Borders v. Rippy, 16483.
Citation | 247 F.2d 268 |
Decision Date | 27 August 1957 |
Docket Number | No. 16483.,16483. |
Parties | Hilda Ruth BORDERS, a minor, by her father and next friend, Louie Borders, Jr., et al., Appellants, v. Dr. Edwin L. RIPPY, as President of the Board of Trustees of the Dallas Independent School District, et al., Appellees. |
Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit) |
Thurgood Marshall, New York, N. Y., and U. Simpson Tate, W. J. Durham, J. L. Turner, Jr., C. B. Bunkley, Jr., and Louis Bedford, Dallas, Texas, Robert L. Carter, New York City, for appellants.
A. J. Thuss, Dallas, Tex., for appellees.
Before RIVES, JONES and BROWN, Circuit Judges.
Twenty-eight Negro children appeal again to this Court from another judgment of the district court dismissing their complaint1 in which they sought relief for themselves and other negroes similarly situated on account of their exclusion from certain public schools of Dallas solely because of their race or color.
The basic facts are simple and undisputed. Rosa Sims, ten years of age, and Maude Sims, nine, applied for admission to the John Henry Brown School, four blocks from their home. The school principal showed their father a directive from the School Board "saying that no negro children could go to school with the whites," and denied them the right to enter because they were Negroes. Instead, they went to Charles Rice Elementary School distant from their home "about eighteen blocks across heavy traffic." Like treatment from various public schools of Dallas was accorded to each of the other Negro children plaintiffs.
The testimony of the Assistant Superintendent and of the Superintendent of the Dallas Independent School District disclosed the steps which had been taken to comply with the school segregation decisions, Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873, decided on May 17, 1954, in which the final judgments were entered on May 31, 1955, 349 U.S. 294, 75 S.Ct. 753, 99 L.Ed. 1083. On July 13, 1955, the Board of Education made a statement of policy in which it instructed the Superintendent of Schools to proceed with a detailed study in the following areas:
On July 27, 1955, the following was unanimously approved:
Nearly a year later, on June 13, 1956, the Board issued its "Second Statement on Desegregation by the President of the Board" concluding as follows:
The Assistant Superintendent testified that there were about 119,000 children in the public schools of Dallas of which about 16 2/3 per cent, one out of every six, were Negroes. The Superintendent testified that immediate desegregation would result in mixed classes in all of the senior high schools with one possible exception, and in a large number of the elementary schools; that most of the school buildings are completely filled and white children would have to be displaced to let Negro children come in; that there is a difference in scholastic aptitudes of white children and Negro children, the average difference at the first grade level being one and one-half years, and the older the children the greater the gap, so that in high school senior classes it would run around three and one-half years; that, having that differential in mind, there were not enough teachers available to impart adequate instruction to both Negro children and white children; that no child is refused admission because he is retarded. He testified categorically that he was "still continuing segregation based upon races in the Dallas Independent School District."
The appellees insist that the judgment should be affirmed because of the failure of pleading or proof to show that each plaintiff has exhausted his administrative remedies, under Article 2654-7 of the Revised Civil Statutes of Texas, Vernon's Ann.Civ.St., by appeal to the State Commissioner of Education. Texas State law gave the Board and the Superintendent the power to act, and, in the exercise of such power, they denied the plaintiffs the right to attend public schools of their choice solely on account of their race or color. By such action the plaintiffs have been deprived of their constitutional rights, and they are not required to seek redress from any administrative body before applying to the courts. Bruce v. Stilwell, 5 Cir., 1953, 206 F.2d 554, 556; Carter v. School Board of Arlington County, Va., 4 Cir., 1950, 182 F.2d 531, 536; Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board, D.C.E.D.La.1956, 138 F.Supp. 337, 341, affirmed in Orleans Parish School Board v. Bush, 5 Cir., 1957, 242 F.2d 156, 162; see also Browder v. Gayle, D.C.M.D.Ala.1956, 142 F. Supp. 707, 713, affirmed per curiam 352 U.S. 903, 77 S.Ct. 145, 1 L.Ed. 114.
Other applicable principles of law are equally simple and well understood. Overcrowding in public school rooms cannot be lawfully prevented or relieved by excluding pupils on the basis of their race or color. Clemons v. Board of Education of Hillsboro, Ohio, 6 Cir., 1956, 228 F.2d 853, 857.
The equal protection and due process clauses of the fourteenth amendment do not affirmatively command integration, but they do forbid any state action requiring segregation on account of their race or color of children in the public schools. Avery v. Wichita Falls Independent School...
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