Hill v. County Board of Education of Franklin County, Tenn.

• Decision Date: 23 June 1964
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 668.
• Citation: 232 F. Supp. 671
• Parties: Samuel HILL et al., Plaintiffs, v. COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION OF FRANKLIN COUNTY, TENNESSEE, a public body corporate, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Tennessee

232 F. Supp. 671

Samuel HILL et al., Plaintiffs, v. COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION OF FRANKLIN COUNTY, TENNESSEE, a public body corporate, et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 668.

United States District Court E. D. Tennessee, Winchester Division.

June 23, 1964.

Looby & Williams, Nashville, Tenn., for plaintiffs.

Lynch & Lynch, Winchester, Tenn., for defendants.

NEESE, District Judge.

This is basically an action to reorganize the tax-supported public schools of Franklin County, Tennessee into a unified nonracial educational system. 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3) and 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The plaintiffs are members of the Caucasian and Negro races, and the defendants are a governmental authority and individual authorities of the tax-supported public school system of Franklin County, Tennessee. The action is brought by the plaintiffs on behalf of themselves and others similarly situated. Hearings on several aspects of the action were conducted by the Court on August 21, September 27 and 30, and December 30 and 31, 1963.

The Franklin County educational system has traditionally deprived Negro children of rights secured to them by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. "* * * Cases involving desegregation, like other cases, depend largely on the facts. While the law has been stated * * * by the Supreme Court, nevertheless, its application depends upon the facts of each particular case. * * * `(T)he formulation of decrees in these cases presents problems of considerable complexity.' Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 495 74 S.Ct. 686, 692, 98 L.Ed. 873. `Full implementation of these constitutional principles * * * require solution of varied local school problems. School authorities have the primary responsibility for elucidating, assessing, and solving these problems; courts * * consider whether the action of school authorities constitutes good faith implementation of the governing constitutional principles. * * *

"`In fashioning and effectuating the decrees, the courts will be guided by equitable principles. Traditionally, equity has been characterized by a practical flexibility in shaping its remedies and by a facility for adjusting and reconciling public and private needs.' Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U.S. 294, 299, 300 75 S.Ct. 753, 765, 99 L.Ed. 1083. * * * (A)t stake is the personal interest of the minor plaintiffs and those similarly situated in admission to the public schools as soon as possible on a non-discriminatory basis. * * * (E)ffectuating this interest may call for elimination of a variety of obstacles in making the transition; * * * courts of equity may properly take into consideration the public interest in the elimination of such obstacles; * * * once a proper start is made, the courts may find that additional time is necessary to carry out the ruling in an effective manner.

"`* * * (A) District Court, after analysis of the relevant factors (which, of course, excludes hostility to racial desegregation), may conclude that justification exists for not requiring the present nonsegregated admission of all qualified Negro children. In such circumstances, however, the Courts * * * scrutinize the program of the school authorities to make sure that they have developed arrangements pointed toward the earliest practical completion of desegregation, and have taken appropriate steps to put their program into effective operation. * * * (D)elay in any guise in order to deny the constitutional rights of Negro children will not be countenanced * * * only a prompt start, diligently and earnestly pursued, to eliminate racial segregation from the public schools can constitute good faith compliance.' Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1, 7 78 S.Ct. 1401, 1404, 3 L.Ed.2d 5.

