Brown v. School District No. 20, Charleston, South Carolina
Decision Date | 22 August 1963 |
Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 7747. |
Citation | 226 F. Supp. 819 |
Court | U.S. District Court — District of South Carolina |
Parties | Millicent F. BROWN et al., Plaintiffs, v. SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 20, CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA, a public body corporate, and Charles A. Brown, Chairman of School District No. 20, Charleston, South Carolina; and Thomas A. Carrere, Superintendent, Lawrence O'Hear Stoney, Leonard A. Mackey, John T. Welch, Mrs. Edwin A. Pearlstine, Mrs. W. Allan Moore, Jr., John C. Hawk, Jr., Members, Board of Trustees of School District No. 20, Charleston, South Carolina, Defendants, Mark Allen, a minor, by W. K. Allen, his father and next friend; and Barbara L. Bellows and George Bellows, Jr., minors, by their father and next friend George Bellows, Julia Jeanne Canfield, a minor, by Eugene C. Canfield, her father and next friend, and Elizabeth S. Stack and William F. Stack, Sr., their father and next friend, Intervenors. |
Matthew J. Perry, Lincoln C. Jenkins, Jr., Columbia, S. C., Constance Baker Motley, Jack Greenberg, Michael Meltsner, New York City, F. Henderson Moore, Benjamin Cooke, Charleston, S. C., for plaintiffs.
Huger Sinkler, Charles H. Gibbs, Charleston, S. C., A. T. Graydon, and D. W. Robinson, Columbia, S. C., for defendants.
Burnet R. Maybank, Charleston, S. C., and George Stephen Leonard, Washington, D. C., for intervenors.
This action was brought by thirteen1 Negro children and their parents on behalf of themselves and others similarly situated for an injunction enjoining the operation of the school system of School District Number 20 in Charleston County, South Carolina, on a racially segregated basis. Plaintiffs seek an order of this Court requiring that the plaintiffs here be allowed to enroll in the white school of their choice; requiring the School Board to submit a plan calling for the abolition of a dual school system; for an order requiring the complete integration of school personnel and for costs.
Plaintiffs invoke the jurisdiction of this Court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1343 (3), 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
After the pleadings were complete, several white students and their parents moved the Court for permission to intervene in this action. This motion was granted and they were permitted to participate in the hearing and filed extensive briefs thereafter.
The cause was heard at Columbia, South Carolina, on August 5, 1963.
School District Number 20 is composed of the City of Charleston.2 The school system is completely segregated and operates a total of fifteen schools, six for white children and nine for Negro children. Areas served by each school are established so that a dual set of attendance area lines exist; white children live in the zones of Negro schools but attend white schools. Negro children live in zones of white schools but attend Negro schools. When the white elementary school (Mitchell) was closed, (end of school year 1963) all of its former pupils living on one side of a line bisecting its zone were assigned to one of the other two white schools and all other former pupils living on the opposite side of the dividing line were assigned to another white school by the direction of the Superintendent of Schools. The total population of the District is 65,925 — made up of 32,313 whites and 33,612 Negroes. There are a total of 12,647 students — 9,539 Negroes and 3,108 whites. 420 teachers are employed — 286 Negroes and 134 whites.
There have been no formal applications filed by Negro children to enter white schools at the first grade level. All the plaintiffs herein have made application to transfer from a Negro school to a white school.
The applications of the various plaintiffs were considered by the Board and all were rejected. Applications for transfer from one school in School District Number 20 to another are governed by rules adopted by the Board of Trustees of the District on the 10th day of June 1959. These rules prescribe the procedure for filing an application for transfer and the procedure to be followed when an application has been denied. Three of the plaintiffs, Brown, Hines and Dawson, have exhausted the administrative remedies provided for by the rules of the Board. Their applications for transfer to a white school were denied by the Board for the reason, that, the Board concluded, it was for the children's best interest to remain in the Negro schools they were presently enrolled in and attending. The other plaintiffs have not exhausted such remedies but allege that the remedies are inadequate to provide the relief sought.
The defendants contend, that the plaintiffs have no standing in this Court, until all administrative remedies are exhausted and therefore the action should be dismissed as to those plaintiffs who have failed to exhaust administrative remedies. The defendants further contend, that there is no evidence of racial discrimination present in the rejection of the applications of the plaintiffs who have exhausted their administrative remedies and, that any racial separation in the public schools of District Number 20 is voluntary and therefore offends no constitutional principle.
The primary questions presented, therefore, are the justification of the School Board's denial of that group of applications which were denied on their merits; and the remaining applications which were denied because of that group's failure to exhaust administrative remedies.
The rules promulgated by the Board of Trustees of Charleston School District Number 20 and the South Carolina Statutory Law, known as the South Carolina Pupil Assignment Law, § 21-247 et seq., South Carolina Code of Laws (1962), are the authority by which the School Board attempts to justify the denial of both groups of petitions. This same position was taken by the School Board in the case of Jeffers v. Whitley, 309 F.2d 621 (4th Cir. 1962). The overall factual situation in the instant case is analogous to that presented in the Jeffers case. By a Per Curiam opinion, the Fourth Circuit sitting en banc in the Jeffers case held:
To continue reading
Request your trial-
Smith v. Board of Education of Morrilton Sch. Dist. No. 32
...with pupils when these descriptions amount only to euphemistic references to actual or assumed racial distinctions. Obviously underlying the Brown decisions is the principle that such distinctions, if and to the extent they exist, do not justify segregation in educational institutions. Dese......
-
U.S. v. Charleston County
...other communities, racial change did not come quickly or easily to Charleston County. When the United States Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, the Charleston News and Courier editorialized that it would lead to "the most radical upheaval since Reconstruction." (Quot......
-
US v. Charleston County School Dist., Civ. A. No. 2:81-0050-8
...the public school systems of Charleston County began in 1962 with the filing of the Complaint in Brown v. School District No. 20, Charleston, South Carolina, 226 F.Supp. 819 (E.D.S.C.1963), aff'd, 328 F.2d 618 (4th Cir.1964) cert. denied, 379 U.S. 825, 85 S.Ct. 52, 13 L.Ed.2d 35 (1964). Tha......
-
Stell v. Savannah-Chatham County Bd. of Ed., 20557
...it follows that it would be entirely inappropriate for it to be rejected or obviated by this court. See Brown v. School District No. 20, Charleston, E.D.S.C., 1964, 226 F.Supp. 819, affirmed, 4 Cir., 1964, 328 F.2d 618; Youngblood v. Board of Public Instruction of Bay County, N.D.Fla., 1964......