Bivins v. BOARD OF PUBLIC EDUCATION & ORPH. FOR BIBB CO., GA.
| Decision Date | 24 February 1965 |
| Docket Number | No. 21690.,21690. |
| Citation | 342 F.2d 229 |
| Parties | Shirley BIVINS et al., Appellants, v. BOARD OF PUBLIC EDUCATION AND ORPHANAGE FOR BIBB COUNTY, GEORGIA, et al., Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Derrick A. Bell, Jr., New York City, Donald L. Hollowell, Atlanta, Ga., Jack Greenberg, Constance Baker Motley, New York City, for appellants.
C. Baxter Jones, Macon, Ga., for appellees. Jones, Sparks, Benton & Cork, Macon, Ga., of counsel.
Before TUTTLE, Chief Judge, MOORE* and BELL, Circuit Judges.
This is a companion case to Lockett v. Board of Education of Muscogee County School District, Georgia, No. 21,262, decided this date. 342 F.2d 225. It presents issues arising out of a suit to desegregate the public school system of Bibb County (Macon), Georgia. The defendant school Board, pursuant to an order of the District Court, and after suit by appellants, presented a plan for the desegregation of the system. Objections to the plan and to the denial of injunctive relief form the subject matter of the appeal.
Like the Muscogee County case, the suit attacked the maintenance of a compulsory biracial school system perpetuated through the use of dual school zones based on race, and through the assignment of teacher and administrative personnel on a racial basis. The prayer was for an end to these racial distinctions, or in the alternative for a decree directing the school Board to submit a plan for the complete reorganization of the school system into a unitary, nonracial system. The Board admitted that it was operating separate schools for white and Negro children, and that appellants were entitled to such order of the court as would adequately protect their rights and those of the class they represented, while, at the same time, taking into account the administrative and other problems of the school Board incident to the granting of such protection. As the District Judge noted, the appellants recognized that the Board should be allowed a reasonable period of time for bringing about the elimination of discrimination within the equal protection mandates of the Constitution.
The plan submitted and approved by the court was of the stair-step transfer type, beginning desegregation with the twelfth grade in September 1964. Other grades were to be reached thereafter annually, with two grades to be included in some years and only one in others, and with an over-all transition perior of nine years. A ruling on the question of assignment of teachers and administrative personnel was deferred for the stated reason that it presented a matter which could be more appropriately considered by the Board and by the court, if necessary, at a future date. Implicit in this statement was the view that it was a matter that would be more appropriately subject to adjudication after the pupil desegregation process had run at least a substantial part of its course. The court deemed an injunction to be unnecessary in view of the promises of the school Board and the stability of its membership, but retained jurisdiction for such further proceedings and orders as might become necessary.
The issues presented here are the same as those presented in the Muscogee County case. Did the court err in denying the injunction? Did the court err in refusing to rule on the validity of assigning teacher and administrative personnel on a racial basis? Did the court commit error in approving the plan of desegregation, either as to the speed of accomplishment or in the use of a transfer plan for pupil assignment, or as to both? On the reasoning of the opinion in the Muscogee case, and on the strength of the authorities there cited, we affirm with respect to the denial of the injunction, and as to the postponement of the teacher and administrative personnel question. We reverse as to the...
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United States v. Jefferson County Board of Education
...to the district courts. Lockett v. Board of Education of Muscogee County, 5 Cir. 1964, 342 F.2d 225; Bivins v. Board of Education for Bibb County, 5 Cir. 1965, 342 F.2d 229; Armstrong v. Board of Education of Birmingham, 5 Cir. 1964, 333 F.2d 47; Davis v. Board of School Commissioners of Mo......
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Rogers v. Paul
...(6 years after Brown); Lockett v. Board of Education of Muscogee County, 342 F.2d 225 (5 Cir. 1965), and Bivins v. Board of Public Education and Orphanage, 342 F.2d 229 (5 Cir. 1965), in the Fall of 1964 (10 years after Desegregation of the Fort Smith public schools stands out in bold contr......
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Henderson v. Iberia Parish School Board, Civ. A. No. 11126.
...Stell v. Savannah-Chatham County Board, 333 F.2d 55 (1964); Lockett v. Board of Education, 342 F.2d 225 (1965); Bivins v. Board of Public Education, 342 F.2d 229 (1965). While the principles announced in the foregoing cases are by now well known to counsel and the Court, we hereafter briefl......
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Singleton v. Jackson Municipal Separate School Dist., 22527.
...F.2d 983; Lockett v. Board of Education of Muscogee County, Ga., 5 Cir. 1965, 342 F.2d 225; and Bivins v. Board of Public Education and Orphanage for Bibb County, Ga., 5 Cir. 1965, 342 F.2d 229. March 12, 1965, the plaintiffs appealed from the Court's order of March 10 on the ground the Jac......
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Brown v. Board of Education After Fifty Years: Context and Synopsis - James L. Hunt
...A. Bell, Jr., Donald L. Hollowell, Jack Greenberg, and Constance Baker Motley. See Bivins v. Board of Educ. & Orphange for Bibb County, 342 F.2d 229 (5th Cir. 1965); Bivins v. Board of Educ. & Orphanage for Bibb County, 284 F. Supp. 888 (M.D. Ga. 1967); Bivins v. Bibb County Bd. of Educ, 42......