Baylor v. Jefferson County Bd. of Educ.

• Decision Date: 08 June 1984
• Docket Number: No. 83-7417,83-7417
• Citation: 733 F.2d 1527
• Parties: 35 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 377, 34 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 34,426, 17 Ed. Law Rep. 500, 15 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1324 Arthur T. BAYLOR, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JEFFERSON COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION, Defendant-Appellant. Non-Argument Calendar.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1527

733 F.2d 1527

35 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 377,

34 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 34,426, 17 Ed. Law Rep. 500,

15 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1324

Arthur T. BAYLOR, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JEFFERSON COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 83-7417

Non-Argument Calendar.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

June 8, 1984.

Carl E. Johnson, Birmingham, Ala., for defendant-appellant.

C. Michael Quinn, Robert L. Wiggins, Jr., Birmingham, Ala., for plaintiff-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

Before HATCHETT, ANDERSON and CLARK, Circuit Judges.

HATCHETT, Circuit Judge:

In this racial discrimination in employment case, we review the district court's findings that appellant, Jefferson County Board of Education (Board), discriminated against appellee, Arthur T. Baylor, in job assignment, in violation of 42 U.S.C.A. Sec. 1981 (West 1974), and 42 U.S.C.A. Sec. 2000e to 2000e-17 (West 1981). We affirm.

FACTS

In 1971, Arthur T. Baylor was transferred to Hueytown High School and was assigned to teach physical education and to perform coaching duties. Baylor replaced a white coach. Hueytown High School was at the time, and is, a predominantly white school.

Baylor worked at Hueytown as an assistant football coach under two white coaches and under two white principals prior to 1979. From 1975-1980, Baylor's employee evaluation ranged from excellent to satisfactory.

During the latter part of Baylor's tenure at Hueytown, Pat A. Salamone was the principal. Baylor and Salamone had a friendly working relationship. Baylor had very few problems in his personal relationships at the school until a new head football coach, Morris Higginbotham, arrived during the middle of the 1978-79 school year.

In the Jefferson County School System, the head football coach also holds the position of "athletic coordinator." The football coach, therefore, is always the head of the athletic department and has supervision over all coaches. When Higginbotham arrived at mid-year, Baylor was the head basketball coach and an assistant football coach, and had just completed a highly successful basketball season leading to a berth in the state playoff.

Contemporaneously with Higginbotham's arrival, Principal Salamone approved Baylor's request to take his team to the state playoff in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Baylor took his players a few days prior to their first scheduled game to watch the competition and to practice.

Immediately upon the basketball team's return from Tuscaloosa, Higginbotham criticized Baylor for spending too much of the school's money and for not being available for the start of spring football practice.

Higginbotham complained to Salamone about Baylor, and Baylor complained to Salamone about Higginbotham. Two of At the end of the 1978-79 school year, which was also the end of Higginbotham's first year at Hueytown, he and Salamone requested that the Jefferson County Board of Education (Board) transfer Baylor from Hueytown.

Higginbotham's complaints against Baylor were that Baylor was not regular in his attendance at meetings of the football coaches, and on one occasion Baylor failed to meet with the other coaches to clean the gym. Higginbotham, however, did not give Baylor notice of most of these meetings.

Prior to Salamone's having made this request, Salamone discussed the situation with Baylor and asked Baylor if, instead of coaching, he would like a job driving a school bus.

Baylor contested the proposed transfer, and the Board held a hearing on July 11, 1979, at which Baylor and the Board's attorney were present. The parties, however, reached a compromise settlement prior to the 1979-80 school year. Higginbotham was not a party to the settlement agreement.

When school started in the fall of 1979, on the very first day, Salamone and Higginbotham called all the coaches to Salamone's office and presented them with a "job description." This "job description" was prepared by Higginbotham and Salamone, and was the first written job description for assistant coaches at Hueytown.

The job description required, among other things, that the assistant coaches collect uniforms after each sporting event and not allow players to clean their own uniforms. After reading the "job description," Baylor, basketball coach, and Robert Tibbs, baseball coach, verbally expressed their disagreement with the uniform cleaning provision. Immediately thereafter, Higginbotham said to Baylor: "You will clean the uniforms!". He did not make the same remark to Tibbs.

