Groves v. Board of Education of St. Mary's County, Md.

• Decision Date: 19 August 1958
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 10485.
• Citation: 164 F. Supp. 621
• Parties: Thomas Conrad GROVES, Joan Elaine Groves, Minors, by their parent, William Groves v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF ST. MARY'S COUNTY, MARYLAND; G. Edward Thomas, President; May Russell, Vice-President; Mrs. Grace W. Knight; Robert E. Wigginton; Clarence Leo Young, all constituting the members of the Board of Education of St. Mary's County, Maryland, and Robbert A. King, Jr., Superintendent of Schools of St. Mary's County.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland

164 F. Supp. 621

Thomas Conrad GROVES, Joan Elaine Groves, Minors, by their parent, William Groves v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF ST. MARY'S COUNTY, MARYLAND; G. Edward Thomas, President; May Russell, Vice-President; Mrs. Grace W. Knight; Robert E. Wigginton; Clarence Leo Young, all constituting the members of the Board of Education of St. Mary's County, Maryland, and Robbert A. King, Jr., Superintendent of Schools of St. Mary's County.

Civ. No. 10485.

United States District Court D. Maryland, Civil Division.

August 19, 1958.

Tucker R. Dearing and Juanita Jackson Mitchell, Baltimore, Md., and Jack Greenberg, New York City, for plaintiffs.

H. Vernon Eney, Robert R. Bair, and Venable, Baetjer & Howard, Baltimore, Md., for defendants.

THOMSEN, Chief Judge.

The principal purpose of this action is to secure the admission of Thomas Conrad Groves, a Negro, to the ninth grade at the Great Mills High School in St. Mary's County, Maryland, and of his sister, Joan Elaine Groves, to the eleventh grade at that school.

Following the decision of this court in Robinson v. Board of Education of St. Mary's County, July 9, 1956, 143 F.Supp. 481, the Board of Education, on July 31, 1956, accepted the recommendation of the Citizens' Advisory Committee and declared that integregation in the public schools of St. Mary's County would begin with the school year 1957-1958 on a voluntary basis in the elementary grades where administratively feasible. Nevertheless, in September, 1956, applications were filed with the Board seeking the admission of thirty-one Negro children to white public schools. After a number of conferences between the County Superintendent of Schools and the parents of some of the children, the Superintendent denied the applications. No appeals were taken from that action to the State Board of Education.

In May, 1957, instructions to parents seeking pupil transfers were distributed to all school principals and parents and were publicized through PTA meetings, the public press and the Lexington Park Radio station. Four Negro children requested transfer to elementary grades in white schools, and three Negro children, including the infant plaintiffs, requested transfer to high school grades. The Superintendent approved the requests for transfer to elementary grades, but denied the requests for transfer to high school grades, in accordance with the policy of the County Board. None of the four Negro children whose requests for transfer had been approved entered a white school; one moved out of the county; one request was withdrawn; the other two returned to the colored schools they had theretofore attended. The infant plaintiffs, through their father, appealed to the State Board of Education from the action of the County Superintendent denying their request. The appeals were not taken within the time fixed by statute. The State Board, however, granted a hearing, after which on February 26, 1958, it dismissed the appeals, but stated that if the appeals had been seasonably taken the Board would have dismissed them, because the Superintendent was acting in good faith pursuant to the integration policy promulgated by the County Board, and because "the question of whether the above-referred-to segregation policy of the County Board of Education of St. Mary's County contravenes the constitutional rights of the appellants in this case in denying their admission into the Great Mills High School is a question which is not within the scope of the powers of the State Board of Education to pass upon, or decide, for the reason that the same is a purely legal question to be decided through judicial proceedings." 3 Race Rel.L.Rep. 559. Thereafter, on April 11, 1958, this action was filed on behalf of the infant plaintiffs and all other Negroes similarly situated.

On April 22, 1958, pursuant to a resolution of the County Board, the County Superintendent announced that for the school year 1958-1959 integration would be extended on a voluntary basis through grades seven, eight and nine. No plan has been announced or adopted for grades ten, eleven and twelve, but the Vice President of the Board testified that "their thinking" was that it "would probably follow next year", but that there are "too many factors to be considered to make a statement that such will be the case".

Since the hearing in this case on June 23, 1958, the Superintendent has notified plaintiffs that Thomas Conrad Groves will be admitted to the ninth grade at the Great Mills High School in September, 1958.

William Groves, the father of the infant plaintiffs, is a self-employed electrician, a citizen and taxpayer of St. Mary's County for seven years, who was educated in unsegregated schools in the North. He has been dissatisfied with the Jarboesville School, a consolidated (elementary, junior high and senior high) school for Negroes, to which his children would normally be assigned, not only because it is a segregated school, but also because he considered its physical facilities unsatisfactory and because it did not offer all of the courses which were offered at the Great Mills High School, to which his children would have been assigned if they had been white.¹ He was so dissatisfied that for a time he sent his daughter to school in New York. That proved unsatisfactory, and more recently he has been sending her to the Cardinal Gibbons High School, a parochial school in St. Mary's County, although that school is many miles from his home, and he must pay a small tuition fee. He desires his daughter to attend the Great Mills High School because he wishes her to have a desegregated education and to take certain courses² leading to a "Stenographic Major" Commercial diploma, which are offered there but which have not heretofore been offered at the Jarboesville School.

Like most Maryland counties, St. Mary's is engaged in a school building program to care for its rapidly expanding school population, and to provide more adequate buildings and facilities. So, at one time the white school in a particular section may have better facilities than the colored school, whereas the next year the facilities of the colored school may be better, and vice versa. Until 1955 all facilities at Jarboesville were inadequate, and to a considerable extent they have remained so. However, a new elementary school building has just been completed, and a large addition thereto, including science and commercial rooms, for use by elementary, junior and senior high grades, will be completed next year.

At Great Mills High School there are two commercial curricula, one leading to a Commercial diploma, General Business Major, the other leading to a Commercial diploma, Stenographic Major. The latter requires two years of shorthand, and is considered the better certificate. Heretofore Jarboesville has offered only the General Business Major curriculum but plans to offer the Stenographic Major curriculum this fall as well. The shorthand, typewriting and other required courses will be the same at both schools, but the elective courses which will be given at either school will depend upon the number of students who choose each of the various elective courses which will be offered. There are various student "interest clubs" at both schools, more at Great Mills. The commercial department in each school has valuable contacts with local business enterprises, Great Mills with those operated by whites,...