Crumpton v. Bridgeport Educ. Ass'n
| Decision Date | 17 May 1993 |
| Docket Number | No. 879,D,879 |
| Citation | 993 F.2d 1023 |
| Parties | 61 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1295, 61 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 42,255, 61 USLW 2779, 83 Ed. Law Rep. 63 Otto CRUMPTON; Freddie Crumpton; Jeanette Joyce; David Joyce; Martha Looney; Donna Looney; Lucille Lloyd; Renee Lloyd; Winifred Timberlake; Henry Timberlake; John S. Craig; Anthony Craig; June Rhodes; Jerry Rhodes; Minnie Bellew; Omah Harper; Keith Harper; Bettina Harper; Anthony Burchette; Blanche Burchette; Woodrow Taylor; Genith Taylor; Jane Bass; Felicia Bass; Roselyn Bass; Edith Kennedy; Karen Kennedy; Joanne Kennedy; Mona Kennedy; Edith Alvarado; Lydia Alvarado; Juan Alvarado; Pamela Alvarado; Naomi Alvarado; Erma Vargas; Wanda Vargas; Felix Vargas; Ricky Vargas; Antonio Vargas; Mario Vargas; Blanca Rios; Martin Rios; Daryl Slade; Marion White; Debbie Grace; Joey Sosa; James Hardy; Mildred Santana; Ricky Sosa; Juanda Rodriguez; National Association for Advancement of Colored People; Spanish American Development Association; Spanish American Coalition; Hall Neighborhood House; Beardsley Tenants' Association; Interdenominational Ministers Alliance; East End Neighborhood Council; Federation of Neighborhood Councils; Citywide Council on Education; Pace Parent Group; Herman Santana; Puerto Rican Youth Organization; Maria Andino; Alfred Andino, Jr.; Miguel Andino; Marilyn Andino; Antonio Andino; Earlene Bentley; Kelvin Bentley; Monalisa Bentley; Tangiela Bentley; Pauline Boone; Erik Boone; Clarice Brower; Cynthronia Mendes; Morris Morey; Myrna Castillo; Wilfredo Matos; Carolyn Matos; Aaliyah Salahuddin; Mustafa Salahuddin; Veda Salahuddin; Ricardo Santiago; Alina Santiago; Richard Santiago; Lucy Siberon; Gina Siberon; Gidgett Siberon, Plaintiffs-Appellees, Walter C. Chop, Individually and in his capacity as Superintendent of Schools for the City of Bridgeport, the Bridgeport Board of Education; Howard Sinner; Anna B. Skane; Fleeta Hudson; Marietta Silvernail; Nancy Hornyak; Agnes Giannini; Michael Bisciglia; Victor Medina; Joel Kanter, Individually and in their capacity |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Robert H. Chanin, Washington, DC (Susan D. Carle, Jeremiah A. Collins, Bredhoff & Kaiser, Washington, DC, Martin A. Gould, Gould, Killian & Wynne, Hartford, CT., of counsel), for intervenor-appellant.
John O. Mirick, Worcester, MA (Charles B. Straus, Mirik, O'Connell, DeMallie & Lounge, of counsel), for defendants-appellees.
Before: ALTIMARI and WALKER, Circuit Judges, and MORRIS E. LASKER, Senior District Judge of the District Court for the Southern District of New York, sitting by designation.
Intervenor-Appellant Bridgeport Education Association ("BEA") appeals from an order of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (Burns, J.) granting defendants' motion for "clarification" of a 1980 hiring order. The hiring order was intended to help implement a consent decree settling a 1975 class action suit brought by Black and Hispanic students attending public school in Bridgeport, Connecticut, who had sought to desegregate the Bridgeport school system. The 1979 consent decree was designed "to eliminate racial imbalance and to provide equality of educational opportunity in the Bridgeport public schools." In order to achieve more balance in the employment of teachers, the consent decree required a plan for an affirmative recruiting program. The 1980 hiring order provided for the preferential hiring of minority teachers. No provision was made, however, for layoffs in either the consent decree or the hiring order issued pursuant to the decree.
In the Spring of 1992, the City of Bridgeport sent layoff notices to 17 first-year white teachers. No notices were sent to minority teachers. The BEA filed a grievance, claiming that the absolute preference being given to minority teachers violated the reduction in force provision of the collective bargaining agreement to which both the City of Bridgeport and the BEA are parties. The defendants representing the City of Bridgeport then made a motion before the district court to "clarify" the 1980 hiring order to make clear that Bridgeport should give an absolute preference to the retention of minority teachers in making reductions in force. In an order dated June 16, 1992, the district court granted the City defendants' motion.
