Ad Hoc Committee of Concerned Teachers on Behalf of Minor and Under-Age Students Attending Greenburgh Eleven Union Free School Dist. v. Greenburgh No. 11 Union Free School Dist., UNDER-AGE

Citation873 F.2d 25
Decision Date17 April 1989
Docket NumberNo. 923,UNDER-AGE,923
Parties49 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1081, 50 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 39,022, 57 USLW 2691, 13 Fed.R.Serv.3d 482, 53 Ed. Law Rep. 415 AD HOC COMMITTEE OF CONCERNED TEACHERS, on Behalf of MINOR ANDSTUDENTS ATTENDING GREENBURGH ELEVEN UNION FREE SCHOOL DISTRICT and on its Own Behalf, Petitioners-Appellants, v. GREENBURGH # 11 UNION FREE SCHOOL DISTRICT and Board of Education, Greenburgh # 11 Union Free School District, Respondents-Appellees. Docket 88-7697.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (2nd Circuit)

Michael H. Sussman, (Sussman & Sussman, Yonkers, N.Y., of counsel), for petitioners-appellants.

Phyllis S. Jaffe (Plunkett & Jaffe, White Plains, N.Y., of counsel), for respondents-appellees.

Before FEINBERG and PIERCE, Circuit Judges, and MOTLEY, District Judge. *

MOTLEY, Senior District Judge:

The Ad Hoc Committee of Concerned Teachers (the "Committee"), on behalf of minor and under-age school-children attending Greenburgh Eleven Union Free School District (the "Children") and on its own behalf, appeals from an order of the United States District Court 687 F.Supp. 914, for the Southern District of New York, Sweet, J., dismissing its complaint against Greenburgh Eleven Union Free School District and its Board of Education (collectively, the "District") pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) for lack of standing and for lack of capacity to represent the Children.

We agree with the district court that the Committee lacks standing to assert either its own interests or the interests of its members in that neither the Committee nor any of its members has alleged any judicially cognizable injury. However, in its claimed capacity to sue as the Children's

"next friend," we find that the District Court should have allowed the Committee to bring suit to vindicate the Children's constitutional right to a school environment free from the effects of racially discriminatory practices alleged in the District's hiring of school faculty and administrative staff. Accordingly, we reverse that portion of the District Court's decision holding that the Committee is without capacity to represent the Children's interests and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
BACKGROUND

The Greenburgh Eleven School District is a public school district established by a special act of the New York State Legislature for the main purpose of educating students housed at a private social service agency located in Dobbs Ferry, New York, and known as Children's Village. Children's Village employs some 80 teachers, 65 paraprofessional staff and 9 administrators to teach approximately 320 emotionally disturbed boys. The vast majority of the Children are either Black or Hispanic and reside at Children's Village. A small number live with their parents or guardians and are transported daily to the District.

Most of the children residing at Children's Village are placed there by the Office of Special Services for Children ("OSS") which is a part of New York City's Human Resources Administration. In the case of children who have been freed for adoption, both custody and guardianship are held jointly by OSS and Children's Village. Children who have not been freed for adoption are in the joint custody of OSS and Children's Village while guardianship is retained by their natural parents. Three-quarters of the children placed at Children's Village go back to reside with their parents after an average stay of two years.

Each member of the Greenburgh Eleven School Board also serves on the Board of Directors of Children's Village. The School Board is the governing body of the District and is directly responsible for the District's hiring decisions with respect to teaching faculty and administrative staff.

The Complaint

In a complaint filed February 26, 1988, the Committee alleges that it is a group of about twenty Black and White teachers currently employed by the District and aggrieved by alleged racial discrimination in the District's employment practices. The complaint states that the Committee was formed to ensure the provision of a nondiscriminatory educational environment for the minor children enrolled in this special school district and to assure that its own members are able to enjoy the benefits of interracial association deriving from a racially mixed teaching faculty and administrative staff. Since the students "reside separate and apart from their own families, the Committee asserts that it alone is in a position to represent [the Children's] right to and interest in a discrimination free environment of public education." Plaintiff's Complaint at p 2.

