Goss v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE, Civ. A. No. 3984.

• Decision Date: 19 August 1960
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 3984.
• Citation: 186 F. Supp. 559
• Parties: Josephine GOSS et al. v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF the CITY OF KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE, et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Tennessee

186 F. Supp. 559

Josephine GOSS et al. v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF the CITY OF KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE, et al.

Civ. A. No. 3984.

United States District Court E. D. Tennessee, N. D.

August 19, 1960.

Carl Cowan, Knoxville, Tenn., Z. Alexander Looby, Nashville, Tenn., Jack Greenberg, New York City, for plaintiffs.

S. Frank Fowler, Knoxville, Tenn., for defendants.

ROBERT L. TAYLOR, District Judge.

This suit was filed by a number of Negro children and their parents or guardians against the Members of the Board of Education of the City of Knoxville, namely, John H. Burkhart, Robert B. Ray, Roy E. Linville, Charles R. Moffett and Mrs. Gilmer H. Keith, and also the Board of Education of the City of Knoxville, the School Superintendant and the persons who were either actual principals or acting principals of East High School, Park Junior High School, Mountain View Elementary School and Fulton High School in Knoxville, Tennessee, the Supervisor of Child Personnel Department, said defendants being the administrative officers having general supervision and control of the public schools of Knoxville, asking for an injunction restraining defendants from operating a compulsory racially segregated school system in Knoxville and for a declaratory judgment, declaring the rights of plaintiff school children to be admitted to the public schools of Knoxville on a racially unsegregated basis and without discrimination on account of race or color.

The defendants by answer admitted that the public schools were operated on a segregated basis, as had been the practice and custom in the Knoxville area since 1870.

The answer asserted that "Two duties of these defendants, have sharply clashed, the one to obey the Constitution of the United States as so recently interpreted, the second to honor and respect an allegiance to our community and its members which incorporates in its very fabric a careful protection of our cherished institutions. More particularly, there is the absolute compulsion to seek ever for efficient, undisturbed and continuous schooling, unmarred by the possibility of interruption from drastic unpopular change. The defendants have simply discharged the responsibilities of their offices in the only way that a proper reconciliation of conflicting allegiances has permitted. * * *"

In short, the position of the Members of the School Board was that the interest of the community demanded postponement of desegregation until a plan could be perfected that would fit the needs of the community.

The suit arises under the Constitution of the United States and seeks the enforcement of rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. Jurisdiction is derived from Title 28 U.S.C., § 1343. The Court has jurisdiction of the parties and the subject matter. Title 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 2201, 2202.

The action was filed as a class action under Rule 23(a) (3) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C.

The parties stipulated many facts, many of which are included below in this memorandum opinion.

Plaintiffs are Negroes and are citizens of the United States, State of Tennessee and are residents of and domiciled in the City of Knoxville, Knox County, Eastern Division of Tennessee. Adult plaintiffs, not applicants, are either parents or guardians of the infant plaintiffs who are applicants.

All infant plaintiffs are attending public schools operated by the City of Knoxville, except that infant plaintiffs, Blake, Robinson, Jr., Riddle and Thompson, graduated from Austin High School on May 31, 1960.

Defendant, Board of Education, operates the public elementary and secondary schools, including those now designated as Mountain View Elementary, Park Junior High, East High and Fulton High Schools, exclusively for the education and use of white children residing in the City of Knoxville. These schools are attended exclusively by white children and admittance thereto was denied to the infant plaintiffs and other Negro children similarly situated who reside in the areas proximately surrounding said schools, solely because of their race or color. The defendant, Board of Education, maintains and enforces a policy and practice of compulsory racial segregation throughout the Knoxville School System.

Fulton High School, in addition to providing the usual high school courses, affords adequate facilities to provide technical and vocational instruction on a modern basis by grades. It is used by white children residing in the City of Knoxville, Tennessee who desire and are qualified to take said technical and vocational instruction, irrespective of their place of residence in the City of Knoxville; but the facilities afforded by Fulton High School are denied by defendants to infant plaintiffs who desire instruction, and other Negro children similarly situated, residing in the City of Knoxville, irrespective of their place of residence in the City of Knoxville, solely on account of their race or color.