On appeal, the BEA challenges the clarification, contending that the district court's order constitutes an impermissible modification of the consent decree and hiring order. The BEA also maintains that even if a modification was permissible, as modified the hiring order violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
For the reasons set forth below, we vacate the district court's order and remand the case for proceedings in accordance with this opinion.
In November of 1975, minority students attending school in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and their parents, filed suit seeking to have the school system desegregated. The defendants named in the complaint were the members of the Bridgeport Board of Education, the Bridgeport Superintendent of Schools, the Mayor of Bridgeport, the Comptroller of Bridgeport, and the members of the Bridgeport Board of Apportionment and Taxation, in their official and individual capacities (collectively "the City defendants"). Also named were the Connecticut State Commissioner of Education and the members of the Connecticut State Board of Education, also in their official and individual capacities (collectively "the State defendants"). 1
The matter was never litigated and instead all parties to the suit entered into a consent decree, which was approved by the District Court for the District of Connecticut (Burns, J.) on July 31, 1979. In the consent decree, the parties stipulated, inter alia, that:
Various acts and omissions of the City Defendants prior to the filing of the complaint The consent decree was designed "to eliminate substantial racial imbalance and to provide equality of educational opportunity in the Bridgeport public schools." In order to achieve more balance in the employment of teachers, the consent decree required the City defendants to file with the court a plan for an affirmative recruiting program.
when considered together and cumulatively resulted in racial segregation in and among some of the Bridgeport public schools in violation of the rights of the Plaintiffs and the classes which they represent under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Such acts and omissions have had some impact on the entire school system
The BEA was not a party to the consent decree. On July 31, 1979, the district court granted the BEA's motion to intervene as a defendant, but only "in the remedy phase of this litigation so far as it relates to the rights of members of the intervenors in the terms and conditions of employment."
On July 20, 1979, prior to the approval of the consent decree, the parties submitted a joint Stipulation of Facts to the district court. This document was designed to provide the district court with a concise statement of the facts relevant to many of the issues in the case and to the proposed consent decree. The Stipulation included statistics documenting the steady increase in the percentage of minority teachers as well as a significant downward trend in the total student population. Despite the fact that the Stipulation provided some indication that Bridgeport might eventually need to layoff teachers, given this declining enrollment, no provision was made for this eventuality in the consent decree.
Nor was any provision for layoffs included in the hiring program filed pursuant to the consent decree. The district court approved the plan, and on October 2, 1980, entered an Order On Hiring Minority Teachers and Administrators ("hiring order"), which among other things directed the City defendants:
to use their best efforts to recruit and hire minority teachers in such a manner that, on an annual basis, the total number of minority teachers hired shall at least equal the total number of white teachers hired, until the percentage of minority teachers in the Bridgeport Public Schools approximate the percentage of minority workers in the Bridgeport area labor force.
However, the hiring order made no mention of possible future reductions in force.
The hiring order was appealed by BEA to this Court, which in an unpublished opinion affirmed the challenged aspects of the hiring order while remanding for a clarification of the term "Bridgeport area labor force." Crumpton v. Chop, No. 80-9101 (2d Cir. November 23, 1981). On remand the district court held that the City defendants should use census data to define this term, and that the hiring order would terminate when the percentage of Black and Hispanic teachers equalled the percentage of Blacks and Hispanics in the Bridgeport work force.
While the BEA's appeal from the 1980 hiring order was pending,...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
U.S. v. New York City Bd. of Educ.
...never use race as a factor in determining layoffs unless necessary to protect victims of discrimination. In Crumpton v. Bridgeport Education Association, 993 F.2d 1023 (2d Cir.1993), the Second Circuit reviewed under the Fourteenth Amendment the propriety of a consent decree that settled a ......
-
EEOC v. SHEET METAL WORKERS'INTERN., 71 Civ. 2877 (RLC).
...layoffs may be necessary to protect progress that has already been made in integrating a workforce. Crumpton v. Bridgeport Educ. Ass'n, 993 F.2d 1023, 1031 (2d Cir.1993). See also Arthur v. Nyquist, 712 F.2d 816, 823 (2d Cir.1983), cert. denied, 467 U.S. 1259, 104 S.Ct. 3555, 82 L.Ed.2d 856......
-
Doe v. Pataki
...a consent decree, the court may consider any documents incorporated by reference in the decree, see Crumpton v. Bridgeport Educ. Ass'n, 993 F.2d 1023, 1028 (2d Cir.1993), and the court must give great weight to the explicit language of the decree, Berger, 771 F.2d at 1558. Nevertheless, whe......
-
Doe v. Pataki
... ... 223, 236-37, 95 S.Ct. 926, 43 L.Ed.2d 148 (1975); Crumpton v. Bridgeport Education Ass'n, 993 F.2d 1023, 1028 (2d Cir.1993). Often ... ...