Pursuant to the job description requirements, Baylor cleaned the basketball uniforms; Tibbs, however, did not clean the baseball uniforms and continued to let his players clean them. No evidence exists that Tibbs, a white coach, was disciplined for his failure to follow the new rule.

Higginbotham took Baylor's key to the field house. Higginbotham reasoned that Baylor no longer needed a key because he was not an assistant football coach. Soon thereafter, Higginbotham took all the basketball equipment and locked it in the field house knowing that Baylor did not have a key to the field house. This was an abrupt change in the past practice at the school.

When Baylor went to the gym to get the basketball equipment to begin the traditional pre-season basketball conditioning program, he found that the equipment was missing. Baylor asked the principal, Salamone, about it. Salamone told Baylor that Higginbotham would tell him when he could have the equipment and begin the pre-season basketball conditioning program.

The next day, Baylor went to Higginbotham and asked about the equipment and the conditioning program. Higginbotham replied: "You aren't going to have the run of this place and I will tell you when to practice."

In the fall of 1979, no Jefferson County or statewide rule existed with regard to when basketball practice could begin. Moreover, no evidence exists which suggests that the white coaches in other sports were subject to similar interferences with their practice commencement dates and access to equipment.

During the basketball season, as a result of a misunderstanding of the rules, Baylor played a "B" team player in a varsity game. Hueytown was fined $50. Prior to playing the two "B" team players, Baylor asked Higginbotham, Salamone, and the system-wide athletic director, Bill Legg, whether such would be permissible under the state athletic rules and regulations. They all approved Baylor's use of the "B" team players. Hueytown was later fined for violating a state athletic association rule, but the Board never reprimanded or disciplined Baylor.

Later, Hueytown High School played Berry High School at Berry. Berry is predominantly white. During the game, one of Hueytown's players made an obscene remark to a referee. As punishment, Baylor removed this player from the team.

As Baylor approached the scoring table for clarification of the foul status of one of his players, Berry's cheering section, yelled "Sit down, nigger." One spectator testified that Baylor responded with an obscene gesture. The next day, Baylor reported the incident of the racial slur to Salamone, asking Salamone not to make an issue of it with Berry's principal.

Toward the end of the academic year of 1979-80, the Hueytown High School Quarterback Club, whose meetings Higginbotham regularly attended, circulated a long petition addressed to the Board. It began with these words: "We hereby petition the Jefferson County Board of Education that it would be it [sic] the best interest of the Hueytown community that Arthur Baylor be moved to another teaching assignment in the county." [Emphasis supplied.]

The district court took judicial notice that the Hueytown "community" is predominantly white, whereas the student body at Hueytown High School has many black students who come long distances to school.

Salamone, at the suggestion of Higginbotham, again approached the Board about transferring Baylor. On June 26, 1980, without a hearing, the Board wrote Baylor informing him that it had voted to transfer him from teacher and coach at Hueytown to a position as social studies teacher at Pleasant Grove High School. Baylor was the only black coach at the school and none of the white coaches, not even Coach Tibbs, was transferred or terminated. At that time, no reasons were given for the "transfer" other than "maximum utilization of personnel."

Baylor demanded a hearing. At the hearing, the Board voted to affirm its transfer decision; two board members, however, abstained. On June 8, 1980, Baylor filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charge alleging that the transfer/termination was racially motivated. In a letter to Baylor dated July 16, 1980, the Board set forth five reasons for the transfer.

Baylor filed this action on June 23, 1981, seeking backpay, injunctive and declaratory relief for violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and section I of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C.A. Sec. 1981 (West 1974). After discovery by both parties, the case was tried before the district court.

The district court subsequently entered findings of fact and conclusions of law on June 17, 1983. In so doing, the court found violations of Title VII and section 1981. On the basis of these findings, the district court awarded back-pay and ordered that Baylor be reinstated into a position as a head coach either in football or in basketball.

ISSUES

The issues we now consider are: (1) whether the district court's finding of racial discrimination is clearly erroneous; (2) whether the district court incorrectly placed the burden of proof on the Board in its analysis of the facts of this case; and (3) whether the district court abused its discretion when it refused to admit into evidence a transcript of testimony taken at Baylor's 1980 tenure hearing.

II. DISCUSSION

1. Findings of Fact Entered by the District Court

On appeal, both parties...