Gossin v. Huskey

• Decision Date: 31 August 1972
• Docket Number: No. 71 C 306(2).,71 C 306(2).
• Citation: 348 F. Supp. 689
• Parties: Margaret Ann GOSSIN, a/k/a Margot Gossin, Plaintiff, v. Robert L. HUSKEY et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri

348 F. Supp. 689

Margaret Ann GOSSIN, a/k/a Margot Gossin, Plaintiff, v. Robert L. HUSKEY et al., Defendants.

No. 71 C 306(2).

United States District Court, E. D. Missouri, E. D.

August 31, 1972.

Louis Gilden, St. Louis, Mo., for plaintiff.

Ziercher, Tzinberg, Human & Michenfelder, Clayton, Mo., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

REGAN, District Judge.

Margaret Ann Gossin, a 32-year old black, was employed as a teacher in June, 1968, by the Special School District of St. Louis County, Missouri. In August, 1969, she was appointed Acting Supervisor in the Auditorily Impaired Section of the District, and thereafter, in April, 1970, was made Supervisor for the 1970-1971 school year. This lawsuit stems from the refusal of the District to continue plaintiff in her supervisory position for the 1971-1972 school year and her rejection of a tendered teacher contract for that year. The basic issue for our determination is whether racial or other constitutionally impermissible considerations played a part in the decision of the District. We have jurisdiction under Section 1343(3) and (4), 28 U.S. C., and Sections 1981 and 1983, 42 U.S. C.

The Special School District is a public school district encompassing the entire County of St. Louis, superimposed over and separate from the many other public school districts in the county. It has the responsibility for educating and training all physically and mentally handicapped children in the county and for furnishing vocational education for high school students. It operates six schools for the handicapped in addition to more than 70 rented classrooms in school buildings of the regular school districts, as well as two technical-vocational schools. The district also owns and operates 120 school buses to provide transportation for its students. It employs a superintendent, 4 assistant superintendents, 3 coordinators, 30 supervisors, approximately 500 teachers and about 700 other full-time and part-time personnel.

Plaintiff is thoroughly grounded in the field of the education of deaf and speech-handicapped children, and before entering the employ of the Special District taught at various private schools for the deaf from 1957 to June, 1968. Prior to July, 1971, her immediate supervisor in the District was Dr. William C. Healey, then Coordinator of the Auditorily Impaired Section (located in Litzinger Annex) and several other departments. It was Dr. Healey who initially recommended the employment of plaintiff as a teacher.

The following year, after Dr. Healey had concluded that the then Supervisor at Litzinger Annex was not performing satisfactorily and should be replaced in the Auditorily Impaired Section, he recommended to defendant Oral W. Spurgeon, the Superintendent of the District, that plaintiff be appointed Acting Supervisor to begin serving in that capacity immediately. Spurgeon followed Healey's recommendation and plaintiff began her service as Acting Supervisor. Thereafter, in September, 1969, the Board of Education of the District ratified the appointment. The subsequent appointment of plaintiff as Supervisor for the year 1970-1971 was also made on the recommendation of Dr. Healey. As of July, 1970, Dr. Healey voluntarily left the employ of the District, and late that month was succeeded as Coordinator (on an acting basis) by defendant Robert Huskey.

In March, 1971, Superintendent Spurgeon, on the basis of information furnished to him by Huskey and his own investigation, recommended to the Board of Education that plaintiff not be rehired as supervisor but that she be offered a teacher's contract. The Board accepted this recommendation. The theory of plaintiff is that the vote to reassign her from a supervisory to a teaching position was motivated in whole or in part by racial considerations.¹

Concededly, plaintiff has no tenure as Supervisor and under Missouri law may be terminated as such for any or no reason other than one which would be violative of her constitutional rights. "The School Board has the right to decide whom they will employ and re-employ so long as the non-employment is not based on some impermissible constitutional ground * * *." Williams v. School District of Springfield R-12, Mo., 447 S.W.2d 256. Cf. Freeman v. Gould Special School District of Lincoln County, Ark., 8 Cir., 405 F.2d 1153.

We note initially that the present is not a Title VII case as were Parham v. Southwestern Bell Telephone Co., 8 Cir., 433 F.2d 421, Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 91 S.Ct. 849, 28 L.Ed.2d 158, and Green v. McDonnell Douglas Corporation, 8 Cir., 463 F.2d 337, decided May 12, 1972, nor is this a case involving the failure of a school district to provide employment for a black teacher following the integration of a previously segregated school system as were Moore v. Board of Education of Chidester School District No. 59, Chidester, Ark., 8 Cir., 448 F.2d 709 and Sparks v. Griffin, 5 Cir., 460 F.2d 433.²

There is not a scintilla of credible evidence that the Special School District has racially discriminatory hiring practices.³ At all times, at least since Brown I, (Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873) the schools in the district have been completely and honestly integrated. So far as this record would indicate, plaintiff is the only black with whom the district has had any controversy. We are aware that in Title VII cases courts "listen" to statistics where, as here, there are relatively few black employees, but even so, as held in Parham, an individual who complains that his employer rejected his application for employment on account of his race must nevertheless recover, if at all, on the strength of his own case.

Unquestionably, direct evidence of racial discrimination is not required. Plaintiff in the present case relies on thinly drawn, forced, and weak inferences, partly from testimony we do not accept as the more credible and partly from perfectly legitimate conduct of defendants. If plaintiff may be said to have made a prima facie case of racial discrimination simply by showing that she is black and possesses the "technical" qualifications for the job of Supervisor, it is our opinion that defendants have clearly overcome such showing and convincingly demonstrated the constitutional and statutory bona fides of their conduct.

The allegation that plaintiff was demoted because of her exercise of her First Amendment right of free speech, a charge we find unfounded, is based on a few isolated sentences in plaintiff's lengthy testimony covering over 400 pages of the transcript. By way of background: On January 21, 1971 plaintiff met with Huskey and Spurgeon at the latter's office and was then told that a tentative decision had been reached adverse to a renewal of her supervisor contract. Plaintiff testified that after a discussion of the complaints against her and her response thereto, Spurgeon stated that if she discussed the matter "outside of this meeting * * * then we will have to terminate your responsibilities as supervisor immediately. That is to stay entirely within this office, the three of us." We do not credit this testimony. It is plain to us that what really happened is that Huskey and Spurgeon merely agreed that for plaintiff's benefit they would keep confidential their tentative recommendation. Not even plaintiff claims the matter of "outside" discussion was ever mentioned again. In addition, not only did plaintiff in fact disregard this alleged caveat and discuss with others the substance of the January 21 conference (without being terminated "immediately" or otherwise disciplined), but the formal decision of Spurgeon and Huskey to recommend "termination" at the end of the school year (for reasons wholly unrelated to such "outside" discussion) was not made until sometime in March.

Under no view of the credible evidence can it be said that the decision to reassign plaintiff to her former position as teacher was arbitrary and therefore suspect. There is no trumped-up charge of professional incompetency. To the contrary, from the very inception defendants have conceded not only that plaintiff is a superior teacher but that she has the "technical" qualifications for the position of supervisor. However, mere "technical" qualifications do not suffice. The overwhelming weight of the evidence establishes the vital importance of a good friction-free relationship between the supervisor and the teaching staff.

We have no doubt from the evidence that Huskey is a dedicated educator motivated solely by a desire to operate a good department in an atmosphere of harmony, and that plaintiff's reassignment resulted from his honest and sincere conclusion, concurred in by Spurgeon and the Board, that to continue plaintiff as a supervisor would adversely...