Lee v. Macon County Bd. of Educ., 91-7640
| Decision Date | 18 August 1992 |
| Docket Number | No. 91-7640,91-7640 |
| Citation | 970 F.2d 767 |
| Parties | 76 Ed. Law Rep. 698 Anthony T. LEE, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, United States of America, Plaintiff-Intervenor and Amicus Curiae-Appellee, National Education Association, Inc., Plaintiff-Intervenor-Appellee, Brandie McKee, a minor, by Thomas McKee, her father and next friend, Ishbah Cox, et al., Plaintiffs-Intervenors-Appellees, v. MACON COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION, et al., Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.
Before KRAVITCH, Circuit Judge, CLARK *, Senior Circuit Judge, and Pittman **, Senior District Judge.
This is an appeal from a district court order entered as part of that court's continuing jurisdiction over the Macon County, Alabama, school system. The district court's order denied the petition of the Macon County Board of Education to close grades nine through twelve at Notasulga High School, the county's only nonracially identifiable school. We affirm.
This school desegregation case was initiated in 1963 by black children and their parents residing in Tuskegee, Alabama. In August 1963, the Honorable Frank M. Johnson, then a district court judge in the Middle District of Alabama, ordered the Macon County Board of Education to immediately take steps to desegregate the schools of Macon County. 1 As any student of the civil rights movement is well aware, this district court order met with extremely hostile and sometimes violent resistance at every level. In 1963 and 1964 alone, the district court found it necessary on four different occasions to enjoin Governor George C. Wallace and other state officials from interfering with the desegregation of the Macon County school system. 2
Unfortunately, Notasulga High School, a kindergarten through twelfth grade school located in the northern part of Macon County, did not escape this disgraceful history. When the first six black students arrived at Notasulga in February 1964, the mayor of the City of Notasulga refused to permit them to exit the school bus. After entry of yet another district court order, these six black students were able to enroll at Notasulga a week later, but white students boycotted the school completely, fleeing to private academies that had been established in response to court-ordered integration. The six black students became the entire student body of Notasulga High School. Worse yet, on April 19, 1964, arsonists burned Notasulga. The six black students, still the sole members of the Notasulga student body, finished the school year in makeshift classrooms in the undamaged auditorium. It took over a year to rebuild the burned school.
From 1965 to 1970, Notasulga functioned as a predominantly white school. Finally, in the spring of 1970, the Board announced plans to integrate the school through district Soon, however, there was a reversal in the tide of "white flight." In 1971, Anderson was named principal of Notasulga, and he continued his efforts to achieve racial balance and harmony at Notasulga. Eventually, the community, both white and black, began to rally in support of his efforts. In the 1971-72 school year, white students began to return to Notasulga from the private academies. By the 1973-74 school year, the student enrollment at Notasulga was 52% black and 48% white, with 259 black students and 240 white students. Racial balance had been achieved.
zoning. This announcement, like past desegregation orders, met with resistance. Nevertheless, a math teacher by the name of Robert Anderson and two other faculty members at Notasulga undertook to achieve what appeared to be impossible; they sought to stem "white flight" to the newly-created private academies and thereby establish at Notasulga an integrated, nonracially identifiable school. While segregationists traveled door-to-door attempting to convince whites to flee the public school system, Anderson traveled door-to-door with the opposite message. Anderson handed out printed handbills touting the advantages of federal and state funded public schools and equating the placement of children in the newly-created private academies to sending them to unlicensed doctors. These efforts met with limited success; the student enrollment for the 1970-71 school year was 30% white, rather than the 50% white enrollment that should have resulted from the district zoning. Some "white flight" had occurred
Thus, notwithstanding its disheartening beginning, integration was achieved at Notasulga in 1973. Through the continued efforts of Robert Anderson and the continued support of the community, Notasulga has remained integrated for nearly 20 years. Throughout this time, it has maintained a total student population that is between 40% and 50% white; in the 1990-91 school year, its total enrollment was 57% black and 43% white, with 359 black students and 273 white students, and its high school enrollment (grades nine through twelve) was 64% black and 36% white, with 122 black students and 68 white students. Notasulga's faculty is 60% black and 40% white, and its extracurricular clubs, athletic programs, and other activities are similarly racially balanced. To its integrated student body, Notasulga offers a quality education. High school students at Notasulga choose from a well-rounded curriculum; they may choose to pursue a standard diploma or, through an honors program, an advanced diploma, which prepares them for college. Notasulga has also been successful in maintaining a healthy enrollment; its enrollment has increased by 27% since 1973, while those in the remainder of the county have decreased. Since 1974, Notasulga has received national attention as a model for the successful integration of southern schools. As Robert Kennedy, Jr. said in a speech at Notasulga in 1980, " 'What you've done here in Notasulga ... is a shining example not only for Alabama and the South but the nation and the entire world.' " 3
In marked contrast to Notasulga, the other schools in Macon County are not integrated. These schools are almost totally black, as "white flight" has taken its toll. In 1990, the Board operated three schools in Macon County, other than Notasulga, with ninth through twelfth grade enrollments: Deborah Cannon Wolfe High School, a kindergarten through twelfth grade school; South Macon High School, a kindergarten through twelfth grade school; and Tuskegee Institute High School, a ninth through twelfth grade school. In the 1990-91 school year, these three schools had a combined enrollment of 1886 students, of whom 13, or less than 1%, were white; in the ninth through twelfth grades, these three schools had a combined enrollment of 1110, of whom 6 were white. The efforts to integrate these three schools have failed.
Sometime prior to March 1991, the Board decided to build a new high school in Macon County, and it requested that the State Department of Education conduct a survey The Board adopted the state's alternative recommendation. In April 1991, the Board filed its petition seeking court approval for the closing of the high schools, that is, grades nine through twelve, at Notasulga, Deborah Cannon Wolfe, South Macon, and Tuskegee Institute, and the consolidation of these high schools at a newly-constructed, comprehensive high school. The Board represented that, assuming all white high school students presently attending public schools in Macon County remained in the system after the consolidation, the consolidated high school would have 88 white students out of a total population of 1361 students; that is, assuming there would be no "white flight" as a result of the consolidation, the consolidated high school would be approximately 6% white. In the last paragraph of the petition, the Board admitted:
of the Macon County school system and make recommendations as to school construction, consolidation, and site selection. In March 1991, the state presented to the Board the Report of a Partial Survey of the Macon County School System. 4 In this report, the state noted that the high school enrollment in the Macon County school system had decreased substantially from 1982 to 1990, but that the enrollment at Notasulga had actually increased during this period. The state also noted that, "Notasulga is the only school in the county where significant integration of pupils occurs." Relying on these two facts, the state recommended that the Board close the ninth through twelfth grades at Deborah Cannon Wolfe and South Macon and consolidate them at Tuskegee Institute; the state further recommended that the Board continue to operate Notasulga, the only integrated school in the county, as a kindergarten through twelfth grade school. This recommendation is the course of action that the state would have preferred that the Board take, as it kept intact the county's only integrated school. The state also offered, however, an alternative recommendation. This alternative recommendation was that all ninth through twelfth grade students in the county, including those at Notasulga, attend the proposed new consolidated high school to be built in Tuskegee
Although some "white flight" is expected, due to the consolidation of Notasulga High School, the Board will continue to hold public meetings and keep the Macon County community appraised of the benefits and educational advantages the students will receive as a result of the action described herein. 5
The Board did not speculate on how much "white flight" would occur.
In response to the Board's petition, a group of students, parents, and others interested in the future of...
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