Kerr v. Enoch Pratt Free Library

• Decision Date: 07 March 1944
• Docket Number: No. 2071.,2071.
• Citation: 54 F. Supp. 514
• Parties: KERR et al. v. ENOCH PRATT FREE LIBRARY OF BALTIMORE CITY et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland

54 F. Supp. 514

KERR et al. v. ENOCH PRATT FREE LIBRARY OF BALTIMORE CITY et al.

No. 2071.

District Court, D. Maryland.

March 7, 1944.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Chas. H. Houston, of Washington, D. C., and Wm. A. C. Hughes, Jr., of Baltimore, Md., for plaintiffs.

Allan A. Davis, Asst. City Sol., of Baltimore, Md., for Mayor and City Council.

Harry N. Baetjer and Venable, Baetjer & Howard, all of Baltimore, Md., for all other defendants.

CHESNUT, District Judge.

The Enoch Pratt Free Library is a very well known institution in Baltimore City. Its main branch, centrally located in the heart of the City, is housed in a large specially designed building with all moden library equipment, and it operates twenty-six branch libraries located in other sections of the City. It is generally regarded as one of the outstanding free libraries in the United States. It is a Maryland corporation created by Chapter 181 of the Maryland Acts of Assembly of 1882. By that Act its management was vested in a Board of nine (9) Trustees named in the Act, with power to elect their successors, "the control and management of the said Library and other property to be in said Board of Trustees". It is a non-stock corporation. The purpose of the corporation as indicated in the Act was for the object "of perpetually promoting and diffusing knowledge and education among the people of the City of Baltimore". At the present time the Library has about 800,000 books, and in its main library and branches employs about eighty professionally trained assistant librarians. The entire library system lends approximately three million books a year to 300,000 Baltimoreans.

As a purely intra-mural activity, the management of the Library periodically gives a training course for the technical instruction of prospective employes as Assistant Librarians, to fill vacancies in its technical staff as they occur from time to time. On April 23, 1943, the plaintiff in this case, Louise Kerr, a well educated young colored woman resident in Baltimore City, applied to the Library for admission to its current training class, for the purpose of obtaining an appointment and employment as an Assistant Librarian. The management of the Library declined to accept her as a member of the training class for the assigned reason that at that time there was no vacancy in the technical staff of the library which, in the opinion of the Board of Trustees, could properly be filled by a colored woman. In this respect the policy of the Board of Trustees had been stated in a resolution of September 17, 1942 reading as follows:

"Resolved that it is unnecessary and unpracticable to admit colored persons to the Training Class of The Enoch Pratt Free Library. The Trustees being advised that there are colored persons now available with adequate training for library employment have given the Librarian authority to employ such personnel where vacancies occur in a branch or branches with an established record of preponderant colored use."

Thereafter on October 5, 1943 the plaintiff filed the instant suit against the Library Corporation, its several Trustees individually, its present Librarian and the Mayor & City Council of Baltimore, in which she alleged that she had been refused admission to the Training Course "solely because of her race or color"; and that the action of the corporation in this respect violated the equal protection clause of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and Section 41, Title 8 United States Code Annotated, and that the defendants thereby became severally liable to the plaintiff under 8 U.S.C.A. § 43. In consequence the plaintiff in count 1 of the complaint sues for pecuniary damages of $5,000 against each individual defendant, and in count 2 for injunctive relief against continued refusal to receive the plaintiff as a member of said Training Course; and in count 3 for declaratory judgment to establish her right to have her application for the Training Course considered by the management of the Library, "without discrimination because of her race or color". The defendants, other than the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, resist the plaintiff's demands on the factual ground that the plaintiff was not refused admission to said Training Course solely because of her race or color; and all the defendants, including the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, further defend on the legal ground that in the management of the said Library and the filling of appointments to the Library Staff, the Trustees are acting as a private and not a public governmental agency, and therefore are not within the scope of the 14th Amendment and the federal statutes on which the plaintiff relies. The case has been fully presented on the pleadings, evidence and arguments of counsel for the respective parties.

Dealing first with the factual defense, it is important to learn from the evidence just what is the Training Course referred to and why the plaintiff was not received into it. The Course has been conducted at periodic intervals for about 15 years. The requirements for admission to the class are described in the circular of information filed in evidence as Defendants' Exhibit No. 1. Among them are the following:

"In general, the educational qualifications necessary for teaching and for library work are the same. The preferred preparation for admission to the Training Class is a college degree representing a scholastic average of 80% for the entire course. * * * Initiative, personality, enthusiasm, sympathy and serious purpose are requisite qualities. * * * All applicants are required to take a competitive entrance examination. * * * The large number of applicants makes it necessary to limit the number who take each examination to the 15 or 20 who, in the opinion of the Librarians, the Director, and several Department Heads, seem most likely to function well in library work. Members of the Training Class will be chosen from those applicants who have qualified by scoring the highest in the tests and whose previous education, training, experience and personality seem best to fit them for the work. * * * As the practical work is equivalent to part-time employment in the Library, members of the class will be paid at the rate of $40.00 a month, effective January 1, after the first three months of training have been successfully accomplished. * * * Although the primary purpose of the Training Class is to prepare individuals for positions on the staff of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, the Library does not guarantee to appoint graduates of the Training Class. It is probable, however, that those who stand high in the work will receive such appointments. In return for the training given, an applicant is expected to work on the staff for one year after graduation, providing a position is offered."

It thus clearly appears that the Training Course is only a feature of the internal management of the Library, and is not conducted either as a general library instruction course or for purposes of general education. The evidence in the case shows that the plaintiff has the requisite educational requirements for the class but, as her application was not accepted or considered by the Management, it does not affirmatively appear whether she would otherwise have qualified for admission into the Class through competitive examination, physical condition and personality. However, these latter considerations seem unimportant in the case in view of the fact that her application was not further considered by the Management on the ground that if she had successfully competed there would have been no position to which she could or would have been appointed by the Board. In short, the position of the Board in declining to consider her application was placed on the ground that the Training Course was a purely intra-mural activity for the purpose of giving technical instruction to prospective employes and as there was no vacancy to which the plaintiff could have been appointed, it would have been unfair to her to let her take the Training Course and an unnecessary expense to the Library in giving such training.

I find from the evidence, which in this respect is practically uncontradicted, that the reason given by the management of the Library for its refusal to consider her application was genuine and in good faith, and not solely by reason of her race or color. This finding of fact would seem to be conclusive in favor of the defendants on consideration of the complaint as literally framed. But counsel for the plaintiff contends that there is implicit in the complaint a broader view of the case which, despite the particular finding, justifies the conclusion that the failure of the management to consider the plaintiff's application was really based solely on reasons of race or color. Thus it is argued that the Training Course is only a means to an end, that is, appointment to a position as Assistant Librarian; that vacancies in the whole Staff of 80 professional assistants are continually occurring and are filled from the successful graduates of the Course; and that therefore there would have been vacancies occurring which might well have been filled by the appointment of the plaintiff to such a position, were it not for the hitherto established policy of the Board of Trustees to appoint to positions as Assistant Librarians only white persons. In this connection, counsel for the plaintiff advanced the proposition that the Board of Trustees of the Enoch Pratt Free Library constitute a public agency administering a public governmental function and therefore all applicants for positions of employment in the Library System must be fairly considered by the Trustees on their individual merits irrespective of race or color; and that the policy of the Board in generally employing only white persons in the capacity of technical Assistant Librarians is contrary to the requirements of...