Bryan v. Austin
Decision Date | 22 January 1957 |
Docket Number | Civ. A. 5792. |
Citation | 148 F. Supp. 563 |
Court | U.S. District Court — District of South Carolina |
Parties | Ola L. BRYAN, Essie M. David, Charles E. Davis, Rosa D. Davis, Vivian V. Floyd, Bee A. Fogan, Hattie M. Fulton, Rutha M. Ingram, Mary E. Jackson, Frazier H. Keitt, Luther Lucas, James B. Mays, Laura Pickett, Howard W. Shefton, Betty Smith, Leila M. Summers and Clarence V. Tobin, Plaintiffs, v. M. G. AUSTIN, Jr., as Superintendent of School District No. 7, of Orangeburg County, the State of South Carolina, and W. B. Bookhardt, Harold Felder, T. T. McEachern, Elmo Shuler and Ulmer Weeks, as the Board of Trustees of School District No. 7, of Orangeburg County, the State of South Carolina, Defendants. |
Lincoln C. Jenkins, Jr., Columbia, S. C., and Thurgood Marshal, Jack Greenburg, New York City, for plaintiffs.
A. J. Hydrick, Jr., and Marshall Williams, Orangeburg, S. C., Robert McC. Figg, Jr., Charleston, S. C., P. H. McEachin, Florence, S. C., D. W. Robinson, Columbia, S. C., T. C. Callison, Atty. Gen. of South Carolina and Daniel R. McLeod and James S. Verner, Asst. Attys. Gen., of South Carolina, for defendants.
Before PARKER, Chief Judge, and TIMMERMAN and WILLIAMS, District Judges.
This is an action by Negro school teachers against the School Superintendent and the Board of Trustees of a school district in South Carolina. Its purpose is to obtain a declaratory judgment that the South Carolina statute making unlawful the employment by the state, or by a school district of the state, of any member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is unconstitutional and void and to enjoin the enforcement of the statute in violation of their constitutional rights. As the defendants are engaged in the enforcement of a statute of state wide application and injunction is asked against them, a court of three judges is appropriate for the hearing of the case. City of Cleveland v. United States, 323 U.S. 329, 65 S.Ct. 280, 89 L.Ed. 274. Such a court has accordingly been convened, the parties have been heard, the Attorney General of the State has been heard orally and by brief, and the parties after the hearing have been allowed to file additional briefs, which have been received and considered.
There is no dispute as to the facts. Plaintiffs are seventeen Negro school teachers, who had been employed in Elloree Training School of School District No. 7 of Orangeburg County, South Carolina, prior to June 1956 for varying periods of time, one for as long as ten years. There is evidence to the effect that they were competent teachers and there is no evidence that their service was unsatisfactory in any way. In March 1956 the Legislature of South Carolina passed the act here complained of, 49 St. at Large, p. 1747, one of the provisions of which authorized the board of trustees of any school to demand of any teacher that he submit a statement under oath as to whether or not he was a member of the National Association for Advancement of Colored People, and provided that anyone refusing to submit such statement should be summarily dismissed. Other sections of the act made it unlawful for any member of that association to be employed by any school district and imposed a fine of $100 for employing any individual contrary to the provisions of the Act. When plaintiffs in May of 1956 were given blank applications by the School Superintendent to be filled out and sworn to, which contained questions as to their membership in the Association and their views as to the desirability of segregation in the schools, they declined to answer these questions. Only one of the plaintiffs, however, was a member of the Association. Upon being told that they would have to fill in the answers or tender their resignations, they chose the latter course and were not elected as teachers for the ensuing year. Three questions are presented by the case: (1) Is the statute unconstitutional as plaintiffs contend? (2) Are plaintiffs in position to raise the question as to its unconstitutionality? And (3) Can the court grant plaintiffs any relief in view of the fact that plaintiffs have resigned as teachers and others have been elected to their places?
We think we should use our discretion in refusing to pass on the issues in this controversy at this time. It does not appear that the statute in question has been interpreted by a state court, and it is not proper to pass upon the controversy presented herein until a South Carolina court has first heard the case and passed upon the constitutionality of the Act in question.
In 1941 the United States Supreme Court had before it the case of Railroad Commission of Texas v. Pullman Co., 312 U.S. 496, 61 S.Ct. 643, 645, 85 L.Ed. 971. This case involved a regulation by a state commission authorized by statute, and it was contended that the regulation was in violation of the Equal Protection, the Due Process and the Commerce Clauses of the Constitution. The United States Supreme Court had the following statement to make with reference to the three-judge District Court's decision which enjoined the enforcement of the regulation:
In the case of American Federation of Labor v. Watson, 327 U.S. 582, 66 S.Ct. 761, 90 L.Ed. 873, the Court held that the bill had equity, but the trial court erred in adjudicating the merits of the controversy, saying:
Plaintiffs in this case claim that the act in question is so clear that it should be construed by us and that we should decide all of the issues. In the case of Albertson v. Millard, 345 U.S. 242, 73 S.Ct. 600, 602, 97 L.Ed. 983, the issues were equally clear and free from ambiguity. The appellants challenged the definitions in the act as being void for vagueness. Mr. Justice Douglas in a dissenting opinion said:
However, the opinion of the Court in this case states:
The case of Government and Civic Employees Organizing Committee, CIO v. Windsor, D.C., 116 F.Supp. 354, affirmed in a per curiam decision without opinion, 347 U.S. 901, 74 S.Ct. 429, 98 L.Ed. 1061, is even stronger than the Albertson case supra. This case involved a statute prohibiting state...
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