Brewer v. School Board of City of Norfolk, Virginia

• Decision Date: 31 May 1968
• Docket Number: No. 11782.,11782.
• Citation: 397 F.2d 37
• Parties: Carlotta Mozelle BREWER and Demetria Yvonne Brewer, infants, by Oner Brewer, their father and next friend, et al., Appellants, v. The SCHOOL BOARD OF the CITY OF NORFOLK, VIRGINIA et al., Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

397 F.2d 37 (1968)

Carlotta Mozelle BREWER and Demetria Yvonne Brewer, infants, by Oner Brewer, their father and next friend, et al., Appellants, v. The SCHOOL BOARD OF the CITY OF NORFOLK, VIRGINIA et al., Appellees.

No. 11782.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued January 8, 1968.

Decided May 31, 1968.

S. W. Tucker, Richmond, Va. (Henry L. Marsh, III, Richmond, Va., Victor J. Ashe, J. Hugo Madison, Norfolk, Va., Jack Greenberg and James M. Nabrit, III, New York City, on brief), for appellants.

Leonard H. Davis, City Atty., City of Norfolk, Va., for appellees.

Before HAYNSWORTH, Chief Judge, and SOBELOFF, BOREMAN, BRYAN, WINTER, CRAVEN and BUTZNER, Circuit Judges.

BUTZNER, Circuit Judge:

Negro plaintiffs have appealed from an order approving the Norfolk, Virginia, School Board's most recent plan for the desegregation of the city's schools. Most of the plan is looked upon with favor by the plaintiffs and the United States, which was permitted to intervene. Upon consideration of the narrow areas of disagreement, the order is affirmed in part and vacated in part, and the case is remanded for further proceedings.

I.

Nine days after the Supreme Court held in Bradley v. School Bd. of City of Richmond, 382 U.S. 103, 86 S.Ct. 224, 15 L.Ed.2d 187 (1965), that it was improper to approve school desegregation plans without considering the impact of faculty allocation on a racial basis, the district judge, sua sponte, ordered the parties to present evidence on this subject in the action pending before him.¹ In response, the school board amended its plan by providing for elimination of faculty segregation.² The plaintiffs complain that the district judge did not require a definition of goals and a timetable for faculty desegregation. In denying the plaintiffs' request, the district court acted upon evidence that Norfolk employs approximately 2,200 classroom teachers, of whom 133 were assigned to faculties on which persons of their race were in the minority. All senior high schools, junior high schools and half the elementary schools had some integration. The district judge recognized that the board was making determined efforts to eliminate segregation among the faculty and staff.³

After the district judge approved the plan, this court decided Bowman v. County School Bd. of Charles City County, 382 F.2d 326 (4th Cir. 1967), vacated and remanded on other grounds sub nom. Green v. County School Bd. of New Kent County, 391 U.S. 430, 88 S.Ct. 1689, 20 L.Ed.2d 716 (May 27, 1968). There we required a minimal, objective timetable for faculty desegregation. A similar requirement is appropriate for Norfolk because the geographical attendance areas for elementary and junior high schools into which the city is divided contain more than one school, leaving to the pupils and their parents a choice within the zone. This system tends to perpetuate a dual system of schools when the identity of Negro and white schools located in the same zone, can be determined by the racial composition of the faculties.⁴ Lake Taylor Junior High School has 65 white teachers and 2 Negro teachers; its enrollment is 1,486 white pupils and 33 Negro pupils. Located in the same attendance area is Ruffner Junior High School, which has a faculty of 5 white teachers and 58 Negro teachers and a student body of 1,033 Negro but no white pupils. The problem is not confined to the elementary and junior high schools. Lake Taylor High School opened in 1967 with a faculty of 76 white teachers and 8 Negro teachers. In the adjacent high school attendance area Booker T. Washington High School had 95 Negro teachers and 17 white teachers. The racial composition of the student bodies corresponds to that of the faculties. Lake Taylor had 1,724 white pupils and 25 Negro pupils; Washington had 6 white pupils and 2,402 Negro pupils.⁵

The goal of faculty integration is not the allocation of teachers on either a token or a quota basis. The pattern of faculty assignment should be designed to avoid identification of any particular school as predominantly Negro or white.⁶ The evidence discloses the difficulty of reaching this goal, but it does not establish that attainment is impossible. Elimination of this remnant of the city's dual system of schools should proceed on a realistic timetable set by the board, subject to the approval of the district judge.

II.

