Hall v. St. Helena Parish School Board

Decision Date30 August 1961
Docket NumberCiv. A. No. 1068.
Citation197 F. Supp. 649
PartiesLawrence HALL et al., Plaintiffs, v. ST. HELENA PARISH SCHOOL BOARD et al., Defendants.
CourtU.S. District Court — Eastern District of Louisiana

Thurgood Marshall, New York City, A. P. Tureaud, A. M. Trudeau, Jr., New Orleans, La., Jack Greenberg, New York City, for plaintiffs.

Jack P. F. Gremillion, Atty. Gen. of Louisiana, L. K. Clement, Jr., Weldon Cousins, Michael E. Culligan, John M. Currier, John E. Jackson, Jr., George Ponder, William P. Schuler, Asst. Attys. Gen., W. Scott Wilkinson, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Duncan Kemp, Dist. Atty. for St. Helena Parish, Amite, La., E. Freeman Leverett, Deputy Atty. Gen. of Georgia, Gordon Madison, Leslie Hall, Deputy Attys. Gen. of Alabama, for defendants.

M. Hepburn Many, U. S. Atty., New Orleans, La., Harold H. Greene, U. S. Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., for the United States, amicus curiae.

Before WISDOM, Circuit Judge, and CHRISTENBERRY and WRIGHT, District Judges.

PER CURIAM.

Undeterred by the failure of its prior efforts, the Louisiana Legislature continues to press its fight for racial segregation in the public schools of the state. Today we consider its current segregation legislation, the keystone of which, the local option law, is under attack in these proceedings.

On May 25, 1960, this court entered its order herein restraining and enjoining the St. Helena Parish School Board and its superintendent from continuing the practice of racial segregation in the public schools under their supervision "after such time as may be necessary to make arrangements for admission of children to such schools on a racially non-discriminatory basis with all deliberate speed." The Court of Appeals affirmed this judgment on February 9, 1961.1

On February 9, 1961, the very day of the affirmance of the order of this court,2 the Governor of the State called the Second Extraordinary Session of the Louisiana Legislature for 1961 into session to act "relative to the education of the school children of the State * * * for the preservation and protection" of state sovereignty. Within a few days of the call, he certified as emergency legislation what became Act 23 of that session, the local option law in suit, as well as related legislation designed to continue racial segregation in the public schools, in spite of the desegregation order of this court in this case in particular and desegregation orders in general. As is manifest from the legislative history of the statute and an analysis of its provisions as these are related to cognate legislation, the sub-surface purpose of Act 2 is to provide a means by which public schools under desegregation orders may be changed to "private" schools operated in the same way, in the same buildings, with the same furnishings, with the same money, and under the same supervision as the public schools. In addition, as part of the plan, the school board of the parish where the public schools have been "closed" is charged with responsibility for furnishing free lunches, transportation, and grants-in-aid to the children attending the "private" schools.

The statute in suit violates the equal protection clause on two counts. Most immediately, it is a transparent artifice designed to deny the plaintiffs their declared constitutional right to attend desegregated public schools. More generally, the Act is assailable because its application in one parish, while the state provides public schools elsewhere, would unfairly discriminate against the residents of that parish, irrespective of race.

I.

The language of the Supreme Court in Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1, 17, 78 S.Ct. 1401, 1409, 3 L.Ed.2d 5, 19 cannot be disregarded: "The constitutional rights of children not to be discriminated against in school admission on grounds of race or color declared by this Court in the Brown case Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873; Id., 349 U.S. 294, 75 S.Ct. 753, 99 L.Ed. 1083 can neither be nullified openly and directly by state legislators or state executive or judicial officers, nor nullified indirectly by them through evasive schemes for segregation whether attempted `ingeniously or ingenuously.' Smith v. State of Texas, 311 U.S. 128, 132 61 S.Ct. 164, 166, 85 L.Ed. 84." These words tell the Louisiana Legislature, as clearly as language can, that school children may not be denied equal protection of the laws, may not be discriminated against in school admissions, on grounds of race or color. The Louisiana Legislature has confected one "evasive scheme" after another in an effort to achieve this end. This court has held these unconstitutional in one decision after another affirmed by the Supreme Court.4 Yet they continue to be enacted into law.

