Lauderdale County School Dist. By and Through Bd. of Educ. v. Enterprise Consol. School Dist. By and Through Bd. of Educ.
| Decision Date | 16 June 1994 |
| Docket Number | No. 92-7501,92-7501 |
| Parties | 91 Ed. Law Rep. 528 The LAUDERDALE COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT, By and Through Its BOARD OF EDUCATION, John L. Knight, Wanda McPhail, and Arnold M. Treat, Plaintiffs-Appellees Cross-Appellants, v. ENTERPRISE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL DISTRICT, By and Through Its BOARD OF EDUCATION, Defendant-Appellant Cross-Appellee. QUITMAN CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL DISTRICT, Plaintiff-Appellant Cross-Appellee, v. ENTERPRISE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL DISTRICT, Defendant-Appellee Cross-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
James A. Keith, Perry Sansing, Brunini, Grantham, Grower & Hewes, Jackson, MS, for appellant.
Dennis Horn, Jackson, MS, Robert Covington, Jr., Polly Covington, Quitman, MS, for Enterprise School Dist.
William R. Ruffin, Bay Springs, MS, for amicus curiae Concerned Citizens of Stonewall, Clarke County, MS.
Robert Compton, William B. Compton, Witherspoon & Compton, Meridian, MS, for Lauderdale.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi.
Before WOOD, 1 SMITH, DUHE, Circuit Judges.
This is a consolidated case involving three Mississippi school districts: the Lauderdale County School District ("Lauderdale"), the Enterprise School District ("Enterprise"), and the Quitman School District ("Quitman"). The magistrate judge ordered the transfer of certain students from Enterprise to Lauderdale and from Quitman to Enterprise. We reverse these transfers, but we affirm the other portions of the judgment, regarding interdistrict payments and the annexation of the Stonewall area by Quitman.
In 1953, the Mississippi legislature passed a law reorganizing the state school system in order to provide separate but equal education for white and black students. 1953 Miss.Laws, Extraordinary Session, ch. 12. All of the school districts in Mississippi were reorganized by July 1, 1957. The three school districts that are parties to this case are Lauderdale, which encompasses all of Lauderdale County except for the City of Meridian; Enterprise, which encompasses the northern third of Clarke County; and Quitman, encompassing the southern two-thirds of Clarke County. Lauderdale County borders Clarke County on the north.
Under the 1953 reorganization, Lauderdale County was divided into two school districts, the Meridian Municipal Separate School District, encompassing the City of Meridian and the surrounding area, and Lauderdale, encompassing the remainder of Lauderdale County. The pre-reorganization Clarkdale Line Consolidated School District, which had included territory in both Lauderdale and Clarke counties, was abolished and its territory placed under control of Lauderdale. The unincorporated area of Meehan, located in Lauderdale County along the border of Clarke County, was also brought under Lauderdale's control.
The Clarkdale school, 2 a de jure white school during segregation, straddles the border between Lauderdale County and Clarke County. For a number of years, Enterprise and Lauderdale entered into one-year agreements regarding the ownership and operation of Clarkdale. On February 13, 1962, Lauderdale and Enterprise entered into a twenty-five-year agreement (the "Clarkdale agreement") providing that white students from northeastern Clarke County would attend the Clarkdale school and that approximately 100 students in the Meehan area in Lauderdale would attend the all-white Enterprise school in the western part of the Enterprise district. 3
Before desegregation, Lauderdale had one black school, Middleton, which served the entire district. It had four white schools: Northwest (now West), Northeast, Southeast, and Clarkdale.
Under Mississippi's 1953 reorganization plan, Clarke County was reorganized into two districts: the Clarke County Consolidated School District (later Enterprise) and Quitman. Enterprise comprised the northern part of the county, including an area called "Northeast Clarke County," the town of Enterprise, the town of Stonewall, and the area surrounding Stonewall. 4 Quitman comprised the southern part of the county, including the town of Quitman. In addition to the two school districts, there was the Clarke County Board of Education, which had limited supervisory authority over the transportation of Enterprise and Quitman students and the authority to hear transfer appeals.
Enterprise had a white elementary school, a white high school, a black elementary school, a black high school, and the Stonewall school. 5 Quitman had two black elementary schools, one black high school, one white high school, one white lower elementary school, and one white upper elementary school.
