Davis v. Georgia State Board of Education
| Decision Date | 03 April 1969 |
| Docket Number | No. 26547.,26547. |
| Citation | 408 F.2d 1014 |
| Parties | Rose Mary DAVIS, by next friend, John Davis, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. GEORGIA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION et al., Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Albert E. Butler, Jesup, Ga., for plaintiffs-appellants.
Arthur K. Bolton, Atty. Gen., Atlanta, Ga., S. F. Memory, Jr., Waycross, Ga., Alfred L. Evans, Jr., J. Lee Perry, Asst. Attys. Gen., Atlanta, Ga., for defendants-appellees.
Before BELL, AINSWORTH, and GODBOLD, Circuit Judges.
Pursuant to Rule 18 of the Rules of the Court, this case has been placed on the summary calendar for disposition without oral argument.1
The appellants are a group of rural school children and their parents. They sought an injunction requiring the State of Georgia to allow them to transfer from the Ware County schools to the Clinch County schools (said to be nearer their residences), and to appropriate to Clinch County the Georgia State Aid and Minimum Foundation Funds that would normally go to Ware County.
The case came to the district court under a Fourteenth Amendment "equal protection" theory, the appellants claiming that such transfers of children and funds had been allowed from Telfair County, Georgia to Jeff Davis County, Georgia and from Ware County, Georgia to Coffee County, Georgia. It appears that appellant school children were attending the Clinch County schools but the state funds were not allocated therefor. The district court dismissed on the ground that the complaint presented no substantial federal question for determination.
Some of the appellants here have been engaged in a prolonged attack on a reorganization of the Ware County school system. See Booth v. Ware County Board of Education, 223 Ga. 211, 154 S. E.2d 234 (1967); Booth v. Ware County Board of Education, 223 Ga. 583, 157 S. E.2d 469 (1967); Peagler v. Thigpen, 223 Ga. 723, 157 S.E.2d 750 (1967); Peagler v. Ware County Board of Education, 223 Ga. 734, 157 S.E.2d 744 (1967); Davis v. Ware County Board of Education, 117 Ga.App. 388, 160 S.E.2d 674 (1968); Peagler v. State of Georgia, 117 Ga.App. 821, 162 S.E.2d 11 (1968). Having lost these battles in what is obviously a state concern on points of state law, they now try to breathe life into their cause by invoking the equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Basic to any complaint of denial of equal protection must be some showing that the persons or groups being treated differently are similarly situated and that their disparate treatment by the state is either without any rational basis or is based on some invidious factor such as race. There are numerous bases upon which Georgia could draw valid distinctions between the appellants and other school transferees. See Ga.Code, Ann., Title 32, § 6502 and the regulations promulgated thereunder. In order to show such "similar situation" appellants had to claim either that they came within some of the Georgia provisions for transfer and were still denied transfer, or that the other transferees from Telfair and Ware Counties did not come within any of the Georgia provisions for transfer, and were, nevertheless, allowed to transfer. Appellants made no such claim. Thus their complaint presented no substantial federal question for determination and the district court did not err in dismissing.
Affirmed.
1 In order to establish a docket control procedure, the Fifth Circuit adopted new Rules 17-20 on December 6, 1968. See Wittner v. United States, 5 Cir., 1969, 406 F.2d 1165, Fn. 1 and Appendix thereto.
2 § 32-650:
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