Specifically, the complaint alleges that the District has "intentionally failed to hire qualified Black and Hispanic professionals out of racial animus and discriminatory intent." Plaintiff's Complaint at p 25. It goes on to state that by and through the District's racially discriminatory hiring practices in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, "[t]he students enrolled at Greenburgh 11 are being intentionally and discriminatorily denied equal educational opportunity and a learning environment free of racial discrimination and prejudice ..." Plaintiff's Complaint at p 28. Those same hiring practices, alleges the complaint, also violate the Equal Protection rights of Committee members in that they are deprived of the benefits of interracial association which, absent such discriminatory hiring, would be available to them. The complaint seeks two forms of injunctive relief: one barring the District from continued discriminatory hiring practices and the other requiring it to adopt an affirmative action program to remedy the effects of the alleged past discrimination.

Since each member of the Committee is already employed by the District, the Committee's complaint and the complaint of each of its members is essentially that the District failed to hire minority teachers and administrative staff who would have created a racially integrated work environment. Reviewing the complaint in this light, the District Court held that the Committee lacked standing to represent itself and the interests of its own members as neither the Committee nor any of its members had alleged any specific discrimination causing direct and particularized injury. In the absence of any judicially cognizable injury or a statute specifically giving the Committee or its members standing to sue, the District Court found that neither the Committee nor any of its members had a justiciable case or controversy so as to confer standing to maintain a claim.

As to the Children, the District Court found that the Committee was without authority to represent the Children's interests as a duly appointed representative and should not be given status as "next friend" or guardian ad litem pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 17(c). Having determined that the Committee could not maintain suit either on its own behalf or on behalf of the Children, the District Court dismissed the complaint with leave to replead. Appellant takes its appeal from the District Court's dismissal of its complaint.

DISCUSSION
Standing

We agree with the District Court that the Committee, on its own behalf, has failed to allege a judicially cognizable injury under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The gravamen of the injury alleged as to the Committee is that the District's discriminatory hiring practices deprived Committee members of the benefits of interracial association that would be derived from an integrated school faculty and administrative staff. While such an injury has been held sufficient to permit standing in light of a congressionally enacted statute such as the Fair Housing Act, see Trafficante v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 409 U.S. 205, 93 S.Ct. 364, 34 L.Ed.2d 415 (1972) (White, J., concurring); Gladstone Realtors v. Bellwood, 441 U.S. 91, 99 S.Ct. 1601, 60 L.Ed.2d 66 (1979) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting), deprivation of the benefits of interracial association has not been recognized, in and of itself, as an injury sufficiently "direct and personal to satisfy the case or controversy requirement of Article III." Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 514, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 2213, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975).

Moreover, "[e]ven if we assume, arguendo, that apart from any statutorily created right the asserted harm to [the Committee's] members is sufficiently direct and personal to satisfy the case-or-controversy requirement of Art. III, prudential considerations strongly counsel against according [the Committee] standing to prosecute this action." Id. On its own behalf, the Committee does not allege that any of its members have been discriminated against but rather that "they have been harmed indirectly by the exclusion of others." Id. Since the Committee's alleged injury is legitimately characterized "as an attempt to raise the putative rights of third parties," prudential considerations dictate that the Committee should not be permitted to invoke the judicial process on its own behalf. Id. Accordingly, the District Court correctly concluded that the Committee lacks standing to litigate the injury to its own members as alleged in the complaint.

On the Children's behalf, however, the complaint alleges a direct, specific deprivation of the Children's Fourteenth Amendment right to a school environment free from the effects of racially discriminatory practices. It is well settled that students have standing under the Fourteenth Amendment to challenge faculty segregation because it denies them equality of educational opportunity. Rogers v. Paul, 382 U.S. 198, 86 S.Ct. 358, 15 L.Ed.2d 265 (1965); Bradley v. School Board of Richmond, 382 U.S. 103, 86 S.Ct. 224, 15 L.Ed.2d 187 (1965) (per curiam ); see generally 3 A.L.R.Fed. 325, Sec. 3(b) (1970). Since the complaint states that the Children suffered manifest injury to a right clearly grounded in...

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