Cowan v. Bolivar Cnty. Bd. of Educ., CIVIL ACTION NO. 2:65-CV-00031-GHD
| Decision Date | 28 March 2012 |
| Docket Number | CIVIL ACTION NO. 2:65-CV-00031-GHD |
| Parties | DIANE COWAN, minor, by her mother and next friend, Mrs. Alberto Johnson, et al.; and FLOYD COWAN, Jr., minor, by his mother and next friend, Mrs. Alberto Johnson, et al. PLAINTIFFS and UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PLAINTIFF-INTERVENOR v. BOLIVAR COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION, et al. DEFENDANTS |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Mississippi |
DIANE COWAN, minor, by her mother and next friend, Mrs. Alberto Johnson, et al.;
and FLOYD COWAN, Jr., minor, by his mother and next friend, Mrs. Alberto Johnson, et al. PLAINTIFFS
and
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PLAINTIFF-INTERVENOR
v.
BOLIVAR COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION, et al. DEFENDANTS
CIVIL ACTION NO. 2:65-CV-00031-GHD
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF MISSISSIPPI DELTA DIVISION
Dated: March 28, 2012
Presently before the Court are a motion for further relief [5] filed by the Plaintiff-Intervenor United States of America (the "Government"), and a motion to substitute party plaintiffs [40] filed by and through the Plaintiffs' counsel. Upon due consideration, the Court is ready to rule.
Cleveland, Mississippi is a small city in eastern Bolivar County in the Mississippi River Delta with a population of a little over 12,000 residents. The city was a creation of the railroad system; the land that is now Cleveland was the approximate halfway point between Memphis, Tennessee, and New Orleans, Louisiana. The Louisville, New Orleans & Texas Railroad incorporated the town, which was named Cleveland in honor of then-President Grover Cleveland in 1886. Cleveland has since become home to Delta State University and has been named one of the one hundred best small communities in the United States. Cleveland is also the base of the
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Cleveland School District, which encompasses 109 square miles and serves the cities of Cleveland, Boyle, Renova, and Merigold.
The Cleveland School District (the "District") is one of many school districts in Mississippi that at one time practiced de jure race-based segregation; African-American students were legally required to attend one of four de jure African-American schools on the east side of the Illinois Central Railroad tracks that run north and south through Cleveland, while Caucasian students attended one of six de jure Caucasian schools on the west side of the railroad tracks. The District has been under the supervision and jurisdiction of this Court since 1965, when it was first ordered, as Bolivar County School District Number 4, to submit a plan of desegregation for the purpose of dismantling its dual school system. Since then, this Court has supervised the District's desegregation efforts through a series of Orders.
This case commenced on July 24, 1965, when numerous individual Plaintiffs sued the Bolivar County Board of Education, six school districts in Bolivar County (including the Cleveland School District, then known as Bolivar County School District Number 4), and others pursuant to Title IV and Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Plaintiffs alleged that the District maintained six schools attended and staffed only by Caucasians: Cleveland High School, Margaret Green Junior High School, Pearman Elementary School, W.J. Parks Elementary School, Boyle Elementary School, and Merigold Elementary School; and the following four schools attended and staffed only by African Americans: Eastside High School, Nailor Elementary School, B.L. Bell Elementary School, and Hayes Cooper Elementary School. The Plaintiffs sought a preliminary and permanent injunction enjoining the Defendants from continuing to operate compulsory biracial public school systems for the children residing in Bolivar County.
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Judge Claude Feemster Clayton ordered the Defendants to submit a plan to desegregate Bolivar County schools by August 19, 1965. Accordingly, on August 18, 1965, Bolivar County filed its first desegregation plans for school districts 1 through 6, as well as a school bus transportation desegregation plan. The Plaintiffs subsequently filed a motion for supplemental relief, and the Court conducted a hearing on this motion on August 23, 1966. Judge Clayton sustained portions of the motion for supplemental relief, and the Plaintiffs filed an additional motion for a revised desegregation plan. The parties engaged in discovery, and the Plaintiffs subsequently filed an additional motion for supplemental relief. Judge Clayton entered an Order concerning the desegregation of the faculty that took effect with the 1968-1969 school year. Dissatisfied with the result, the Plaintiffs filed a motion for a new plan of desegregation on September 4, 1968. Judge William C. Keady was assigned the case on September 9, 1968. The school districts subsequently filed new desegregation reports.
