Bradley v. School Board of City of Richmond, Virginia
| Decision Date | 05 June 1972 |
| Docket Number | No. 72-1058 to 72-1060 and 72-1150.,72-1058 to 72-1060 and 72-1150. |
| Citation | 462 F.2d 1058 |
| Parties | In the Matter of Carolyn BRADLEY et al., Appellees, v. The SCHOOL BOARD OF the CITY OF RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, et al., Appellees, v. The SCHOOL BOARD OF CHESTER-FIELD COUNTY et al., Appellants. National Education Association, Amicus Curiae. American Civil Liberties Union, American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, Amicus Curiae. United States of America, Amicus Curiae. Congress of Racial Equality, Amicus Curiae. In the Matter of Carolyn BRADLEY et al., Appellees, v. The SCHOOL BOARD OF the CITY OF RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, et al., Appellees, v. The SCHOOL BOARD OF HENRICO COUNTY et al., Appellants. National Education Association, Amicus Curiae. American Civil Liberties Union, American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, Amicus Curiae. United States of America, Amicus Curiae. Congress of Racial Equality, Amicus Curiae. In the Matter of Carolyn BRADLEY et al., Appellees, v. The SCHOOL BOARD OF the CITY OF RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, et al., Appellees, v. The STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION OF the COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA et al., Appellants. National Education Association, Amicus Curiae. American Civil Liberties Union, American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, Amicus Curiae. United States of America, Amicus Curiae. Congress of Racial Equality, Amicus Curiae, In the Matter of Carolyn BRADLEY et al., Appellees, v. The SCHOOL BOARD OF the CITY OF RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, et al., Appellees, v. Dawn GAULDIN, an infant, by her next friend and mother, Judith Gauldin, and others, parents and school children of Chesterfield County, Appellants. National Education Association, Amicus Curiae. American Civil Liberties Union, American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, Amicus Curiae. United States of America, Amicus Curiae. Congress of Racial Equality, Amicus Curiae. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
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Philip B. Kurland, Chicago, Ill. , for appellants.
George B. Little, Richmond, Va., (John H. Obrion, Jr., James K. Cluverius, and Browder, Russell, Little, & Morris, Richmond, Va., and Conard B. Mattox, Jr., City Atty., on brief), and Norman J. Chachkin, New York City, (Louis R. Lucas, Memphis, Tenn., William L. Taylor, Richmond, Va., Jack Greenberg, James M. Nabrit, III, New York City, James R. Olphin, and M. Ralph Page, Richmond, Va., on brief), for appellees.
Stephen J. Pollak, Richard M. Sharp, David Rubin, and Shea & Gardner, Washington, D. C., on brief for amicus curiae, The National Education Association.
Richard V. Falcon, David S. Bogen, Baltimore, Md., Melvin L. Wulf, Sanford Jay Rosen, American Civil Liberties Union, New York City, and Philip Hirschkop, Alexandria, Va., on brief for amicus curiae American Civil Liberties Union, American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia.
Brian P. Gettings, U. S. Atty., David L. Norman, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Brian K. Landsberg, Atty., Dept. of Justice, on brief for amicus curiae, The United States.
Theo Walker Mitchell, Greenville, S. C., and William C. Chance, Floyd B. McKissick, Charles S. Conley, and Roy Innis, National Director, Victor Solomon, Associate National Director, Congress of Racial Equality, on brief, for amicus curiae, The Congress of Racial Equality.
Before HAYNSWORTH, Chief Judge, and BRYAN, WINTER, CRAVEN, RUSSELL and FIELD, Circuit Judges, sitting en banc.
May a United States District Judge compel one of the States of the Union to restructure its internal government for the purpose of achieving racial balance in the assignment of pupils to the public schools? We think not, absent invidious discrimination in the establishment or maintenance of local governmental units, and accordingly reverse.
