. 23.

Pursuant to § 4(a) of the Act, the County appealed directly to this Court. We noted probable jurisdiction, 393 U.S. 1011, 89 S.Ct. 629, 21 L.Ed.2d 558 (1969), and we affirm for substantially the reasons given by the majority in the District Court.

Appellant contends that the decision of the District Court is erroneous on three scores: first, as a matter of statutory construction and legislative history, the court could not consider Gaston County's practice of educational discrimination in determining whether its literacy test had the effect of discriminatorily denying the franchise; second, on the facts of this case, appellant met its burden of proving that the education it provided had no such effect; and third, whatever may have been the situation in the past, Gaston County has not fostered discrimination in education or voting in recent years. We consider these arguments in turn.

I.

The legislative history of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 discloses that Congress was fully cognizant of the potential effect of unequal educational opportunities upon exercise of the franchise. This causal relationship was, indeed, one of the principal arguments made in support of the Act's test-suspension provisions. Attorney General Katzenbach testified before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary:

'It might be suggested that this kind of (voting) discrimination could be ended in a different way—by wiping the registration books clean and requiring all voters, white or Negro, to register anew under a uniformly applied literacy test.

'* * * (S)uch an approach would not solve, but would compound our present problems.

'To subject every citizen to a higher literacy standard would, inevitably, work unfairly against Negroes—Negroes who have for decades been systematically denied educational opportunity equal to that available to the white population. Although the discredited 'separate but equal' doctrine had colorable constitutional legitimacy until 1954, the notorious and tragic fact is that educational opportunities were pathetically inferior for thousands of Negroes who want to vote today.

'The impact of a general reregistration would produce a real irony. Years of violation of the 14th amendment, right of equal protection through equal education, would become the excuse for continuing violation of the 15th amendment, right to vote.' Hearings on S. 1564 before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 22.

Mr. Katzenbach testified similarly before the House Committee. See Hearings on H.R. 6400 before Sub- committee No. 5 of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 18—19, 49. And significantly, the Report of the Senate Judiciary Committee explicitly asserted:

'(T)he educational differences between whites and Negroes in the area to be covered by the prohibitions—differences which are reflected in the record before the committee—would mean that equal application of the tests would abridge 15th amendment rights. This advantage to whites is directly attributable to the States and localities involved.' S.Rep. No. 162, pt. 3, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 16.5

Appellant's response to this seemingly unequivocal legislative history is, in essence, that it proves too much. As Judge Gasch put it in his separate opinion below:

'(I)t is clear that the Voting Rights Act was primarily directed at the Southern states. In the Act, the Congress allowed a fair opportunity for a certified unit to rebut the presumption that its literacy test was used in a discriminatory manner. Thus, sections 4 and 5 of the Act provide a procedure whereby a State or political subdivision which has been the subject of a certification under the Act, may petition this Court for declaratory relief to reinstate its test before the five-year suspension period has elapsed. Sections 4 and 5 will provide no remedy to a Southern state, however, if, as the majority finds, a segregated school system coupled with census data showing higher literacy and education for whites than for Negroes, is sufficient to preclude recovery under the Act. We can take judicial notice that the segregated school system was the prevailing system throughout the South. If this were what Congress had in mind, it would have stated that no test could be used where literacy was higher among whites than among Negroes. I do not believe that Congress intended that the Act be interpreted in such a way as to render §§ 4 and 5 inapplicable to Southern states or those which had segregated educational systems.' 288 F.Supp., at 690, 695.

Appellant's contentions fundamentally misconceive the import of the majority opinion below, as we read it. That opinion explicitly disclaims establishing any per se rule. The court's decision is premised not merely on Gaston County's historic maintenance of a dual school system, but on substantial evidence that the County deprived its black residents of equal educational opportunities, which in turn deprived them of an equal chance to pass the literacy test. Consistent with the court's holding, a State or subdivision may demonstrate that although its schools suffered from the inequality inherent in any segregated system, see Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954), the dual educational system had no appreciable discriminatory effect on the ability of persons of voting age to meet a literacy requirement.

It is of no consequence that Congress might have dealt with the effects of educational discrimination by employing a coverage formula different from the one it enacted. The coverage formula chosen by Congress was designed to be speedy, objective, and incontrovertible;6 it is triggered appropriately by voting or registration figures. The areas at which the Act was directed.

'share two characteristics incorporated by Congress into the coverage formula: the use of tests and devices for voter registration, and a voting rate in the 1964 presidential election at least 12 points below the national average. Tests and devices are relevant to voting discrimination because of their long history as a tool for perpetrating the evil; a low voting rate is pertinent for the obvious reason that widespread disenfranchisement must inevitably affect the number of actual voters. Accordingly, the coverage formula is rational in both practice and theory.' South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301, 330, 86 S.Ct. 803, 819, 15 L.Ed.2d 769 (1966).

In contrast, a coverage formula based on educational disparities, or one based on literacy rates, would be administrt ively cumbersome: the designation of racially disparate school systems is not susceptible of speedy, objective, and incontrovertible determination; and the Bureau of the Census collects no accurate county statistics on literacy. Furthermore, a coverage formula based on either of these factors would not serve as an appropriate basis for suspending all of the tests and devices encompassed by § 4(c) of the Act—for example, a 'good moral character' requirement.7

We conclude that in an action brought under § 4(a) of the Voting...

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