The School System of Knoxville consists of 40 schools, total enrollment of 22,448 students, of whom 4,786 are Negro students and 17,662 are white students, as at the close of school June, 1960. On that day, the Knoxville School System employed a total of 879 principals and teachers, 712 of whom are white persons and 167 are Negroes.

The enrollment in the first grade of the Knoxville Public School System was approximately 2,314 students and 2,500 are anticipated in the first grade for the year beginning 1960, of whom approximately 1,900 are anticipated to be white students and 600 Negro students. Teachers employed for the first grade, year 1959-1960 of the Knoxville School System numbered 84, of whom 63 were white persons and 21 were Negroes.

Insofar as quality of teaching is concerned, the Public Schools of Knoxville operated for Negro students are substantially equal to the Public Schools of Knoxville operated for white students.

There is no difference in the salary schedules of Negro teachers and white teachers.

The physical facilities for white and Negro students are excellent.

Beginning with the year 1954 and continuing from time to time to the filing of the present suit, Negro parents and children and other citizens have petitioned the School Board and appeared before the School Board and asked the Board to take immediate action towards desegregation of the Public School System.

On June 16, 1955, the Attorney General of Tennessee rendered an opinion to the State Commissioner of Education, and through him to the Superintendant of Education for the State of Tennessee, in which he stated in substance that under the Tennessee Code it is the responsibility of each local school board to determine for itself the way in which it will meet the problems of desegregating the schools under its jurisdiction. As a result of this opinion, together with the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the Brown case, the Board in a special meeting held on August 17, 1955 resolved that it would act in good faith to implement the constitutional principles declared in the Brown decision as applied to public schools, and would make a prompt and reasonable start towards those objectives.

The Superintendant and his Administrative Staff were instructed to develop a specific plan of action leading to the gradual integration of the Knoxville public schools.

At a special meeting held on August 17, 1955, following the second Brown decision of May 31, 1955, the Board reaffirmed its policy to work towards gradual desegregation.

Two Members of the Board and two Members of the Supervisory Staff visited the integrated public schools of Evansville, Indiana in July, 1955 to study desegregation in those schools.

On August 17, 1955 the Board directed the Superintendent and his Staff to develop a plan of action leading to the gradual integration of the public schools and to that end the Superintendent and his Staff began holding meetings for the purpose of further exploring the subject. As an outgrowth of these meetings, the study council, composed of all principals, school administrators and supervisors (both white and Negro) and the Superintendant of Schools, was formed for the purpose of exploring and studying plans and procedures in school desegregation. This study council held an additional series of meetings and formulated several possible plans for desegregation, eight of which were presented to the Board for the Board's study. These study groups continued with their meetings the remainder of 1955 and during the year 1956.

In the meeting of May 11, 1956, the Board announced that each of the eight plans for desegregation had been carefully reviewed by the Board but that the Board did not feel at that time that desegregation of the Knoxville public schools could be successfully put into operation. Three reasons were given for such action:

(a) Segregation should not be attempted until the school building program is further advanced.

(b) The Members of the Board do not believe that the people of both races are ready for a definite plan for desegregation and that further delay would lessen the likelihood of unpleasant incidents which have occurred in some places where desegregation has been inaugurated.

(c) Before any plan for desegregation is put into effect, further studies should be made of the subject, and plans further developed that the children of both races will not be handicapped by a radical change in their classroom life.

During the week of August 27, 1956, serious trouble developed in Anderson County, Tennessee in the integration of the Clinton High School. This trouble produced several tense hearings and trials in this Court. In September, 1957, a Nashville, Tennessee elementary school was bombed and severely damaged. On October 5, 1958, Clinton High School in Clinton, Tennessee was bombed causing damage estimated at $250,000 to $300,000.

A hearing was held by this Court on February 8, 1960 on plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction prohib...