In 1962, Enterprise announced that it would convert the Stonewall school, an all-white school, from grades 1-12 to grades 1-6. White parents in Stonewall petitioned to have the Stonewall area detached from Enterprise and annexed to Quitman. The Quitman district passed a resolution to annex the Stonewall area. The Clarke County Board of Education tabled the Enterprise school district's plan to convert the Stonewall school from grades 1-12 to 1-6 and adopted a resolution detaching the Stonewall territory from Enterprise and annexing it to Quitman.
Enterprise and Quitman approved a twenty-five-year agreement providing that all blacks in Stonewall would attend the all-black school in Enterprise and that all state funds would be paid to the district where the student attended school. This agreement was part of a larger compromise agreement that settled litigation over ownership of Stonewall.
In 1963, the United States brought a desegregation suit against Lauderdale. United States v. Lauderdale Sch. Dist., No. 1367(E) (S.D.Miss.). In the same district court in 1965, private plaintiffs filed a desegregation suit against Quitman, Enterprise, and the Clarke County Board of Education. Killingsworth v. Enterprise Consol. Sch. Dist., No. 1367(E) (S.D.Miss.).
In 1967, the district court in Killingsworth instructed Quitman and Enterprise to file desegregation plans. The court tentatively accepted the "freedom of choice" desegregation plan filed by the school districts but, on July 19, 1967, rejected the "freedom of choice" plans and entered a final order that (1) enjoined Enterprise, Quitman, and the Clarke County Board of Education from discriminating on the basis of race or color, (2) held that Enterprise, Quitman and the Clarke County Board shall take affirmative action "to disestablish all school segregation and to eliminate the effects of the dual system," (3) allowed all students, irrespective of race or color, to exercise, every year, the choice of which school in their district to attend, (4) held that overcrowding of the particular school chosen will be the only reason for denying the student's choice of which school to attend, and (5) held that there would be no more interdistrict transfers between Enterprise and Quitman "except on terms and by procedures generally applicable regardless of race." Although asked to do so by plaintiffs in Killingsworth, the court did not find the contract of June 11, 1962, between Enterprise and Quitman unconstitutional.
The district court consolidated Killingsworth, Lauderdale, and other pending desegregation cases. After consolidation, the cases were reported as United States v. Hinds County School Board. On July 3, 1969, in a consolidated appeal that included Lauderdale and Killingsworth, this court reversed and remanded, directing the district court to request the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare ("HEW") to collaborate with the school boards to develop desegregation plans. United States v. Hinds County Sch. Bd., 417 F.2d 852, 856-59 (5th Cir.1969), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 1032, 90 S.Ct. 612, 24 L.Ed.2d 531 (1970). If an individual school board and HEW agreed to a desegregation plan by August 11, 1969, the district courts were to implement the plan if it met constitutional standards. Id. at 858. If no such agreement could be reached, the district courts were to implement the HEW plan if it met constitutional standards. Id. at 858-59.
HEW filed its plans for all three districts on August 11, 1969. On August 28, 1969, this court extended, at the government's request, the deadline for filing plans from August 11 to December 1. In effect, this allowed the parties additional time to redraft the plans. On October 29, 1969, the Supreme Court vacated the extension of the deadline, directing this court to issue desegregation orders immediately. Alexander v. Holmes County Bd. of Educ., 396 U.S. 19, 20, 90 S.Ct. 29, 29, 24 L.Ed.2d 19 (1969) (per curiam). At its discretion, this court could modify and implement the government plans. Id. In response to Alexander, this court ordered that all thirty permanent HEW plans prepared for school districts in the Southern District of Mississippi, including Lauderdale, Enterprise, and Quitman, be implemented immediately. United States v. Hinds County Sch. Bd., 423 F.2d 1264, 1267-68 (5th Cir.1969), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 1032, 90 S.Ct. 612, 24 L.Ed.2d 531 (1970). 6
The August 11, 1969, HEW plan for Lauderdale contained the following majority-to-minority transfer provision:
Whenever there shall exist schools containing a majority of Negro students, this school district shall permit a student (Negro or white) attending a school in which his race is in the majority to choose to attend another school where space is available, and where his race is in a minority.
Thus, transfers between schools can occur if the student seeking transfer is a minority in the transferee school. The plan also contained a Singleton provision prohibiting the interdistrict transfer of students unless the transfers are done on a nondiscriminatory basis and do not increase segregation. 7
The rest of the desegregation plan, which dealt with...
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