Adams v. Bell

• Decision Date: 25 June 1981
• Docket Number: No. 70-03095,88,No. 81-1715,No. 914,81-1715,70-03095,914
• Citation: 711 F.2d 161
• Parties: , 12 Ed. Law Rep. 273 Kenneth ADAMS, et al., Appellants, v. Terrel H. BELL, Individually, and as Secretary of the Department of Education, et al. . Argued 8 Jan. 1982. Argued En Banc 2 Feb. 1983. Decided 10 June 1983. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (D.C. Civil Action). Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., Washington, D.C., with whom John Silard, Elliot C. Lichtman, Washington, D.C., Jack Greenberg, James M. Nabrit, III, Bill Lann Lee and Brent E. Simmons, New York City, were on brief, for appellants. Michael Jay Singer, Dept. of Justice, with whom Stanley S. Harris, U.S. Atty., and William Kanter, Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., were on brief, for appellees. Before ROBINSON, Chief Judge, WRIGHT, TAMM, MacKINNON, WILKEY, WALD, MIKVA, EDWARDS, GINSBURG and SCALIA, Circuit Judges. Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge WILKEY. Dissenting Opinion filed by WRIGHT, Circuit Judge, in which ROBINSON, Chief Judge, WALD and MIKVA, Circuit Judges join as to Parts I, II, III, and V. WILKEY, Circuit Judge: Since 1973 the United States District Court of the District of Columbia, in the course of adjudicating the suit Adams v. Richardson, 1 has taken an active role in delineating the Department of Education's responsibilities in enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. 2 The present appeal calls upon us to decide whether the district court appropriately declined to enjoin the Department from settling its Title VI enforcement proceeding against the North Carolina higher education system. The district court found that such an order was outside the scope of its prior decrees supervising the enforcement efforts of the Department. 3 We affirm the district court. I. BACKGROUND Title VI of the Civil Rights Act 4 prohibits discrimination by programs receiving federal financial assistance. 5 Title VI directs the federal agencies which grant funds to issue rules to achieve nondiscrimination by recipients and authorizes the federal agencies to terminat
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

Page 161

711 F.2d 161 228 U.S.App.D.C. 375, 12 Ed. Law Rep. 273 Kenneth ADAMS, et al., Appellants,
v.
Terrel H. BELL, Individually, and as Secretary of the
Department of Education, et al. No. 81-1715. United States Court of Appeals,
District of Columbia Circuit. Argued 8 Jan. 1982.
Argued En Banc 2 Feb. 1983.
Decided 10 June 1983.

Page 162

[228 U.S.App.D.C. 376] Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (D.C. Civil Action No. 70-03095).

Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., Washington, D.C., with whom John Silard, Elliot C. Lichtman, Washington, D.C., Jack Greenberg, James M. Nabrit, III, Bill Lann Lee and Brent E. Simmons, New York City, were on brief, for appellants.

Michael Jay Singer, Dept. of Justice, with whom Stanley S. Harris, U.S. Atty., and William Kanter, Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., were on brief, for appellees.

Before ROBINSON, Chief Judge, WRIGHT, TAMM, MacKINNON, WILKEY, WALD, MIKVA, EDWARDS, GINSBURG and SCALIA, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge WILKEY.

Dissenting Opinion filed by WRIGHT, Circuit Judge, in which ROBINSON, Chief Judge, WALD and MIKVA, Circuit Judges join as to Parts I, II, III, and V.

WILKEY, Circuit Judge:

Since 1973 the United States District Court of the District of Columbia, in the course of adjudicating the suit Adams v. Richardson, ¹ has taken an active role in delineating the Department of Education's

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[228 U.S.App.D.C. 377] responsibilities in enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. ² The present appeal calls upon us to decide whether the district court appropriately declined to enjoin the Department from settling its Title VI enforcement proceeding against the North Carolina higher education system. The district court found that such an order was outside the scope of its prior decrees supervising the enforcement efforts of the Department. ³ We affirm the district court.

I. BACKGROUND

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act ⁴ prohibits discrimination by programs receiving federal financial assistance. ⁵ Title VI directs the federal agencies which grant funds to issue rules to achieve nondiscrimination by recipients and authorizes the federal agencies to terminate grants to recipients which are found after hearing to have failed to comply with these rules. ⁶ Plaintiffs brought suit in 1970 to compel the Department of Education (then Department of Health, Education and Welfare) to comply with its obligations under Title VI. ⁷ In 1973 U.S. District Judge Pratt issued a comprehensive order which required the Department of HEW to commence enforcement proceedings against delinquent southern states within 120 days. ⁸ On appeal, this court modified the order to require the states, in the area of higher education, first to submit plans based on Department of HEW guidelines, with enforcement actions to follow against those states which failed to file or to implement acceptable plans. ⁹

The 1973 decree, as modified by this court, provided the basis for continuing litigation before Judge Pratt. In 1977 the district court ordered the Department to revoke its previous acceptance of some desegregation plans, including that submitted by North Carolina in 1974. ¹⁰ The court found that the plans failed to meet the requirements set down by the Department and made inadequate progress towards desegregation of higher education. ¹¹ The Department was ordered to promulgate final criteria specifying the ingredients of an "acceptable higher education desegregation plan" and to require the states to submit revised plans which the Department would accept or reject. ¹²

