Jackson v. Rawdon, 15927.
| Decision Date | 28 June 1956 |
| Docket Number | No. 15927.,15927. |
| Citation | 235 F.2d 93 |
| Parties | Nathaniel JACKSON, a minor, by his Father and Next Friend, W. D. Jackson, et al., Appellants, v. O. C. RAWDON, As President of the Board of Trustees, Mansfield Independent School District, et al., Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
U. Simpson Tate, Dallas, Tex., L. Clifford Davis, Fort Worth, Tex., Robert L. Carter, Thurgood Marshall, New York City, for appellants.
J. A. Gooch, Fort Worth, Tex., for appellees.
Before HUTCHESON, Chief Judge, and RIVES and BROWN, Circuit Judges.
Brought October 7, 1955, against the defendants, Board of Trustees of the Mansfield Independent School District, the president and members of the board, and the superintendent of the district, by Negro children of school age, to redress the deprivation, under color of state law, of their rights secured by the Constitution of the United States, the suit sought a declaratory judgment and an injunction.
The claim was that, though plaintiffs, minors between the ages of six and twenty-one years, have met all lawful requirements for admission to the Mansfield High School, maintained by the Mansfield Independent School District, the defendants denied them admission thereto because, and only because, they were colored, and there being no Negro high school in the district, they were, pending recognition of their right to attend Mansfield High School, obliged to accept bus service to Fort Worth to attend the Negro high school there.
Defendants filed a motion to dismiss, in which, admitting that the Supreme Court of the United States, in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S. Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873, had more than a year earlier determined that state laws and state constitutions which prescribed segregation were unconstitutional, and that the Supreme Court of Texas, on Oct. 12, 1955, in McKinney v. Blankenship, 154 Tex. 632, 282 S.W.2d 691 had recognized that the decision in that case had had the specific effect of rendering unconstitutional the segregation provisions of the constitution and laws of Texas, and, asserting: that desegregation could not be accomplished over night; that the problem of desegregation of the public school system of the Mansfield District is under intensive study; that so far they have not had time to adjust to the transition; and that they are making every effort to make such adjustment and will make such adjustment as soon as time and circumstances will permit; insisted that the suit was premature and should be dismissed.
For answer, admitting some and denying other paragraphs of the complaint and realleging, as they had in their motion to dismiss, that the defendants are obeying the mandate of the Supreme Courts of the United States and of the State of Texas, in attempting to solve the problem in an equitable manner, defendant urged that the remedy sought by plaintiffs is premature and the suit should be dismissed.
Thereafter, the case came on for hearing and was fully heard upon evidence which, consisting in part of testimony as to the substitute arrangements the board had made for sending Negro children to Fort Worth by bus so that they would not have to be admitted to the Mansfield High School, fully established plaintiffs' claims by developing that there were no administrative difficulties which had to be overcome in order to admit the plaintiffs to the Mansfield High School but only, as clearly shown by the testimony of R. L. Huffman, the superintendent, a difficulty arising out of the local climate of opinion,1 requiring the board, in its opinion, to discriminate against plaintiffs by denying them access to the only high school in Mansfield, while permitting white children to attend it. Cf. Whitmore v. Stilwell, 5 Cir., 227 F.2d 187, 188.
In answer to questions as to when the matter of admission of colored students on a desegregated basis in the Mansfield District would likely come about, Huffman stated that the board and each member of it had had discussions with the citizenship of the town, and the board had passed a resolution that the schools would be kept segregated during the year 1955-56.
In answer to further inquiry as to what his contention now is, he stated: "The court ruled we had a reasonable length of time to meet the different requirements, and we would not have time on that short notice, from May 17, 1954 until May of 1955, or between May of 1955 to September 2, 1956, to carry out the mandate of the court".
Mr. Gibson, secretary, and a member of the school board, testified that he was on a committee to study segregation and that it was still in operation, and "We are going to try to desegregate as soon as we think it is practicable at all."
Asked: "Has your board made any decision at all as to what it is going to do about the year 1956-57?", the witness answered: "No" and that the board had no plan beyond the one already announced for the present session.
Mr. Wilshire, a school board member, testified that the board had reached no conclusion with respect to desegregation.
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