Lee v. Macon County Board of Education, Civ. A. No. 604-E.
| Decision Date | 14 August 1970 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 604-E. |
| Citation | 317 F. Supp. 103 |
| Parties | Anthony T. LEE et al., Plaintiffs, UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Intervenor and Amicus Curiae, National Education Association, Inc., Plaintiff-Intervenor, v. MACON COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Middle District of Alabama |
Solomon S. Seay, and Fred D. Gray, of Gray, Seay & Langford, Montgomery, Ala., for plaintiffs and plaintiff-intervenor, National Education Ass'n., Inc.
Jerris Leonard, Asst. Atty. Gen., Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice, Craig M. Crenshaw, Jr., Attorney, Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D. C., and Ira DeMent, U. S. Atty., Montgomery, Ala., for the United States.
MacDonald Gallion, Atty. Gen. for State of Ala., Gordon Madison, Asst. Atty. Gen. for State of Ala., and Thomas W. Thagard, Jr., Smith Bowman, Thagard, Crook & Culpepper, Montgomery, Ala., for Alabama State Board of Education, its members, and State Superintendent of Education.
Before RIVES, Circuit Judge, and GROOMS and JOHNSON, District Judges.
In the order of this Court made and entered in this case March 22, 1967, 267 F.Supp. 458, 484, after making appropriate findings of fact and conclusions of law relative to the operation of the trade schools and junior colleges in the State of Alabama by the Alabama State Board of Education, this Court stated:
On April 30, 1969, the United States, as the plaintiff-intervenor in this case, filed a formal motion asking this Court to require the defendants the Alabama State Board of Education, its members, and the State Superintendent of Education to formulate and execute a plan for the desegregation of the state-established dual systems of trade schools and junior colleges and further asking this Court to require the formulation of unitary, nonracially identifiable systems of trade schools and junior colleges. Upon this motion this Court ordered the defendants to prepare a plan for achieving full and immediate compliance with this Court's order of March 22, 1967, and to prepare a plan setting forth further steps necessary to accomplish the complete disestablishment of the dual systems of trade schools and junior colleges based on race; defendants were directed to file such plans with this Court on or before May 20, 1969. The matter was set for a hearing on May 27, 1969. As directed, the defendants filed proposed plans. Upon consideration of the defendants' proposed plans and the objections of the United States thereto, this Court determined that the plans as advanced by the defendants when implemented would only partially abolish the dual attendance areas based upon race. Furthermore, the plans continued to provide for separate transportation areas based upon race; they did not provide for any separate student recruiting areas. The plans were lacking in specificity as to when faculties and student bodies would be desegregated so that the racial identifiability of the institutions involved would be eliminated. No justification for the continuance of the duplication of programs and of curricula in the same geographical areas was advanced by the defendants in their proposed plans and the plans did not specify how future construction, or the expansion of facilities, or changes in programs or curricula would be used in the desegregation process.
At the conclusion of the hearing on this phase of this case on May 27, 1969, counsel for the defendants were advised in open court that their plans for desegregating the trade schools and junior colleges administered by the Alabama State Board of Education were deficient. They were advised further that the Alabama State Board of Education, in order to discharge the duty that the law places upon it and that this Court ordered in March 1967 would be required to abolish all the dual attendance areas for the trade schools and junior colleges to the extent that these areas might be based upon race, to abolish the separate transportation areas, to provide specifically for faculty desegregation so that the racial identifiability of these institutions, insofar as faculty is concerned, would be eliminated, and to eliminate the duplication of programs and of curricula in those institutions where similar institutions were located in the geographical areas. Counsel for the parties requested additional time to study these problems further, to make another attempt to formulate more specific plans.
On September 17, 1969, this Court ordered the United States through its Office of Education, Department of Health, Education and Welfare, to formulate and submit to the Court a plan for desegregating the trade schools and junior colleges operated by the State of Alabama and administered by the Alabama State Board of Education, said plan to be designed to desegregate said institutions not later than September 1970. The defendant members of the Alabama State Board of Education and the State Superintendent of Education were directed to cooperate fully with the representatives of the United States Office of Education and to make available all information and records in their possession necessary to the development of the plan ordered prepared. This Court granted the Alabama State Board of Education thirty days from the date of the submission of said plan by the United States Office of Education within which to submit alternative plans. On March 3, 1970, the United States through its Office of Education submitted its proposed plan, and on July 16, 1970, the defendants submitted their proposed alternative plan.
Now, upon this submission, this Court finds that the State of Alabama operates 27 trade schools and 17 junior colleges located throughout the State. Each of these institutions is administered by the Alabama State Board of Education. Only three of the junior colleges have dormitories and only a small percentage of students use them. The junior colleges were designed to be, and they are, commuter-type colleges. Although there is no policy restriction placed on admission with regard to residence, there is a practical restriction by reason of the location of these junior colleges. To aid in the "commuter concept", the defendants have provided free transportation to each of these institutions. The portion of students transported to these schools varies considerably. Based upon a report filed with this Court in October, 1968, the number and percentage of students transported to fourteen of these junior colleges was:
School Enrollment Transported Percentage
Calhoun 1612 616 38%
Jefferson State 4343 471 10%
Mobile 906 77 08%
Northwest 618 144 21%
Wallace 724 222 30%
Wenonah 752 95 12%
Faulkner 1350 314 23%
(formerly Yancey)
Gadsden 2352 185 08%
Snead 629 52 08%
Southern Union 535 55 10%
Northeast 638 256 40%
Patrick Henry 462 140 30%
Enterprise 926 151 16%
Jefferson Davis 547 112 20%
Two of the 17 junior colleges were established as "Negro" institutions; these are Mobile State and Wenonah State. There have been varying degrees of progress in attracting Negro students to the predominantly "white" junior colleges. There has been no progress, however, and there is no likelihood of progress, in desegregating the two "Negro" junior colleges. Predominantly white junior colleges located near these Negro colleges received more funds; for instance, there is a significant disparity in this area between James H. Faulkner Junior College (formerly Yancey State), a predominantly white college, and Mobile State, located within 35 miles of each other. In the past two school years the funds allocated per student for these institutions were:
Faulkner Mobile
1967-68 $1,057.90 $857.80
1968-69 974.00 684.00
The disparity in funding has also resulted in the predominantly white junior colleges offering a wider variety of courses than is offered in Negro junior colleges. The Jefferson State Junior College, a predominantly white institution, and Wenonah State, an all-Negro institution, are both located in Jefferson County. Jefferson State has 164 white teachers and one Negro teacher; Wenonah has one white teacher and 37 Negro teachers. The funds appropriated for these two institutions for the 1968-69 school year were $1,466,393 for Jefferson State and $330,711 for Wenonah. The evidence reflects that the plans for the future are not designed to effectively desegregate or to abolish the racial identifiability of either of these schools.
Of the 27 trade schools administered by the Alabama State Board of Education, 21 are traditionally...
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