This is a new aspect of an old school case begun in 1961.1 Neither the parties to this appeal nor the numerous amici permitted to file briefs question the duty of the Richmond School Board to achieve a unitary school system. Brown v. Board of Education (Brown I), 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954); Brown v. Board of Education (Brown II), 349 U.S. 294, 75 S.Ct. 753, 99 L.Ed. 1083 (1955). Green v. School Board of New Kent County, 391 U.S. 430, 88 S.Ct. 1689, 20 L.Ed.2d 716 (1968). Indeed, it is virtually conceded and established beyond question that, albeit belatedly, Richmond has at this juncture done all it can do to disestablish to the maximum extent possible2 the formerly state-imposed dual school system within its municipal boundary.
What is presented on appeal is whether the district court may compel joinder with Richmond's unitary school system two other school districts (also unitary) in order to achieve a greater degree of integration and racial balance. The district judge felt compelled to order consolidation of the three school units partly because of his concern with what seemed to him an unfortunate racial balance in the three separate systems and partly because he felt this racial balance was the result of invidious state action. In his concern for effective implementation of the Fourteenth Amendment he failed to sufficiently consider, we think, a fundamental principle of federalism incorporated in the Tenth Amendment and failed to consider that Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1, 91 S.Ct. 1267, 28 L.Ed. 2d 554 (1971), established limitations on his power to fashion remedies in school cases.
The current phase of the case began on March 10, 1970. On that date the black plaintiffs filed a motion for further relief, and on March 19, 1970, in response to inquiry by the court, the Richmond School Board filed a statement to the effect that "they had been advised that the public schools of the City of Richmond are not being operated as unitary schools in accordance with the most recent enunciations of the Supreme Court of the United States." The board thus conceded that its previously implemented plan of integration, largely based on freedom of choice, which plan had been approved by the district court on March 30, 1966, was insufficient under Green v. School Board of New Kent County, supra, to constitute a unitary school system. The school board waived a hearing and further advised the court that it had "requested the Department of Health, Education and Welfare to make a study and recommendation as to a plan which would insure the operation of the unitary school system in compliance with the decisions of the United States Supreme Court" said plan to be ready by May 1, 1970. On June 26, 1970, the court rejected the proposed HEW plan and granted leave to the Richmond School Board to submit another plan if they so desired. That plan was filed on July 23, 1970, and a hearing on its adequacy was conducted on August 7, 1970. Because of the imminence of the beginning of the school year 1970-71, the court approved this second plan purely on an interim basis. After several additional hearings, another plan, designated Plan III, was approved in April 1971 for the school year 1971-72. The Richmond city schools are currently operating under this plan. In Bradley v. School Board of the City of Richmond, 325 F.Supp. 828, 835 (1971), the district judge, having carefully compared the three proposed plans, plus a fourth one, called the Foster Plan, concluded that Plan III, if successfully implemented, would eliminate "the racial identifiability of each facility to the extent feasible within the City of Richmond." The court added that "this is the extent, under current law, of the affirmative obligation governing use of its school board available powers: . . ."
Meanwhile, administrators of the Richmond school system were having second thoughts, prompted perhaps by a colloquy between court and counsel having to do with possible consolidation of the Richmond school system with the adjoining school systems of Chesterfield County and Henrico County. Under the approved Plan III it was projected that the percentage of whites in high schools would range from 21 percent to 57 percent and the percentage of blacks from 43 percent to 79 percent, that the range in middle schools would be 19 percent to 61 percent whites and 39 percent to 81 percent black, and the elementary range would be from 20 percent to 66 percent white and from 34 percent to 80 percent black. Such arithmetic pointed up the obvious: that if the heavily white school population of the adjoining counties could be combined with the majority black school population of Richmond a "better" racial mix would result. Thus, on November 4, 1970, the city filed a "motion to compel joinder of parties needed for just adjudication under Rule 19." The court allowed the motion and the filing of an amended complaint directed toward relief against these new respondents: the Board of Supervisors of Chesterfield County, the Board of Supervisors of Henrico County, the School Board of Chesterfield County, the School Board of Henrico County, the State Board of Education, and the Superintendent of Public Instruction. On January 10, 1972, came judgment: all defendants, including the State Board of Education, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, the school boards of the two counties and the city, the boards of supervisors of the two counties, and the City Council of the city, were enjoined to create a single...
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