Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education

• Court: U.S. Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: PER CURIAM
• Citation: Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, 396 U.S. 19, 90 S.Ct. 29, 24 L.Ed.2d 19 (1969)
• Decision Date: 29 October 1969
• Docket Number: No. 632,632
• Parties: Beatrice ALEXANDER et al., Petitioners, v. HOLMES COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION et al

396 U.S. 19

90 S.Ct. 29

24 L.Ed.2d 19

Beatrice ALEXANDER et al., Petitioners,

v HOLMES COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION et al.

No. 632.

Argued Oct. 23, 1969.

Decided Oct. 29, 1969.

Jack Greenberg, New York City, for petitioners.

Louis F. Oberdorfer, Washington, D.C., for Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, as amicus curiae.

Jeris Leonard, Washington, D.C., A. F. Summer and John C. Satterfield, Jackson, Miss., for respondents.

PER CURIAM.

This case comes to the Court on a petition for certiorari to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The petition was granted on October 9, 1969, and the case set down for early argument. The question presented is one of paramount importance, involving as it does the denial of fundamental rights to many thousands of school children, who are presently attending Mississippi schools under segregated conditions contrary to the applicable decisions of this Court. Against this background the Court of Appeals should have denied all motions for additional time because continued operation of segregated schools under a standard of allowing 'all deliberate speed' for desegregation is no longer constitutionally permissible. Under explicit holdings of this Court the obligation of every school district is to terminate dual school systems at once and to operate now and hereafter only unitary schools. Griffin v. County School Board, 377 U.S. 218, 234, 84 S.Ct. 1226, 1235, 12 L.Ed.2d 256 (1964); Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, 391 U.S. 430, 438—439, 442, 88 S.Ct. 1689, 1694—1695, 1696, 20 L.Ed.2d 716 (1968). Accordingly,

It is hereby adjudged, ordered, and decreed:

1. The Court of Appeals' order of August 28, 1969, is vacated, and the case is remanded to that court to issue its decree and order, effective immediately, declaring that each of the school districts here involved may no longer operate a dual school system based on race or color, and directing that they begin immediately to operate as unitary school systems within which no person is to be effectively excluded from any school because of race or color.

2. The Court of Appeals may in its discretion direct the schools here involved to accept all or any part of the August 11, 1969, recommendations of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, with any modifications which that court deems proper insofar as those recommendations insure a totally unitary school system for all eligible pupils without regard to race or color.

The Court of...