Graham v. Evangeline Parish School Board, 72-3033.

Decision Date30 October 1973
Docket NumberNo. 72-3033.,72-3033.
Citation484 F.2d 649
PartiesJo Ann GRAHAM et al., Plaintiffs, UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Intervenor-Appellant, v. EVANGELINE PARISH SCHOOL BOARD et al., Defendants-Appellees, Louisiana State Board of Education, Added Defendants-Appellees, Lawrence Vizinat et al., Defendants-Intervenors-Appellees.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Richard H. Swan, John D. Leshy, Brian K. Landsberg, Attys., Dept of Justice, Washington, D. C., Donald E. Walter, U. S. Atty., Shreveport, La., David L. Norman, Asst. Atty. Gen., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., for appellant.

Marion Overton White, Opelousas, La., for Jo Ann Graham.

John F. Ward, Jr., Baton Rouge, La., L. O. Fuselier, Dist. Atty., Ville Platte, La., for Evangeline Parish School Board and others.

Thomas W. McFerrin, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baton Rouge, La., for La. State Board of Education.

Donald Soileau, Mamou, La., for Vizinat and others.

Before JOHN R. BROWN, Chief Judge, and INGRAHAM and RONEY, Circuit Judges.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied October 30, 1973.

PER CURIAM:

The District Court denied the request of the United States for preliminary and permanent injunctions requiring the Louisiana State Board of Education and the Evangeline Parish School Board to cease providing textbooks and supplies to the children of the Evangeline Academy. We vacate and remand on the authority of Norwood v. Harrison, 413 U. S. 455, 93 S.Ct. 2804, 37 L.Ed.2d 723 1973.

Norwood, together with the spate of cases involving state aid to parochial schools decided by the United States Supreme Court this past term, Levitt v. Committee for Public Education, 413 U. S. 472, 93 S.Ct. 2814, 37 L.Ed.2d 736 1973; Committee for Public Education v. Nyquist, 413 U.S. 756, 93 S.Ct. 2955, 37 L.Ed.2d 948 1973, and Sloan v. Lemon, 413 U.S. 825, 93 S.Ct. 2982, 37 L.Ed.2d 939 1973, virtually ensure the relief sought by the United States as a plaintiff-intervenor in this school desegregation case.

Although the District Court made no specific findings of fact concerning the provision of free textbooks and transportation by the State to students attending Evangeline Academy and apparently assumed without deciding that the Evangeline Academy is a racially segregated school, the Court's ruling and the record before us indicate clearly that Louisiana was providing just the kind of aid to the type of school which falls within the proscription of Norwood. To the extent that it aided segregated private schools, a Mississippi statutory program, in many respects similar to the Louisiana system, was found in Norwood to be unconstitutional. Under these programs, textbooks were purchased by the State and lent to students in both public and private schools without regard to the schools' racially discriminatory policies.

From the record before us, it appears that Evangeline Academy is a racially segregated institution providing an alternative to the court ordered integration of Evangeline Parish public schools. Within one month of the District Court's desegregation order, Evangeline Academy was incorporated and operative. All of its students are white, and its opening resulted in a corresponding attrition of white students from the Parish's public schools. From its inception, the Academy received aid from the Parish School Board: bus transportation and textbooks for students, and library books for the school. State assistance to such a school and its students had the inevitable effect of frustrating the order disestablishing a dual public school system.

In Norwood, the Supreme Court found that

a textbook lending program is not legally distinguishable from the forms of state assistance foreclosed by the prior cases.1
Free textbooks lent to students, like tuition grants directed to private school students, are a form of financial assistance inuring to the benefit of the private schools themselves. . . . When, as here, . . . a necessary learning expense is borne by the State, the economic consequence is to give aid to the enterprise; if the school engages in discriminatory
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4 cases
  • United States v. State of Mississippi
    • United States
    • United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)
    • August 23, 1974
    ...and remanded with directions for further proceedings, 417 U.S. 556, 94 S. Ct. 2416, 41 L.Ed.2d 304 (1974); Graham v. Evangeline Parish School Board, 484 F.2d 649 (5th Cir. 1973). 18 Similarly in other cases, the Supreme Court has rejected a school board's attempts to isolate its conduct fro......
  • Brumfield v. Dodd, Civ. A. No. 71-1316.
    • United States
    • United States District Courts. 5th Circuit. United States District Court (Eastern District of Louisiana)
    • December 2, 1975
    ...to the United States Constitution. Norwood v. Harrison, 413 U.S. 455, 93 S.Ct. 2804, 37 L.Ed.2d 723 (1973); Graham v. Evangeline Parish School Board, 484 F.2d 649 (5th Cir. 1973). 15. Because La.R.S. 17:351, 352 and 158 are implemented by defendants so as to allow substantial state assistan......
  • Norwood v. Harrison, WC 70-53-K.
    • United States
    • United States District Courts. 5th Circuit. United States District Courts. 5th Circuit. Northern District of Mississippi
    • July 12, 1974
    ...factor, though one not necessarily decisive, in determining whether it is racially discriminatory. Graham and United States v. Evangeline Parish School Board, 5 Cir., 484 F.2d 649, rehearing en banc denied 485 F.2d 687; McNeal v. Tate County Board of Education, 460 F.2d 568 (5 Cir. 1971); G......
  • Willis v. Heckler
    • United States
    • United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (6th Circuit)
    • April 30, 1985

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