Ayers v. Allain, GC75-9-NB.
| Citation | 674 F. Supp. 1523 |
| Decision Date | 10 December 1987 |
| Docket Number | No. GC75-9-NB.,GC75-9-NB. |
| Parties | Jake AYERS, Sr., et al., Plaintiffs, United States of America, Plaintiff-Intervenor, v. William ALLAIN, Governor, State of Mississippi; W. Ray Cleere, Commissioner of Higher Education; Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning, Betty A. Williams, President, Thomas D. Bourdeaux, Vice President, William H. Austin, Jr., Frank O. Crosthwait, Jr., Bryce Griffis, Will A. Hickman, Charles C. Jacobs, Jr., William M. Jones, John R. Lovelace, M.D., Diane Miller, Denton Rogers, Jr., Sidney L. Rushing, George T. Watson, Members; Delta State University, Kent Wyatt, President; Mississippi State University, Donald W. Zacharias, President; Mississippi University for Women, James W. Strobel, President; University of Mississippi, R. Gerald Turner, Chancellor; University of Southern Mississippi, Aubrey K. Lucas, President; et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Mississippi |
Alvin Chambliss, Jr., Oxford, Miss., LeVern Younger, Civ. Rights Div., Educational Opportunities Litigation Section, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., for plaintiffs.
Edwin L. Pittman, Atty. Gen., Ed Davis Noble, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., William F. Goodman, Jr., Paul H. Stephenson, III, William F. Ray, Jackson, Miss., for defendants.
This class action was commenced on January 28, 1975. The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants were maintaining a racially dual system of public higher education in violation of the Fifth, Ninth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 and 1983, and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d, et seq. On April 21, 1975, the United States, by its Attorney General, filed its complaint-in-intervention pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment, §§ 601 and 602 of Title VI and § 902 of Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000h-2. The United States alleged, inter alia, that actions of the defendants maintained and perpetuated an unlawful dual system of higher education based on race in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI. The plaintiffs essentially seek injunctive relief directing the defendants to bring the various components of Mississippi's public system of higher education into conformity with the requirements of the aforementioned statutes and constitutional provisions.
The plaintiffs are black citizens of the State of Mississippi, including black students attending or desirous of attending public institutions of higher learning in the State of Mississippi, black taxpayers residing in the State of Mississippi, and parents of black students attending public institutions of higher learning in the State of Mississippi. The chief defendants are the Governor of the State of Mississippi, the Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning, and the individual members sued in their personal and official capacities, each of the institutions identified as the historically white institutions and their chief administrative officers, the State Department of Education, and the State Superintendent of Education.
All public institutions of higher learning in the state are under the management and control of the Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning (Mississippi Constitution of 1892, § 213-A), whose authority is plenary. The defendant State Department of Education is charged with the execution of laws relating to the administrative, supervisory, and consultive services to the public schools, agricultural high schools, and junior colleges of the State of Mississippi. The defendant State Superintendent of Education is responsible for the administration, management, and control of the Department of Education, subject to the direction of the State Board of Education. Miss.Code Ann. § 37-3-5 (1972).
The private plaintiffs and the United States assert that at the time of the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954), the defendants had established racially separate systems of public higher education for black and white citizens of Mississippi; that the institutions designated to serve blacks were markedly inferior to the institutions established by defendants to serve whites; that from 1954 until the present defendants have maintained and perpetuated the racially dual system of public higher education through, inter alia, policies and practices governing student admissions, employment of faculty and administrative staff, and through the operation of historically white institutions or branches thereof in close proximity to historically black institutions; that the defendants have denied equal educational opportunity to black students and faculty by discriminating against historically black institutions with respect to, inter alia, institutional missions, number and level of academic programs, quality of instructional staff, allocation of land grant functions, the level and quality of physical plant, and the distribution of financial resources; and that defendants have failed to effectively dismantle the racially dual system of public higher education in Mississippi and remain today under legal obligation to eliminate the vestiges of racial dualism "root and branch."
The defendants answered the allegations of the plaintiffs and the plaintiff-intervenor by contending that a good faith nondiscriminatory and nonracial admissions and operational policy with respect to students, faculty, and staff has been implemented and maintained in the state-wide system of public higher education; and that with such a policy designed to insure equality of opportunity, the mere continued existence of institutions of higher learning with predominantly black and predominantly white student bodies and faculty does not represent a denial of equal protection, considering individual freedom of choice of all qualified students, black and white, to enroll in the colleges of their choice, and the varying educational objectives and advantages of such institutions. The defendants contend further that throughout the state-wide system there have been affirmative-action programs designed to attract qualified black students and personnel to historically white institutions and to attract qualified white students and personnel to historically black institutions; that equal protection has been and is achieved by the operation of a state-wide system dedicated to the enhancement of integrated university opportunities coupled with the goal of quality education; that a fully integrated unitary state-wide system of higher education exists in Mississippi today wholly untainted by discriminatory actions or purposes; and that within such a system the achievement of particular proportions or percentages of desegregation must be judicially evaluated with other legitimate educational and societal interests.
Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2281, a three-judge court was convened to preside over this cause. On September 17, 1975, by order issued by Judge William C. Keady (then Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi and acting in his capacity as managing judge of the three-judge court), a plaintiff class was certified and defined as:
All black citizens residing in Mississippi, whether students, former students, parents, employees, or taxpayers, who have been, are, or will be discriminated against on account of race in receiving equal educational opportunity and/or equal employment opportunity in the universities operated by said Board of Trustees.
On the same day, this court ordered the separation for trial purposes of the claims against the senior colleges and universities, that is, the Institutions of Higher Learning and the Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning, from the claims against the sixteen public junior colleges, the Junior College Commission, and the Department of Education.
During the approximately twelve years since this case was filed until the present, considerable time and effort have been devoted by the parties, under the court's auspices, toward the consensual resolution of the many issues raised herein. After repeated good faith attempts failed to achieve a mutually satisfactory comprehensive agreement, this court1 ordered the completion of discovery and set this cause for trial to commence on April 27, 1987. Having heard the evidence presented during a five-week bench trial, during which the court heard testimony from 71 witnesses and received 56,700 pages of exhibits, and now having maturely considered the testimony, exhibits and post-trial memoranda submitted by the parties, the court is in a position to enter its findings of fact and conclusions of law pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 52.
The Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning (hereinafter referred to as "the Board of Trustees") was created by statute in 1932. In 1944 it became a constitutional board with plenary power over all Mississippi public senior colleges and universities. The Mississippi state-wide system of higher education consists of eight institutions and several entities under the jurisdiction of the Board of Trustees. The eight institutions of higher learning under the Board of Trustees' control are described as follows:
University of Mississippi
Chartered on February 24, 1844, the University of Mississippi, at Oxford, commenced its first session on November 6, 1848, with a faculty of four members. The trustees and the faculty sought to broaden the work of the institution by the creation of professional and specialized schools so as to build it into a university in fact as well as in name. In accordance with that purpose, the School of Law was opened in 1854.
Coeducation came with...
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