As with the other segregation statutes, in drafting Act 2 the Legislature was at pains to use language disguising its real purpose. All reference to race is eliminated, so that, to the uninitiated, the statute appears completely innocuous. For example, the first section of Act 2 reads:

"In each parish of the state, and in each municipality having a municipally operated school system, the school board shall have authority to suspend or close, by proper resolution, the operation of the public school system in the elementary and secondary grades in said parish or municipality, but no such resolution shall be adopted by any such board until the question of suspending or closing the operation of such public school system in such grades shall have been submitted to the qualified electors of the parish or municipality, as the case may be, at an election conducted in accordance with the general election laws of the state, and the majority of those voting in said election shall have voted in favor of suspending or closing the operation of such public school system."

On its face, this section appears inoffensive. It is only after an analysis of this school closing measure with other sections of the Act and related legislation that the purpose, mechanics, and effect of the plan emerge.5

Irrespective of the express terms of a statute, particularly in the area of racial discrimination, courts must determine its purpose as well as its substance and effect. "A result intelligently foreseen and offering the most obvious motive for an act that will bring it about, fairly may be taken to have been a purpose of the act." Miller v. City of Milwaukee, 272 U.S. 713, 715, 47 S.Ct. 280, 71 L.Ed. 487. Moreover, "acts generally lawful may become unlawful when done to accomplish an unlawful end." Western Union Tel. Co. v. Foster, 247 U.S. 105, 114, 38 S.Ct. 438, 439, 62 L.Ed. 1006.6 The defendants argue that we should not probe for the purpose of this legislation, that we should ignore the events which led up to and accompanied its passage, and determine its validity based on its language. But "* * * we cannot shut our eyes to matters of public notoriety and general cognizance. When we take our seats on the bench we are not struck with blindness, and forbidden to know as judges what we see as men."7

The sponsors of this legislation, in their public statements, if not in the Act itself, have spelled out its real purpose.8 Administration leaders repeatedly said that the local option bill should not be construed as indicating the state would tolerate even token integration. The law would be used in parishes either having or threatened with desegregation: Orleans, East Baton Rouge and St. Helena. Times-Picayune, February 20, 1961. The program for the legislative session which adopted Act 2 was worked out by the so called "Liaison Committee," a committee charged with co-ordinating the administration's segregation strategy. Times-Picayune, February 11, 1961. Representative Risley Triche, administration floor leader and sponsor of Act 2, told the House of Representatives, "The bill does not authorize any school system to operate integrated schools. We haven't changed our position one iota. This bill allows the voters to change to a private segregated school system. That's all that it's intended to do. I don't think we want to fall into the trap of authorizing integrated schools by the votes of the people. This bill doesn't allow that and we're not falling into that trap." Times-Picayune, February 18, 1961. The president pro tem. of the Senate explained the bill as follows: "As I see it, Louisiana is entering into a new phase in its battle to maintain its segregated school system. The keystone to this new phase is the local option plan we have under consideration."9 Times-Picayune, February 20, 1961. And segregation leader Representative Wellborn Jack was even more explicit: "It gives the people an opportunity to help fight to keep the schools segregated. We are the ones who have been speaking for segregation. This is going to give the people in all 64 parishes the right to speak by going to the polls. This is just to recruit more people to keep our schools segregated, and we're going to do it in spite of the federal government, the brainwashers and the Communists." Shreveport Times, February 18, 1961. In short, the legislative leaders announced without equivocation that the purpose of the packaged plan was to keep the state in the business of providing public education on a segregated basis.

The legislative scheme here, once revealed, is disarmingly simple. Section 110 of Act 2 provides a means for "closing" the public schools in a parish. Section 1311 of the Act provides that the school board may then "lease, sell, or otherwise dispose of, for cash or on terms of credit, any school site, building or facility not used or needed in the operation of any schools within its jurisdiction, on such terms and conditions and for such consideration as the school board shall prescribe." Of course, to the extent that such conveyances, denominated "sales," are for less than the fair value of the property, they are gifts constituting continuing state aid to...

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