In March 1979, after North Carolina's revised plans had been rejected by the Department, the Department initiated enforcement proceedings against the State of North Carolina. In response, North Carolina filed suit against the Department in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina to enjoin the Department from conducting the administrative hearing and from deferring payment of grants if the hearings were permitted to proceed. ¹³ North Carolina contended that the enforcement proceeding was unauthorized by Title VI and violated various norms of constitutional and administrative law. ¹⁴

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[228 U.S.App.D.C. 378] The Department moved to transfer the action to the District of Columbia on the grounds that this court was the more appropriate forum for consideration of the legality of the Secretary's actions. The North Carolina U.S. District Court rejected this argument, holding that the District of Columbia court order did not preclude action in other courts to test the legality of specific enforcement measures undertaken by the Secretary. ¹⁵ The North Carolina federal court then enjoined HEW deferral of aid during the enforcement proceeding, ¹⁶ but declined to reach the merits of North Carolina's challenge to that proceeding. Rather, under the doctrine of primary jurisdiction, the court stayed the suit and retained jurisdiction pending completion of the administrative hearing. ¹⁷

An administrative law judge in the Department of Education then began to hear the Department's evidence on the desegregation of the North Carolina system. At the same time, North Carolina and the Department carried on informal negotiations. Shortly after the Department had completed the presentation of its case in chief, these negotiations culminated in a settlement agreement which was embodied in a consent judgment issued in the North Carolina federal court. ¹⁸ That court concluded that implementation of the terms of the settlement would bring the North Carolina higher education system into compliance with Title VI. ¹⁹ The consent decree was the final judgment in North Carolina's suit against the Department, and its provisions terminated the administrative proceeding against North Carolina. ²⁰

Although appellants were limited intervenors in the administrative proceeding, ²¹ they did not seek at any time to intervene in the suit before the North Carolina federal court and therefore had no standing to appeal the consent judgment. ²² Instead, appellants sought to prevent entry of the decree by requesting that the District of Columbia federal court, before which they were plaintiffs, enjoin the Department of Education from acceding to the proposed settlement. ²³ U.S. District Judge Pratt ruled, however, that supervision of this Department decision was beyond the scope of his initial decree. ²⁴ This appeal ensued.

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[228 U.S.App.D.C. 379] II. ANALYSIS

Judge Pratt correctly interpreted the initial decree not to extend to supervision of the Department's settlement of its enforcement action against North Carolina. While we do not pass on the scope of the district court's authority with reference to other possible Department of Education actions, ²⁵ we affirm Judge Pratt's ruling that the injunction requested in this case would be inappropriate in light of the scope of his initial decree.

The purpose of Judge Pratt's 1973 decree was to require the Department to initiate appropriate enforcement proceedings under Title VI. It was directed at the Department's lassitude, if not recalcitrance, in fulfilling its responsibilities under that Act. ²⁶ However, Judge Pratt's 1973 decree, as affirmed with modifications by this court and as supplemented by him in 1977, did not purport to supervise or dictate the details of the Department's enforcement program, once that program culminated in an administrative proceeding, itself subject to judicial review, against a recipient state.

Judge Pratt's remedial decrees have been carefully crafted to embody this limitation. When the court ordered the Department to enforce the statute in 1973, it did not purport to dictate a fixed formula for choosing among these modes of implementation; i.e., it did not dictate specific compliance criteria but left the choice among lawful criteria to the discretion of the Department and of the states. ²⁷ Similarly, the particular terms of the amended criteria issued by the Department pursuant to the 1977 District of Columbia District Court order were never endorsed or compelled by the district court, ²⁸ and indeed have been subsequently revoked by the Department. ²⁹ Thus, the point of his various district court orders, as Judge Pratt explained, was not to specify what the final results of enforcement would be in every detail, nor to decree unalterable requirements for compliance with Title VI, but rather to have the Department initiate the process of enforcement, the process by

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[228 U.S.App.D.C. 380] which the specifics of compliance would then be determined. ³⁰

The district court orders were a rational means of assuring Department compliance with Title VI without an undue exercise of judicial control over the Department. Given the sweeping language of Title VI and the complexity of the educational systems to which it applies, the Department and the states have available to them many ways of implementing Title VI's goals of preventing discrimination in federally aided education. An enforcement proceeding or voluntary settlement may culminate in any one of these possible approaches to compliance; Title VI, as interpreted by Judge Pratt's decrees of 1973 and 1977, in the first instance gives responsibility to the agency and not the courts to choose among possible means of compliance. Hence, these decrees correct systemic defalcation on the part of the Department in fulfilling that responsibility, but do not, as we held in Adams v. Richardson, "resolve particular questions of compliance and noncompliance." ³¹

Were the district court to read its initial decree to contemplate the relief plaintiffs now seek, that court would encroach upon the role of the institutions responsible for implementing Title VI and constitute this court as perpetual supervisor of the enforcement actions of the Department and of the desegregation policies of the states. Moreover, were the district court to interpret...