Adams v. Califano, Civ. A. No. 3095-70.

• Citation: 430 F. Supp. 118
• Decision Date: 01 April 1977
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 3095-70.
• Parties: Kenneth ADAMS et al., Plaintiffs, v. Joseph A. CALIFANO, Jr., Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

430 F. Supp. 118

Kenneth ADAMS et al., Plaintiffs, v. Joseph A. CALIFANO, Jr., Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 3095-70.

United States District Court, District of Columbia, Civil Division.

April 1, 1977.

Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., John Silard, Elliott Lichtman, Washington, D. C., for plaintiff.

Lois Schiffer, Marcia Greenberger, Washington, D. C., for intervenor plaintiff.

Robert J. Franzinger, John T. Boese, Civil Div., Dept. of Justice, Stuart J. Land, Herbert O. Reid, Sr., Washington, D. C., for defendants.

SECOND SUPPLEMENTAL ORDER

JOHN H. PRATT, Judge.

Plaintiffs having filed a Motion for Further Relief concerning the higher education phase of this litigation, and the Court having reviewed the extensive documentary evidence, depositions and opposition thereto, and having heard argument upon plaintiffs' motion, the Court hereby makes the following findings and conclusions and grants further relief as hereafter set forth.

1. Pursuant to this Court's November 16, 1972 Opinion finding that defendants had failed to enforce Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act with respect to public higher education systems in ten states, on February 16, 1973 this Court ordered defendants within 120 days to commence Title VI enforcement proceedings against states which failed to undertake higher education desegregation. Adams v. Richardson, 356 F.Supp. 92 (D.D.C.1973).

2. On review, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on June 12, 1973 affirmed this Court's Order, but it granted a period of 120 days to permit submission by the ten states of higher education desegregation plans, and an additional 180 days thereafter before commencement of enforcement proceedings against "those states whose plans are not acceptable." In so doing, the Court of Appeals emphasized that HEW has "not yet formulated guidelines for state-wide systems of higher learning"; that "the problem of integrating higher education must be dealt with on a state-wide rather than a school-by-school basis"; and that the controversy involves "the complex problem of system-wide racial imbalance" in public higher education. Adams v. Richardson, 156 U.S.App. D.C. 267, 480 F.2d 1159, 1164-65 (1973). Subsequently, by consent of the parties and pursuant to this Court's Order of March 22, 1974, the higher education enforcement deadline was further extended to June 21, 1974.

3. Prior to the aforesaid deadline date, defendants had transferred the higher education desegregation issue concerning Louisiana to the Department of Justice for the commencement of enforcement proceedings. Mississippi was referred to the Department of Justice after the state's plan was rejected. In June of 1974 defendants found acceptable in each of the eight remaining states the states' proposed higher education desegregation plans. As hereafter specified, the Court finds that such plans did not meet important desegregation requirements and have failed to achieve significant progress toward higher education desegregation.

4. In individual communications sent to the ten states in November of 1973 and April of 1974, defendants identified the critical requirements of an acceptable desegregation plan. The Court finds that the desegregation plans submitted by the state systems of higher education, and accepted HEW in June of 1974, failed to meet the requirements earlier specified by defendants. Defendants accepted such plans although plaintiffs had submitted to defendants on April 1, 1974 an extensive memorandum which had specified the importance of obtaining from each state specific commitments for change and in particular as concerns the desegregation of student bodies, of faculties, the enhancement of Black institutions long disadvantaged by discriminatory treatment, and desegregation of the governance of higher education systems.

5. The failure of the plans accepted by HEW in 1974 to achieve desegregation progress is not disputed by the defendants. In the deposition taken of OCR Director Holmes in October of 1975, he conceded (Tr. 29-30, 50-51) that the general segregated pattern in student attendance and faculty assignment which had existed before the plans were accepted remained substantially unchanged. More recently, counsel for defendants conceded to this Court in argument of January 17, 1977 (Tr. 37) that the plans "haven't worked."

6. The deposition taken of OCR Director Martin Gerry on January 13, 1977 further confirms the lack of progress, and the need to obtain specific commitments necessary for a workable higher education...