A. 1969 Order by Judge Keady
On May 13, 1969, Judge Keady entered a desegregation Order [11] which stated:
[E]ach deft, district shall, not later than 6-18-69, submit new and workable plan for desegregating schools that will result in r[a]cially nondiscriminatory school system, to be effective for commencement of school year 1969-70 and shall embody concrete and specific proposals for: (a) assignment and transfer of pupils to schools irrespective of race; (b) employ and assign administrative personnel, faculty & staff to such schools, irrespective of race; (c) unitary system for transporting system. Plan must insure 1) no schools wholly attended by negro students. 2) No schools having small fraction of negroes in predom. white schools. 3) No schools without substantial integration of faculty, etc.
Docket Sheet in School Desegregation Case DC6531 [1] at 8.
The school districts submitted new plans to the Court, but Judge Keady entered an Order thereafter disapproving the desegregation plans of Bolivar County school districts 1, 2, 4, and 5
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"insofar as they relate to pupil assignment, but in other respects said plans are approved to the extent that they will be incorporated in final order to be entered." Id. at 9. Judge Keady approved the transportation plan for the desegregation of public school buses on July 7, 1969. Id. On July 9, 1969, Judge Keady issued a ruling from the bench rejecting the plans proposed by four Bolivar County school districts, among them district number 4. Judge Keady noted:
[I]t is quite clear that there must be more than good faith on the part of the Board, although that is still required. There must be a plan presented which will effectively remove the vestiges of the dual system .... Moreover, no longer may the effectiveness of any plan depend upon the wishes or choice of students or their parents.
July 7, 1969 Hr'g Tr. at 6. On July 22, 1969, Judge Keady entered an Order requiring the District to "take affirmative action to disestablish all school segregation and to eliminate the effects of the dual school system." See Keady 1969 Order [11] at 1. In that Order, Judge Keady described in detail what was expected of the District in the following categories, which shall be discussed in turn: I. Student Desegregation; II. Faculty and Staff Desegregation; III. Transportation; IV. Services, Facilities, Activities, and Programs; and V. New Construction.
I. Student Desegregation
The District's zoning plan proposed two zones for "students attending high school grades 7 through 12."1 Id. at 1-3. The dividing line for each high school zone was, and is to this day, the Illinois Central Railroad tracks. West of the Illinois Central Railroad tracks was, and is, Cleveland High School, and east of the Illinois Central Railroad tracks was, and is, Eastside High School. The District's zoning plan allotted "five zones for students attending elementary grades 1 through 6." Id. at 1. Judge Keady approved the District's zoning plan, directing that during the 1969-1970 school year each elementary school student would attend the school in the zone
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of his or her residence, but that the high school students (then the seventh through twelfth graders) would "be assigned on the basis of their freedom of choice previously exercised." Id. at 3. Judge Keady then directed that for the 1970-1971 school year and thereafter each student would be assigned to attend school in the zone of his or her residence. Students could request a transfer only for certain specified reasons, one of which was to "promote desegregation." Id. The 1969 Order introduced the majority-to-minority transfer program, in which "defendants shall, on request, permit any student to transfer from a school where students of his race are a majority to any other school within the system where students of his race are a minority, and they may assign students on such basis . . . ." Id. at 4.
II. Faculty and Staff Desegregation
Judge Keady directed that for the 1969-1970 school year, "[w]ithin the full extent of the [District's ability to do so, including the availability of qualified personnel," the District should employ and assign "not less than one of every six classroom teachers of a different race ... to each of the schools." Id. Judge Keady directed that for the 1969-1970 and 1970-1971 school years and thereafter "there shall be full faculty and staff desegregation, to such an extent that the faculty at each school is not identifiable to the race of the majority of the students at any such school." Id.
III. Transportation
The 1969 Order directed the District to provide a unitary student transportation plan based on territorial zones that would "seek[ ] to eliminate insofar as practicable overlapping or duplicating routes." Id. at 5-6. The Order further required that children of all races be treated substantially alike while being transported.
IV. Services, Facilities, Activities, and Programs
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