Armstead v. STARKVILLE MUNICIPAL SEPARATE SCH. DIST.

• Decision Date: 07 April 1971
• Docket Number: No. EC 70-51-S.,EC 70-51-S.
• Citation: 325 F. Supp. 560
• Parties: Bernice ARMSTEAD et al., Plaintiffs, v. STARKVILLE MUNICIPAL SEPARATE SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Mississippi

325 F. Supp. 560

Bernice ARMSTEAD et al., Plaintiffs, v. STARKVILLE MUNICIPAL SEPARATE SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Defendants.

No. EC 70-51-S.

United States District Court, N. D. Mississippi, E. D.

April 7, 1971.

Thomas H. Freeland, III, and G. A. Gafford, of Freeland & Gafford, Oxford, Miss., Stephen J. Pollak, David Booth Beers, and Kenneth L. Penegar, of Shea & Gardner, Washington, D. C., David Rubin, National Ed. Ass'n of the U. S., Washington, D. C., for plaintiffs.

William Q. McKee, and Edward McDowell, of McKee & McDowell, Starkville, Miss., Thomas J. Tubb, of Tubb & Stevens, West Point, Miss., A. F. Summers, Atty. Gen. of Miss., Jackson, Miss., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

ORMA R. SMITH, District Judge.

The amended complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief filed in this action contains four counts. By agreement of the parties and with consent of the court Count I was severed from Counts II, III and IV for separate hearing and determination. The hearings on Count I have been concluded. After the submission of proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law by the parties, the issues involved in Count I are now ripe for decision by the court.

The court's findings of fact and conclusions of law, pursuant to Rule 52(a) Fed.R.Civ.P., follow in this opinion.

Plaintiffs in Count I are the National Education Association (NEA), the Mississippi Teachers Association (MTA), and nine black teachers who taught in the Starkville Municipal Separate School District during the academic year 1969-70 —Bernice Armstead, Betty D. Bardwell, Charles E. Brown, Tinnie Collier, Robbie L. Johnson, Fred A. McFadden, Wilfred J. Moore, Sam L. Skinner, and Carroll T. Washington.

The NEA is a nationwide professional organization for educators. It has a direct interest in the standards and procedures used to employ teachers and frequently provides legal assistance to educators when it believes that important professional or civil rights are at stake. The MTA is a statewide professional organization for teachers and is an affiliate of the NEA. Most of its members are black. MTA members pay annual dues of $15.00. Some of the plaintiff teachers are members of the MTA.

The defendants are the Starkville Municipal Separate School District of Oktibbeha County, Mississippi; its former superintendent, B. Hall Buchanan, its current superintendent, Paul D. Armstrong; and its Board of Trustees, Emmett Black, Paul Millsaps, James E. Hill, Hunter Corhern, and Joe T. Mosley. The Superintendents and Board of Trustees are named as parties in their individual and official capacities.

Count I of the amended complaint alleges that defendants have unlawfully refused to reemploy black teachers and to hire black applicants for teaching positions. Plaintiffs pray, inter alia, for a permanent injunction preventing defendants from enforcing School Board Policy 13-69 which requires in-service teachers and applicants for teaching positions to achieve a certain score on the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) or a Master's Degree as a precondition to retention and employment in the system. The amended complaint also seeks to recover damages sustained by those plaintiffs who were not reemployed by defendants for the academic year 1970-71 because of Policy 13-69.

Pursuant to Rule 65(a) (2) Fed.R. Civ.P. and the agreement of the parties, the trial on the merits was consolidated with the hearing on plaintiffs' motion for preliminary injunction and held on September 3 and 4, 1970. Following completion of the hearing and closing arguments of counsel on September 4, 1970, this court entered a preliminary injunction requiring defendants to reemploy those plaintiff teachers who had not obtained teaching positions for the 1970-71 school year, namely, Bernice Armstead, Betty D. Bardwell, Sam L. Skinner and Carroll T. Washington.

This cause of action arises under Section 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 17 Stat. 13, 42 U.S.C. § 1983. This court has jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1343.

The Racial Composition of the Starkville School System

During the academic year 1969-70 the student enrollment in the Starkville Public Schools was 4,313. The racial composition of the student body during that year was approximately 53 percent white and 47 percent black.

