Heaton v. Bristol

• Decision Date: 02 October 1958
• Docket Number: No. 3580,3580
• Citation: 317 S.W.2d 86
• Parties: H. L. HEATON et al., Appellants, v. Lena Ann BRISTOL et al., Appellees.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 86

317 S.W.2d 86

H. L. HEATON et al., Appellants, v. Lena Ann BRISTOL et al., Appellees.

No. 3580.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas, Waco.

Oct. 2, 1958.

Rehearing Denied Oct. 23, 1958.

Will Wilson, Atty. Gen., Leonard Passmore, James N. Ludlum, John Reeves, Asst. Attys. Gen., J. A. Amis, Jr., College Station, for appellants.

Dan Moody, Austin, as amicus curiae.

John M. Barron, W. S. Barron, Bryan, for appellees.

TIREY, Justice.

This is an appeal from an order of the trial court which declared the eligibility of appellees to enroll as students in the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas and ordered that mandamus issue to appellants directing them to admit appellees as students.

We find these recitals in the judgment:

'* * * but the Court, feeling that the magnitude of the questions involved in this litigation is of sufficient importance to embody in this judgment certain findings of fact and conclusions of law, makes the following Findings of Facts:

'1. That the Relators are citizens of Texas and the United States of America by birth and are now residents of the State of Texas and are scholastically, morally, and physically qualified to enter the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas.

'2. That the Relators duly made application for registration and matriculation as students at said Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas on the 24th day of January, 1958, but they were refused admission solely on the ground of their female sex.

'3. That the Respondents are the properly constituted officials of said Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College, as pleaded and shown in the First Amended Petition herein, being, respectively, the Registrar, President, and Board of Directors, of said Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College.

'4. That the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas was established by an Act of the Texas Legislature on April 17, 1871 [Acts 1871, 1st. Sess., c. 44], pursuant to the Morrill Act, known as the Land Grant Act, being currently known in the United states Code Annotated as Title 7, Sections 301 to 308, inclusive, as amended, and that Texas by its acceptance of the provisions of said Act, is and was charged with the duty to devote the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas to the purposes named in said Morrill Act.

'5. That the 'industrial classes' referred to in Section 304 of the Morrill Act makes no exclusion for the liberal education of women, but recites 'the liberal education of all industrial classes.'

'6. That the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas was and has been from the beginning of its operation on October 4, 1876, primarily attended by male students and has been recognized generally as an 'all-male' school, only by reason of the policy of the various Boards of Directors and by custom and usage, but there was no administrative policy officially excluding women as students in the regular sessions of the College until September 3, 1925.

'7. That on various occasions, at intervals, as early as 1902 and as late as 1934, the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas has admitted a few women to the regular sessions at College Station and has consistently admitted women as students at the sessions of summer school for many years, but no degrees are allowed to be received nor conferred upon women, even in the summer sessions.

'8. That the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas is the third largest State supported institution of higher learning in Texas, and in reality it is a university rather than a college, as it is made up of several schools or colleges, as follows: (1) The school or college of Arts and Sciences; (2) the school or college of Agriculture; (3) the school or college of Engineering; (4) the school or college of Military Science and Tactics (in which no degree is offered); (5) the school or college of Veterinary Medicine; (6) the school or college known as the Basic Division; and (7) the Graduate School; all as more fully shown by the current catalog of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas in the bulletin for the year 1957-58, all of which schools or colleges are fully suitable to and appropriate to the education of women as well as men.

'9. That the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas offers baccalaureate degrees in approximately 78 major fields, and it offers degrees in approximately 40 major fields for master's degree, and in approximately 24 fields for the degree of doctor of philosophy.

'10. That the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas offers approximately 17 majors or courses of study not obtainable elsewhere in the State of Texas, most of said majors being in the School of Agriculture but including Oceanography and Meteorology, Floriculture, Entomology, and all of the courses in the School of Veterinary Medicine and Surgery.

'11. That there is no natural or factual basis for the classification of women for exclusion as students from the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, considering the educational objectives involved, and that the grounds urged are irrational and educationally non-existent, and the differences in men and women are not reasonably related to any proper governmental objective here attempted to be imposed.

'12. That the offering of an education at Texas Women's University, which is an all-female school, and other State supported institutions of higher learning in this State, forms no rational reason for exclusion of women from attendance, at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, and does not justify discrimination against them at the said Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College.

'13. That the exclusion of women at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas does not in any wise promote the health, morals, and general welfare of the people of Texas under the police powers as vested in certain instances in certain bodies under the statutes of this State, but on the contrary it discriminately deprives approximately one-half of the citizens of Texas of an education at the third largest State supported institution of higher learning in the State of Texas.

'14. That the Relators did all that they possibly could to enter the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas in seeking admission and attempting to enroll and register at said institution; that no specific administrative machinery providing for admission at Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College as shown in the College's catalog makes it necessary for any individual to proceed further than the Registrar or Director of Admissions and the President of the school in applying for admission to it, both of said officials being the lawful representatives of the Board of Directors of said school, and even if any administrative machinery had been provided and had existed, it would have been insufficient for a proper decision upon the issues in this case.

'15. That the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas is the only Land-Grant College in the nation, out of a total of 69 Land-Grant Colleges, which is not co-educational; that is to say, the only one that excludes women as students.

'16. That less than fifty per cent of the current student body at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas are members of the Cadet Corps and taking military science and tactics, or what is generally known as military training.

'17. That military science and tactics is not required of the students at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, but said course or courses are on a voluntary basis and have been for the past three or four years.

'18. That the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, while regarded by some of the officials of said institution as being a boarding school or dormitory-type school, has at the present time more than twenty-five percent of its total students enrolled residing off of the campus at College Station, said students bearing the designation of 'day students.'

'19. That the present enrollment at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas is from 2,000 to 2,500 less than it was ten years ago, and the present total enrollment is approximately 6,300 students, said number being approximately 1,100 less than the enrollment for the fall semester in September, 1957.

'20. That the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas has available at this time adequate classroom facilities and adequate teaching facilities for the admission of women; that adequate courses of study suitable to women are availiable, and the admission of women at this time would not overcrowd in any wise the present available facilities of the said institution.

'and the Court, based upon the evidence adduced in this case and upon the Findings of Facts as above set forth, concludes, as a matter of law, as follows:

'1. That the Constitution and laws of the State of Texas do not provide for the exclusion of women or females at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas.

'2. That the Board of Directors of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas is without any delegated power or authority to exclude female citizens of Texas from attendance at said institution as students, and that in assuming discretionary power or right to exclude qualified female citizens from admission to said Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, the Board of Directors of said College (1) has abused its authority or discretionary power; (2) has exceeded any and all authority vested in it by the Legislature of this State; and (3) has capriciously and arbitrarily exercised a function contrary to the public interests of the citizens of the State of Texas.

'3. That the only statutory provision giving the Board of Directors of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas discretionary authority seems to be contained in sub-section six of Article 2613 of Vernon's Annotated Texas Statutes, but this provision contains no power of exclusion given said Board by the Legislature of...