Hawkins v. Board of Control of Florida, 643.
| Decision Date | 18 June 1958 |
| Docket Number | No. 643.,643. |
| Citation | 162 F. Supp. 851 |
| Parties | Virgil D. HAWKINS, on behalf of himself and others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. The BOARD OF CONTROL OF FLORIDA, a body corporate, and R. S. Johnson, Registrar of the University of Florida, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Florida |
Francisco A. Rodriguez, Tampa, Fla., Robert L. Carter, Constance Baker Motley, New York City, for plaintiffs.
Richard W. Ervin, Atty. Gen., State of Florida, Ralph E. Odum, and Joseph C. Jacobs, Asst. Attys. Gen., for defendants.
DE VANE, District Judge.
This case has quite a long history. Plaintiff is a Negro citizen and resident of the State of Florida. The case began in April 1949 when plaintiff applied for admission to the College of Law of the University of Florida. His application was denied by the Board of Control, the governing body of the State University system, solely because of certain provisions of the Constitution and Statutes of Florida, F.S.A.Const. art. 12, § 12; F.S. A. § 228.09, prohibiting the admission of any but white students to the University, including the Law College. Hawkins thereupon instituted a mandamus action in the Supreme Court of Florida against the members of the Board of Control.
For anyone interested, the subsequent history of the case may be found in the following decisions of the Supreme Court of Florida and of the United States: State ex rel. Hawkins v. Board of Control of Florida, Fla., 47 So.2d 608; Id., Fla., 53 So.2d 116, certiorari denied 342 U.S. 877, 72 S.Ct. 166, 96 L.Ed. 659; Id., Fla., 60 So.2d 162, certiorari granted 347 U.S. 971, 74 S.Ct. 783, 98 L.Ed. 1112; Id., Fla., 83 So.2d 20; Id., Fla., 93 So.2d 354, certiorari denied by the Supreme Court of the United States without prejudice to petitioner seeking relief in an appropriate United States District Court, 355 U.S. 839, 78 S.Ct. 20, 2 L.Ed.2d 49.
During the numerous times this case was heard by the Supreme Court of Florida and by the Supreme Court of the United States, plaintiff sought only the right to enter the University of Florida Law School as a law student. Following the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 349 U.S. 294, 75 S.Ct. 753, 99 L.Ed. 1083, the Supreme Court of the United States and the various Circuit Courts have expanded greatly the rights of individuals to bring class actions affecting civil rights of Negroes, so when the Supreme Court of the United States denied certiorari the last time plaintiff's state case appeared before it in October, 1957, (355 U.S. 839, 78 S.Ct. 20, 2 L.Ed. 2d 49) but authorized plaintiff to come into this court for relief, plaintiff greatly expanded the relief requested by not only seeking the right for himself to enter the University of Florida Law School, but he also brought the suit as a class action pursuant to Rule 23(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S. C.A., not only on behalf of himself, but also on behalf of other persons similarly situated, that is to say, Negro citizens of the United States and of the State of Florida who are qualified to attend the various schools and colleges of the University of Florida which are maintained and operated by the defendants, but whose applications for admission had not been ruled upon favorably and the applicants admitted. The right of plaintiff to bring such an action has already been fully established in decisions of the Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, in the following cases and the cases there cited: Orleans Parish School Board v. Bush, 242 F.2d 156, and Gibson v. Board of Public Instruction of Dade County, Florida, 246 F.2d 913. See also Rule 23(a), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
Promptly upon filing this action in this Court plaintiff made application to the Court for a temporary mandatory injunction directing the Board of Control to admit plaintiff to the University of Florida Law School at the beginning of the second semester in February, 1958. The Court denied this application of plaintiff and the case was appealed to the Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, where the order of denial was reversed and the case remanded to this court for further proceedings in accordance with the decision of the Court of Appeals in the case. See Hawkins v. Board of Control, 253 F. 2d 752.
In the complaint filed by plaintiff in this court plaintiff, as pointed out above, sought an order from this court directing the Board of Control to admit him as a law student at the University of Florida Law School. The greater part of his complaint is devoted to allegations stating his claimed rights in that respect, but as also pointed out above, he expanded the litigation in this court to make it a class action not only in behalf of himself, but of other persons similarly situated who had made applications for admission to various schools of the University of Florida.
When the case came on for trial before this court pl...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Adens v. Sailer
...case to provide any relief necessary to the entire class. Kelly v. Wyman, 294 F.Supp. 887 (S.D. N.Y.1968); Hawkins v. Board of Control of Florida, 162 F.Supp. 851 (N.D. Fla.1958).2 We will consider the statutory question first because if the plaintiffs are correct on this question there is ......
-
Reflections on justice before and after Brown.
...Circuit Court of Appeals then required. Cook v. Davis. 178 F.2d 595 (5th Cir. 1949); Bates v. Batte, 187 F.2d 142 (5th Cir. 1951). (16.) 162 F. Supp. 851 (N.D. Fla. (17.) After granting certiorari, the U.S. Supreme Court initially remanded the case to the Supreme Court of Florida in light o......