Through February 5, 1970, the date of this court's desegregation order in Montgomery v. Starkville Municipal Separate School District, Civ. No. EC 6937 (A)-S defendants maintained a dual school system based upon race. At that time there were one white high school, one white junior high school, two white elementary schools, one black high school, one black middle school, and two black elementary schools in the system; one or two Negro teachers taught in the white schools and 23 white teachers taught in the black schools. The four white schools were administered by four white principals and the four black schools were administered by three black principals and a black "head teacher".

On February 5, 1970, this court ordered that the defendants "immediately begin to operate a unitary school system as required by the Supreme Court of the United States in Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education 396 U.S. 19, 90 S.Ct. 29, 24 L.Ed.2d 19 * * *" and "permanently enjoined defendants from discriminating on the basis of race." Montgomery v. Starkville Municipal School District, Civ. No. EC 6937 (A)-S. This order also expressly required defendants to integrate the faculty of the Starkville system according to the provisions of Singleton v. Jackson Municipal Separate School District, 419 F.2d 1211 (5th Cir. 1969) (en banc).

During the academic year 1969-70, there were 191 teachers and principals in the Starkville school system: 134 whites and 57 blacks. The defendants reduced the faculty by 43 positions for the school year 1970-71. At the time of the trial of this case, defendants had hired for the academic year 1970-71 148 teachers and principals: 117 white and 31 black. This represents a faculty reduction of 22 percent. The faculty reduction was racially disproportionate. The number of black teachers fell from 57 to 31—a reduction of 46 percent. The number of white teachers, on the other hand, fell from 134 to 117—a reduction of 13 percent. For the 1970-71 school year, defendants hired 32 new teachers. All were white.

For the school year 1970-71, defendants increased the number of white principals from four to six. The number of black principals was reduced from three to one. Defendants combined one black elementary school and one black junior high school, eliminating the job of one black principal. Another black principal's departure from the Starkville school system is the subject of Count II of the amended complaint and has been severed for separate hearing. Defendants replaced the black head teacher with a white principal.

Defendants maintain that the racial imbalance of the faculty for the year 1970-71 results from the implementation of School Board Policy 13-69. That policy now governs the hiring and retention of teachers.

The Standards and Procedures Governing the Selection of New Teachers in Effect Prior to the Implementation of Policy 13-69

Prior to the implementation of Policy 13-69, defendants required each new applicant for a teaching position to complete and submit an application form on which the following data, among others, are requested: prior education, teaching certificates, teaching experience, the names and addresses of five references; and the position desired. Defendants continue to use this form with the addition of a request for information indicating whether the applicant meets the requirements of Policy 13-69.

In the event the superintendent or a principal decided to pursue an application, he was to request references from the five persons named in the application. Defendants provided the recommending parties with a form asking them to evaluate the candidate with respect to 16 criteria:

Appearance Voice Personality Cooperativeness Knowledge of Subject Use of English Teaching Techniques Skill in Discipline Pupil Relationships Parent Relationships Professional Attitude Social and Civil Attitudes Health: General Vitality Health: Emotional Stability General Moral Integrity Spiritual Depth

In addition, the interested principal would interview the applicant and was to evaluate him or her on the basis of the same 16 criteria. Then the principal, if so inclined, recommended the applicant to the superintendent.

On the basis of the application, references, recommendations, the applicant's race, and the school's vacancies, the superintendent decided whether to recommend the applicant to the Board of Trustees. That Board makes the final decision as to all new hires, but it considers only those applicants recommended by the Superintendent.

The Standards and Procedures for Re-Employment of In-Service Teachers Which Were in Effect Prior to the Implementation of Policy 13-69

Mississippi teachers do not have the protection of a State teachers' tenure statute. In March of each year all teachers in the Starkville school system are asked to file forms stating whether they intended to remain in the employ of the Starkville Public Schools. Then follows a series of recommendations, beginning with the principal and passing to the superintendent and then to the board.

Prior to the implementation of Policy 13-69, a teacher, once hired by the Starkville School Board, could generally expect to be reemployed each year as long as the teacher wished until retirement. Thus, a principal's decision to recommend retention of a teacher was determinative of the decision to reemploy him in virtually every case.

Prior to the implementation of Policy 13-69, principals were directed to base their recommendations as to reemployment of each teacher upon an evaluation of that teacher in light of the 16 criteria above mentioned. In making recommendations concerning retention of in-service...