Glover v. Johnson
| Decision Date | 22 August 1988 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 86-2125,87-1466,s. 86-2125 |
| Citation | 855 F.2d 277 |
| Parties | , 48 Ed. Law Rep. 1067 Mary GLOVER; Lynda Gates; Jimmie Ann Brown; Mannetta Gant; Jacalyn M. Settles, and several Jane Does on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Perry JOHNSON, Director, Michigan Department of Corrections; Florence R. Crane; G. Robert Cotton; Thomas K. Eardley, Jr.; B. James George, Jr.; Duane L. Waters, Michigan Corrections Commission; William Kime, Director Bureau of Programs; Robert Brown, Jr., Director, Bureau of Correctional Facilities; Frank Beetham, Director, Bureau of Prison Industries; Richard Nelson, Director, Bureau of Field Service; Gloria Richardson, Superintendent, Huron Valley Women's Facility; Dorothy Costen, Director of Treatment, Huron Valley Women's Facility; and Clyde Graven, Sheriff, Kalamazoo County, Individually, and in their official capacities, Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Susan A. Harris (Lead Counsel) (argued), Asst. Atty. Gen., Detroit, Mich., Keith D. Roberts, Lansing, Mich., for defendants-appellants in No. 87-2125.
Charlene Snow (argued), Deborah LaBelle, Detroit, Mich., for plaintiffs-appellees in No. 87-2125.
Frank J. Kelley, Atty. Gen., Corrections Div., Susan Harris (argued), Asst. Atty. Gen., Corrections Div., Lansing, Mich., for defendants-appellants in No. 87-1466.
Charlene Snow, Deborah LaBelle (argued), Detroit, Mich., for plaintiffs-appellees in No. 87-1466.
Richard Meisler, for University of Mich.
Before ENGEL, Chief Judge *, and MERRITT and RYAN, Circuit Judges.
This is an appeal from two orders entered in a class action brought by female inmates of the Michigan prison system, claiming the denial of equal protection of the law in the provision of educational opportunities to female inmates in the Michigan prison system. The orders were separately appealed and are consolidated for review.
In the first of the two orders appealed from (86-2125), the district court:
(a) Ordered defendants to "provide a four-year degree program" leading to a baccalaureate degree for four named members of the plaintiff class residing at the Florence Crane Correctional Facility.
(b) Enjoined defendants from transferring any female inmates from the Crane Facility to the Huron Valley Women's Facility for the purpose of enabling female inmates "to receive four-year degree programs"; and
(c) Ordered defendant to "continue in its efforts to offer four-year degree programs to all other interested prisoners incarcerated at the Florence Crane Facility."
In the second order appealed from (87-1466) 659 F.Supp. 621 (1987), the district court appointed an administrator to "design and implement educational programs for female inmates on a parity with male inmates" in the Michigan correctional system.
The orders are challenged on a number of grounds, principally as being beyond the district court's proper authority given the state of the record, considerations of comity and federalism, and the requirements of Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a).
We do not reach the merits of the substantive legal and equitable challenges to the district court's orders. Instead, we vacate the preliminary injunction because it is not supported by minimally sufficient findings of fact, and we set aside the order appointing the administrator because we are not presented with an evidentiary record demonstrating sufficiently compelling justification, given considerations of comity and federalism, for the extreme intrusiveness into the constitutional prerogatives of a state agency that results from the order appointing an administrator.
This litigation has been pending for more than ten years. It is unnecessary, and probably impossible, to fully and accurately detail the entire history of this vigorously, sometimes bitterly, contested controversy. Nevertheless, a brief review of that portion of the litigation relevant to the orders appealed from is necessary to our decision. 1
In May of 1977, plaintiffs filed a class action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan alleging that male inmates at Michigan prisons were afforded education and training opportunities, including a two-year associate degree and a four-year baccalaureate degree program, not afforded to female inmates, in violation of the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment of the federal Constitution. A number of other allegations of unfair discriminatory and disparate treatment were made that are not relevant to these appeals.
