Hampton v. Jefferson County Bd. of Educ.
| Decision Date | 10 June 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. Civ.A. 3:98CV-262-H.,Civ.A. 3:98CV-262-H. |
| Citation | 72 F.Supp.2d 753 |
| Parties | Sandra HAMPTON, Parent and Next Friend of Ollie Hampton, et al. Plaintiffs, v. JEFFERSON COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION, et al. Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Kentucky |
Teddy B. Gordon, Louisville, KY, for plaintiff.
Byron E. Leet, Francis J. Mellen, Jr., Pamela J. Ledford, Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs, Louisville, KY, for Jefferson County Board of Education and Stephen Daeschner, defendants.
Stephen T. Porter, Louisville, KY, Cecil A. Blye, Sr., Louisville, KY, Kevin J. Kijewski, Galen A. Martin, Kentucky Fair Housing Council, Inc., Louisville, KY, William N. Haliday, Louisville, KY, for Intervening plaintiffs.
The conclusions that the Court reaches in this Memorandum do not end this case. Nor do they necessarily foreshadow any particular result. However, they set forth a significant and different route to reach a conclusion. The new route should sharpen the debate on the real and important issues which this case raises. It may expose all parties to the consequences and ambiguities of their requests and their arguments. The discussion should remind us that even the scope of fundamental rights such as equal protection depends on a particular mix of history, circumstance, and legal precedent.
Today's decision plays out against the backdrop of a great controversy surrounding the American idea of equality. That controversy extends to the Equal Protection Clause's expression of the idea:
No state shall make or enforce any law which shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The debate arises not because anyone doubts that the right is fundamental. After all, long before 1868 our founders declared that "all men are created equal." Arguments rage on because so many people conceive different definitions of equality. This case will require the Court to explore various different conceptions of equality which for decades have bedeviled ordinary citizens, politicians, sociologists, and, of course, judges.
The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees citizens the right to send their children to public schools free from state-imposed segregation and free from the vestiges of such discrimination. The same amendment protects them unequal treatment as a result of a racial classification. Judge John Minor Wisdom may have best summarized this tension when he wrote:
The Constitution is both color blind and color conscious. To avoid conflict with the equal protection clause, a classification that denies a benefit, causes harm, or imposes a burden must not be based on race. In that sense, the Constitution is color blind. But the Constitution is color conscious to prevent discrimination being perpetuated and undo the effects of past discrimination.
United States v. Jefferson County Board of Educ., 372 F.2d 836, 876 (5th Cir.1966).
While this case illustrates the tension between these two seemingly parallel sides of the same right, it will not decide which is more essential. Each is fundamental. When rights conflict, individuals are often unable to enjoy the full benefit of each. Even the less ambiguous rights to free speech and freedom of religion give way in certain circumstances. Understanding and reconciling the two parallel, but sometimes contradictory, elements of equal protection may be the Court's ultimate challenge in this case. However, an essential part of judging is not merely getting the right answer to a legal issue; it is getting to the right question and requiring the combatants to address it. This opinion charts a path for doing so.
The Court has reached the inexorable conclusion that certain aspects of Judge Gordon's 1975 desegregation decree remain in force and effect. This conclusion may seem surprising. However, a thorough review of this lengthy opinion should convince the reader that the result is imminently sensible.
The Court reached this conclusion because: (1) Judge Gordon never completely dissolved the decree, though he clearly ended his supervision of it and terminated certain portions of it; (2) the Supreme Court has said that ending active supervision of a decree does not necessarily terminate the decree itself; (3) Judge Gordon did not end the Board's obligation to prevent vestiges of discrimination, such as re-emergence of racially identified schools; (4) since 1975 the Board has followed Judge Gordon's essential command; and (5) the continuing decree permits the use of racial composition guidelines, including those in the Board's current Student Assignment Plan, to prevent the re-emergence of racially identifiable schools.
Therefore, because the Board has complied with a continuing court order to prevent the reemergence of racially identifiable schools, it has not violated the Equal Protection Clause.
To obtain relief under their equal protection claim, Plaintiffs or someone must first move to dissolve the remainder of the desegregation decree. To terminate that decree, a moving party must demonstrate that the Board has continued in good faith compliance with its obligations and that it has removed the vestiges of past discrimination to the extent practicable. If any of the parties wish to dissolve the Board's ongoing obligations under the decree, the Court will honor that request and set a hearing to determine whether any such motion is well taken.
This decision alters and clarifies the procedural steps which must occur before the Court can address Plaintiffs' equal protection claim. It does not presage any particular result. If the decree is dissolved, the Court could then consider Plaintiffs' challenge that the Board's current Student Assignment Plan violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
This case traces the history of equal protection as applied to the public schools in Jefferson County. A full telling of that story would begin by describing the pain, inhumanity, and social degradation caused by state imposed school segregation. It would describe the individual potential which segregation suppressed; the spirit and determination of those who overcame the obstacles it imposed; and the moral strength of those who fought the legal, social, and political battle against it and other forms of discrimination. It would necessarily describe the confusion and outrage at Judge Gordon's busing order which seemed to tear this community apart as it sent children from their own neighborhoods to places that many of both races had never before seen. Finally, it would describe a school community which in many respects came together for a common purpose and worked at understanding one another well enough to overcome all these traumatic events. In doing so, at the very least, the Jefferson County schools created something positive and workable. The Court necessarily omits but does not forget these events.
It would be convenient if equal protection defined individual rights in precisely the same way regardless of the circumstances. That is not the case. That is why understanding the circumstances is absolutely central to applying equal protection guarantees correctly and fairly. That is why the Court will spend considerable time and effort describing the history of Jefferson County school desegregation as that process evolved, along with equal protection jurisprudence, over the past forty-five years.
There is another reason for recounting the history. Those who have not traveled the full journey may want to understand how we arrived at this point. When Jefferson County schools were last segregated as a matter of law, many of the parents and none of the current students were yet born. So we should never assume too much about the current knowledge of the long struggle to produce a desegregated school system.
Knowing the past will ultimately help us make some common sense about the rules which govern our actions now. The history which the Court now recounts concerns the judicial responses to all of these events.
The history of desegregation in the City of Louisville and Jefferson County begins, as any history of desegregation must, with Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954) [Brown I]. Brown established forever the constitutional principle that because "segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race ... deprive[s] the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities ... [state sponsored] [s]eparate educational facilities are inherently unequal" under the Fourteenth Amendment. Id. at 493-95, 74 S.Ct. 686.
To their credit, following the command of Brown, school authorities for the separate education systems in the City of Louisville and Jefferson County took some steps to dismantle their systems of de jure segregation. They proceeded cautiously and achieved mixed results. Nevertheless, the desegregation of local schools moved forward peacefully and deliberately, if not necessarily with speed or completeness.
The City of Louisville schools1 desegregated student assignments in the 1956 school year by a geographic attendance zone plan drawn to achieve some integration. The City schools also employed a transfer policy.2 In the 1959 school year, the City initiated a faculty desegregation plan.3 The City made modest progress in its desegregation efforts. All but one of its seventy-five schools at some time between 1956 and 19724 achieved a biracial population.5 See generally Haycraft v. Board of Educ. of Louisville, No. 7291, Memorandum Opinion and Judgment (W.D.Ky. Mar. 8, 1973), rev'd, 489 F.2d 925 (6th Cir.1973) & 521 F.2d 578 (6th Cir. 1975) [hereinafter Haycraft, 1973 Mem. Op.].
The County system included far fewer black students.6 Desegregation proceeded at a slow pace. Prior to 1956, the County paid...
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Hampton v. Jefferson County Bd. of Educ.
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