Allen v. County School Board of Prince Edward County

• Decision Date: 25 August 1961
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 1333.
• Citation: 198 F. Supp. 497
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Virginia
• Parties: Eva ALLEN et al. v. COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD OF PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY, etc. et al.

198 F. Supp. 497

Eva ALLEN et al. v. COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD OF PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY, etc. et al.

Civ. A. No. 1333.

United States District Court E. D. Virginia, Richmond Division.

August 25, 1961.

S. W. Tucker, Emporia, Va., Robert L. Carter, New York City, for petitioners.

Frederick T. Gray, Atty. Gen., of Virginia, R. D. McIlwaine, Asst. Atty. Gen., of Virginia, J. Segar Gravatt, Blackstone, Va., Frank N. Watkins, Farmville, Va., Collins Denny, Jr., John F. Kay, Jr., William C. King, Richmond, Va., for respondents.

LEWIS, District Judge.

The issues raised, in this phase of the Prince Edward County school case, are:

Whether or not Prince Edward County can close and refuse to maintain its heretofore existing free public school system in order to avoid the racial discrimination prohibited by the Supreme Court of the United States, in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873; 349 U.S. 294, 75 S.Ct. 753, 99 L.Ed. 1083; and

Whether or not the defendants, individually or in concert, have deliberately circumvented or attempted to circumvent or frustrate the order of this Court entered herein on the 22nd day of April, 1960.

In order to properly answer these questions it is necessary and appropriate to briefly review the history of this litigation.

This suit was originally instituted in 1951, and sought to enjoin the enforcement of the provisions of the Virginia Constitution and Code,¹ which required the segregation of Negroes and whites in public schools. After years of litigation, the basic question raised therein was presented to the Supreme Court of the United States and was decided in a consolidated hearing, styled Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873. The holding in that case was:

"The Fourteenth Amendment forbids States to use their governmental powers to bar children on racial grounds from attending schools where there is state participation through any arrangement, management, funds or property." Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1, 78 S.Ct. 1401, 1403, 3 L.Ed.2d 5, 19.

Thus the provisions of the Virginia Constitution and Code referred to were declared unconstitutional and void.

That this decision was unpopular in most of the South, is understating the fact. Most of the southern states, including Virginia, adopted new laws in order to meet the situation thus created. Many of these new laws were declared unconstitutional, both by the federal and state courts.²

In compliance with the Brown decision, supra, this Court entered an order enjoining the defendants from discriminating against the plaintiffs in admission to the public schools of Prince Edward County solely on account of race, and further directed the defendants to proceed promptly with the formulation of a plan to comply therewith, commencing with the opening of the school year 1965.

The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, 266 F.2d 507, under date of May 5, 1959, reversed this Court and remanded the case with directions to issue an order in accordance with that opinion, which provided, among other things, that the defendants be enjoined from any action that regulates or affects on the basis of race or color the admission, enrollment or education of the infant plaintiffs, or any other Negro children similarly situated, to the high schools operated by the defendants in the County and to take immediate steps in this regard to the end that the applications be considered so as to permit the entrance of qualified persons into the white schools in the school term beginning September 1959. No decree was entered pursuant to the mandate of the Court of Appeals until the petitioners presented an appropriate order for entry therein on April 22, 1960, pertinent portions of said order being:

"The defendants are restrained and enjoined from any action that regulates or affects on the basis of race or color the admission, enrollment or education of the infant plaintiffs, or any other Negro children similarly situated, to the high schools operated by the defendants in the County and that the defendants receive and consider the applications of such persons for admission to such high schools without regard to race or color.

"That the defendants make plans for the admission of pupils in the elementary schools of the County without regard to race or color and to receive and consider applications to this end at the earliest practical day."

This Court and all counsel of record had knowledge of the fact that the public schools of Prince Edward County were closed prior to the entry of the said order.

The Board of Supervisors of Prince Edward County, anticipating the aforesaid decision of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, refused to levy any taxes or appropriate any money for the maintenance of the public schools during the school year 1959-60, resulting in the closing thereof.

This action was in accord with the expressed policy of the Board of Supervisors (adopted in May 1956) to abandon public schools and educate the children in some other way if that be necessary to preserve separation of the races in the schools of Prince Edward County.³

All public schools in Prince Edward County have remained closed from that date to the present time and apparently will so remain until this or some state court directs that they be opened and maintained. Unfortunately, as a result thereof, all of the children of Prince Edward County, both white and colored, have been deprived of a public education since June 1959. In fact, none of the approximately 1,800 colored children have received any formal education since that date. Nearly all of the 1,500 white children have been attending private schools, operated by the Prince Edward School Foundation.

Under these circumstances should this Court enter an order directing the appropriate officials of Prince Edward County to reopen and maintain its public schools?

Section 129 of the Constitution of Virginia provides:

"Free schools to be maintained.— The General Assembly shall establish and maintain an efficient system of public free schools throughout the State."

The Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia, in Harrison v. Day, 200 Va. 439, 106 S.E.2d 636, 646, held that Section 129 of the Virginia Constitution is still in the organic law (of Virginia) and must be complied with. The Court further stated in its opinion:

"that section 129 requires the State to `maintain an efficient system of public free schools throughout the State.' That means that the State must support such public free schools in the State as are necessary to an efficient system, including those in which the pupils of both races are compelled to be enrolled and taught together, however unfortunate that situation may be."

Therefore it would appear from this decision that the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia has determined that public schools must be maintained in Prince Edward County, Virginia.

However, the defendants earnestly contend that the public schools in Virginia are not now and never have been operated by the state or by any state agency; that they are now and always have been owned, operated, managed and controlled by local (that is, county or city) school boards. The defendants further contend that other sections of the Virginia Constitution and certain statutes made pursuant thereto must be considered and construed in order to determine this question.

Counsel for the plaintiffs contend it is not necessary for this Court or the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia to further construe and/or pass upon the validity of any sections of the Virginia Constitution or statutes made pursuant thereto in order to properly decide this issue. They contend the closing of the public schools in Prince Edward County, while maintaining public schools in every other city and county in the state, violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, and cite James v. Almond, D.C., 170 F.Supp. 331, 337, in support thereof:

"While the State of Virginia, directly or indirectly, maintains and operates a school system with the use of public funds, or participates by arrangement or otherwise in the management of such a school system, no one public school or grade in Virginia may be closed to avoid the effect of the law of the land as interpreted by the Supreme Court, while the state permits other public schools or grades to remain open at the expense of the taxpayers. In so holding we have considered only the Constitution of the United States as it is unnecessary, in our opinion, to pass upon the specific provisions of the Constitution of Virginia which deals directly with the free public school system of the state. We do not suggest that, aside from the Constitution of Virginia, the state must maintain a public school system. That is a matter for state determination. We merely point out that the closing of a public school, or grade therein, for the reasons heretofore assigned violates the right of a citizen to equal protection of the laws and, as to any child willing to attend a school with a member or members of the opposite race, such a school-closing is a deprivation of due process of law."

Whether the State of Virginia or the County of Prince Edward, technically speaking, owns and operates the public schools is of no concern of the children who are being deprived of free public education. The question that must and should be judicially determined is: Can the public schools, heretofore maintained in Prince Edward County, be closed in order to avoid the racial discrimination prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment?

Since the final answer to that question requires the interpretation of perhaps several sections of the Virginia Constitution and statutes adopted pursuant thereto, federal abstinence is the proper procedure.

"This now well-established procedure is aimed at the avoidance of unnecessary interference by the federal courts with proper and validly administered state concerns, a course

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