The plaintiffs also assign error to refusal of the district court to require the board to assign pupils from Northside Junior High School to Rosemont Junior High. Northside, Rosemont and Azalea Gardens Schools serve junior high school attendance area I. Northside and Azalea Gardens are predominantly white. Rosemont is entirely Negro. Northside is overcrowded, while Rosemont has vacant classrooms. The board explained that the imbalance resulted from the destruction near Rosemont of homes for redevelopment and highways. Construction of new homes in the area is expected to fill Rosemont, and the board deemed it unwise to transfer pupils from Northside for only a year. The overcrowding at Northside has not been great enough to cause the board to reject any applicants. The faculty at Rosemont is integrated to the extent of having 8 Negro and 5 white teachers. Under the circumstances the board was not required to rectify this temporary discrepancy in the use of classroom space.

III.

The plaintiffs allege that high school attendance area IV was gerrymandered to continue racial segregation. This area is served by Booker T. Washington High School, which at the time of the district court's decision had more than 2,000 Negro but no white pupils. The background of this controversy can be briefly drawn.

In March 1966 the district court approved with reservations a pupil assignment plan negotiated by the school board, the plaintiffs, and the United States. To incorporate a new high school into the system, the board found it necessary to amend the plan for the 1967-1968 school year by creating five high school attendance areas, each encompassing approximately 2,000 pupils. Area boundary lines conformed in part with the boundaries of the city's planning districts and natural boundaries. The plan provided that pupils living in area I (Granby), II (Norview), III (Lake Taylor) and V (Maury) would attend the high school serving their area. Granby and Norview were predominantly white. It was anticipated that Lake Taylor would also be white. Maury was predominantly white but was in danger of becoming resegregated. In contrast, area IV (Washington) contained about two-thirds of the city's Negro high school pupils and only a few white pupils. The proposed plan allowed pupils living in area IV (Washington) to choose any one of the city's high schools other than Maury.

Parents of pupils living in area II (Norview) and area V (Maury) were permitted to intervene upon complaint that they were denied the same right of transfer as pupils living in area IV (Washington). The district judge, finding merit in their position, disapproved the plan.⁷ He suggested three alternatives. First, freedom of choice to all high school pupils with reassignment if a school became overcrowded. Second, consolidation of area III (Lake Taylor) and area IV (Washington). Third, a strict geographical plan of assignment with each pupil being required to attend the high school in the area where he lived. The court observed that consolidation of areas III and IV, the second alternative, would eliminate a highly controversial boundary line which separated white and Negro residential neighborhoods in these areas. He also called to the attention of the school board that adoption of strict geographical zoning would risk an attack upon the validity of the plan because of segregation in area IV (Washington).

Despite the precautionary remarks of the district judge, the school board adopted a geographical plan of assignment without modifying the boundaries of the existing high school attendance areas, and required all high school pupils to attend school in the area in which they resided.⁸ The plan assigned to the Washington School all but 1,230 of the city's 3,632 Negro high school pupils and excluded from Washington School all but 90 of the 7,235 white high school pupils.⁹ For all practical purposes it put an end to the progress that Norfolk had been making in integrating its high schools.

The district court approved the plan, pointing out that neither the plaintiffs nor the United States had accepted the court's invitation to redraw the controversial boundary separating areas III and IV. However, the burden to come forward with suggestions for a new boundary was not upon the plaintiffs and the United States. Generally, a meaningful change in one line requires compensating changes in a substantial part of the plan. It was apparent that the inevitable result of the school board's plan would be the segregation of pupils in area IV (Washington). In fact the district judge specifically called this problem to the board's attention. With this background, the board's rejection of the alternatives suggested by the court that would lead to less segregation and its decision to adopt a geographical zoning plan without adjusting boundary lines that had been drawn for a modified freedom of choice plan, raised an inference of discrimination that required the board to justify its conduct by clear and convincing evidence. Cf. Chambers v. Hendersonville City Bd. of Educ., 364 F.2d 189, 192 (4th Cir. 1966). This it has not done.

In Gilliam v. School Bd. of City of Hopewell, 345 F.2d 325 (4th Cir.), vacated and remanded on other grounds, sub nom. Bradley v. School Bd. of City of Richmond, 382 U.S. 103, 86 S.Ct. 224, 15 L.Ed.2d 187 (1965), we approved geographical zoning for the assignment of pupils. We also have said that such a system may not serve as a guise for gerrymandering zones to foster racial segregation. Wheeler v. Durham City Bd. of Educ., 346 F.2d 768, 774 (4th...