* * * * * *

"`"It has not been decided that the federal courts are to take over or regulate the public schools * * *. It has not been decided that the local authorities must mix persons of different races in the schools or must require them to attend schools or must deprive them of the right of choosing the schools they must attend. What * * * has been decided, and all that * * * has been decided is that local authorities may not deny to any person on account of race the right to attend any school that said local authorities maintain. This, under the decision of the Supreme Court, * * * local authorities may not do directly or indirectly; but if the schools they maintain are open to children of all races, no violation of the Constitution is involved even though the children of different races voluntarily attend different schools, as they attend different churches.¹ Nothing in the Constitution or in the decisions of the Supreme Court takes away from the people freedom to choose the schools they attend. The Constitution, in other words, does not require integration. It merely forbids discrimination. It does not forbid such segregation as occurs as the result of voluntary action. It merely forbids the use of governmental power to enforce segregation." * * * Because of the nature of the problems and the local conditions, the school authorities often find that action taken by other school districts is inapplicable to the facts with which they are dealing. * * * The free public schools must be maintained and operated as a racially nondiscriminatory system. During the period of transition from a segregated to a nonsegregated system the school authorities must exercise good faith. They must consider the personal rights of all qualified persons to be admitted to the free public schools as soon as practicable on a nondiscriminatory basis. The public interest must be considered along with all the facts and conditions prevalent in the school district. Educational standards should not be lowered. If the school authorities have acted and are proceeding in good faith, their actions should not be set aside by a court so long as their action is consistent with the ultimate establishment of a nondiscriminatory school system at the earliest practicable date.' Aaron v. Cooper, D.C., 143 F.Supp. 855 at pages 864, 865." Kelley v. Board of Educ. of City of Nashville, etc., C.A. 6th (1959), 270 F.2d 209, 225-226.

Following extensive hearings on September 27 and 30, the Court ordered the defendants to submit a plan of complete reorganization of their school system on a unified, nonracial basis by October 31, 1963 and allowed the plaintiffs fifteen additional days in which to file objections. Such a plan was submitted on that date, and on November 13, 1963 the plaintiffs specified their objections to the plan. On December 11, 1963, the Court overruled respective motions by both sets of litigants for a summary judgment and set the matter for further hearing on the factors the defendants had considered in adopting the plan which they had submitted. All parties were further ordered to offer evidence and argument on the effect of the Court's portended ending, in the exercise of its injunctive powers, of segregation in the Kennerly and Sewanee Public Schools earlier than the defendants had proposed in their plan. Opportunity was accorded the defendants to show cause why such segregation could not be ended more quickly by the assignment, without consideration of race or color, of all students then enrolled in the first, sixth or other grade (or grades) in both of those schools, and the transfer, under the same considerations, of all other students then enrolled in Kennerly School to Sewanee Public School.

Following the hearings on December 30 and 31, 1963, the Court issued a preliminary injunction requiring the defendants to reorganize that part of the eighth school district of Franklin County, Tennessee, which was then served by Sewanee Public School and Kennerly School, so that the (then) present compulsory biracial aspects of those schools and supporting transportation facilities would assume single and nonracial aspects forthwith, and, no later than 8:30 a. m., Monday, March 2, 1964, the assignments or reassignments of students to such schools, to accomplish the purposes of the injunction, to be carried forward without regard to the race or color of the students involved. A further hearing was scheduled on that effective date.

The Court, after further hearing on March 2, 1964, ordered the defendants to adopt a plan of assignment or reassignment of students lately attending those schools on the basis of geographical zoning and the admission by March 12, 1964, of students to the zoned facilities according to the students' respective places of residence. By stipulations of the parties litigant, this judgment was stayed, consecutively, to April 6 and 13 and August 24, 1964. By the latter date, it is anticipated that Sewanee Public School and Kennerly School will be completely consolidated, and all students in the affected area will attend one and the same school from and after the commencement of the 1964-1965 school term.

The defendants filed an amended and supplemental plan of desegregation of the remaining schools of Franklin County, Tennessee on April 14, 1964 (which did not include an important exhibit thereto); on April 24, 1964, the plaintiffs specified their objections thereto; and on May 19, 1964, the exhibit was supplied. The Court now has for adjudication the merits of the complete plan of the defendants.

Proceeding on the premise that this Court has the primary duty and responsibility of judicially appraising the program of the defendants, as if it were completely unique, the Court has been disturbed as to whether the defendants have evinced the diligence and earnest pursuit of their problems which would indicate their good faith compliance with the law. Their announced policy of compliance unabashedly expressed their "* * * intent to comply with the ultimate mandates of our courts * * *", although they have been under the affirmative duty of initiating in good faith the desegregation of the public schools of Franklin County, Tennessee for...