When the lawsuit was filed, female inmates in Michigan were housed only at the Huron Valley Women's Facility. 2 In October of 1979, the district court issued a lengthy and wide-ranging opinion and order which included highly detailed findings of fact. The court ordered, among other things, that "the State" provide to female inmates at the Huron Valley Women's Facility a two-year post-secondary education program leading to an associate's degree, comparable to the program then being offered to male inmates at the state prison of Southern Michigan (Jackson). 3 The district court's order did not specifically require that a four-year degree program be instituted for women inmates, although such a program was being offered for male inmates at Jackson. The order stated that the state "may encourage the development of such a program in whatever manner available in light of its overall responsibility for educational programming at the facility." Glover v. Johnson, 478 F.Supp. 1075, 1102 (E.D.Mich.1979) (Glover I ).
In April 1981, the district court issued its "Final Order" which it described as having been "arrived at by agreement of counsel for the parties." Glover v. Johnson, 510 F.Supp. 1019, 1020 (E.D.Mich.1981) (Glover II ). The court reiterated that comparable education programs for men and women were to be provided at the Huron Valley Women's Facility, and stated:
[T]hat the State, while not obligated to provide a four-year baccalaureate program at Huron Valley Women's Facility, shall assist and cooperate in the establishment and operation (including the provision of space) of a baccalaureate program which any four-year college desires to offer women inmates; and in no way shall that assistance be less than that provided to colleges offering baccalaureate programs at men's prisons.
Glover II, 510 F.Supp. at 1021. The court required that the defendants file quarterly progress reports for five years "or until such time as the Court finds defendants are in compliance." Id. The court held status conferences with counsel for the parties in 1981, 1982, and 1984.
In April 1985, the Department of Corrections opened the Florence Crane Correctional Facility for Women at Coldwater, Michigan. During the next several months, approximately 340 women were transferred to Crane from the overcrowded Huron Valley Facility, including some inmates who had been eligible to participate in the third and fourth year baccalaureate program that had been offered intermittently since 1980 at Huron Valley by Eastern Michigan University.
The parties sharply disagree about the facts relating to the availability of educational opportunities to inmates at Huron Valley, about the causes for the unavailability of education programs at Florence Crane, and about the defendant's efforts to comply with the district court's 1979 and 1981 orders. We are handicapped in determining whose version of the facts is correct because of the sparsity of an evidentiary record, and the absence of adequate fact-finding by the district court. However, some facts necessary to an understanding of what we decide today appear to be incontrovertible.
Spring Arbor College, a private degree granting institution located not far from Jackson Prison, has provided a four-year degree program to male inmates at Jackson continuously since 1979. Indeed, it was the absence of a comparable program for women at Huron Valley that was one of the motivating causes for this lawsuit. Funding for the program at Jackson was provided mainly through federal funds in the form of PELL grants. Since 1984, Spring Arbor College also received state funds under a Michigan Department of Education program providing reimbursement to that school for degrees issued to Jackson Prison inmates. 1984 Mich.Pub.Acts 238 Sec. 21(a). Eventually, because Spring Arbor College was conferring approximately forty bachelor degrees a year upon Jackson inmates, the college received an annual "straight line item" appropriation of $120,000 from the state of Michigan, representing the statutorily authorized $3,000 per graduate. Although the defendants provided no funds in support of the Spring Arbor program, they were, of course, aware of the funding and accommodated the class offerings at Jackson by providing classroom space and facilities and cooperatively arranging inmates' schedules. The defendants claim that no comparable education programming was offered at any of the state's other male correctional institutions. The plaintiffs disagree and claim education programs were offered in at least one other correctional facility for men.
For one reason or another, no college or university has ever offered a regular four-year degree program at the Huron Valley Women's Facility, although one school provided three semesters of college classes at Huron Valley between 1980 and 1984. Plaintiffs attribute the absence of a regular and continuous baccalaureate program to the defendants' "intransigence" and "obduracy." Defendants attribute it to an absence of sufficient inmate interest and a lack of private, federal, or state funding.
In the spring of 1985, some baccalaureate program courses were offered at Huron Valley, paid for with funds authorized by defendant Perry Johnson, then Director of the Department of Corrections. No classes were offered at Huron Valley in the...
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