Mitchell v. West Feliciana Parish School Bd., 73-4034

• Citation: 507 F.2d 662
• Decision Date: 30 January 1975
• Docket Number: No. 73-4034,73-4034
• Parties: 9 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 9926 Samuel MITCHELL et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. WEST FELICIANA PARISH SCHOOL BOARD et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)

Page 662

507 F.2d 662

9 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 9926

Samuel MITCHELL et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. WEST FELICIANA PARISH SCHOOL BOARD et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 73-4034.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Jan. 30, 1975.

Murphy W. Bell, Baton Rouge, La., for plaintiffs-appellants.

Leon A. Picou, Jr., Dist. Atty., 20th Judicial Dist. Court, Fred C. Jackson, Asst. Dist. Atty., St. Francisville, La., Richard H. Kilbourne, Dist. Atty., W. Lee Overton, Asst. Dist. Atty., Clinton, La., for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana.

Before GEWIN, AINSWORTH and GEE, Circuit Judges.

GEE, Circuit Judge:

Desegregating the schools of this small, rural Louisiana parish has occupied us before. Its fortunes in our court and in others, from adoption and subsequent disapproval of a freedom-of-choice system through inclusion in Singleton ¹ and earlier attempts to apply that ruling, are catalogued in Carter v. West Feliciana Parish School Board, 432 F.2d 875 (5th Cir. 1970) (Carter II) and will not be again detailed here. Our case is, we may hope, ² the final fall-out from Singleton's application to West Feliciana Parish.

As we have said, the present controversy results from an early attempt to implement Singleton. That decision came down at the turn of 1968-70; and the West, feliciana school board, faced with the usual drop in white enrollment of the time, commenced in April of that year to try to comply with its requirements while reducing the teaching staff appropriately. As a part of its consequent staff evaluation program, the board announced that a national academic achievement test would be administered each teacher in the area of his teaching expertise or certification. Objections to this, made to the courts by most of the Negro teachers-- on grounds asserted that the tests were culturally biased or would be unfairly administered-- resulted in initial temporary restraining orders above and below, both later dissolved, and in an eventual order by this court permitting the administration of the test on conditions set out in Carter II. All of the plaintiffs here, untenured Negro teachers in the system, refused to take the test.

In the course of the hearings on the testing programs, the district court, grappling with the application of the new Singleton standards, entered an order which approved the use of the tests upon and erroneous construction of Singleton. Since Singleton required, the court found, the iron application of racial ratios to the reduction in number of the West Feliciana teaching staff, it made no difference whether the test was racially biased or not: the Negro teachers were competing with each other only, for a fixed, reduced number of 'black positions.' This being so, there would be no occasion to compare their grades on the test with the grades of white teachers who, in turn, were competing only with each other for the 'white positions.' Following an expedited appeal, a panel of this court, on August 14, 1970, handed down what we shall call Carter I, subsequently withdrawn, approving the testing program on reasoning paralleling that of the district court:

The argument advanced by appellants that the makeup of the tests is so framed as to discriminate racially against Negro teachers misses the mark. Black teachers would not be competing with white teachers. They would simply be competing among themselves for preferred retention in the system if it became necessary to reduce the number of teachers in the system. Testimony below indicated that a reduction in force of 6 teachers would probably be necessary. Maintenance of the 2 black to 1 white ratio would then require the dismissal of 4 black teachers and 2 white teachers. The method of testing under the NTE examinations proposed to be used by the school board as one of the criteria in determining who shall be dismissed and who shall be retained patently was a bona fide and effective effort at compliance with Singleton, supra. The school board, with the fall semester upon it, moved swiftly to implement this court's construction of the Singleton decree, to which it was already subject. Since the Negro teachers, who composed about two-thirds of the faculty, had, with a single exception, all refused to take the test, the board was forced to look elsewhere for objective criteria. Twenty-two teachers, rather than the six at first thought, had to be released and, according to Carter I, about two-thirds were to be Negro and one-third white, the racial proportions of the teaching staff in general. The court below found, and its findings are reasonably supported by the evidence, that after the racial ratio the board's primary criterion was tenure, its next was the need for the teacher's subject-matter expertise, and finally, for those who took it, the test. In addition, the subjective evaluations of principals and assistant principals, five white and three Negro, were considered. The preeminence of tenure as a guideline is shown by the fact that only two tenured teachers, whose subject-matter qualifications were in an area of ample or over staffing, were dismissed.

On September 25, however, five weeks after dismissal notice has gone out and school was well in session, Carter I was withdrawn and Carter II was substituted making plaint that Singleton's ratios were limited in their effect to teacher assignments and that reductions in staff were to take no account of race whatever, but proceed on other standards which were to be objective and reasonable. Since the rendition of Carter II, none of plaintiffs have been rehired as regular teachers in the systems. The district court found, however, that no positions for which those of them who would entertain reinstatement were qualified had come open, save Connie Chapman. She had been offered reinstatement but declined because of complications attending the early term of a pregnancy.

On this appeal the judgment below is attacked on four heads: that the board reduced staff without first establishing objective criteria for the reduction, available for public inspection as required by Singleton; that Roth-Sindermann ³ standards of procedural due process were violated by absence of notice and hearing; that plaintiffs have not been accorded recall rights due them under Singleton; and that reinstatement, back pay and damages were appropriate because of the absence of procedural due process but were not granted. We discuss these briefly and in the order presented.

This is a 1983 action. ⁴ For plaintiffs to prevail, it is necessary that they show state action which deprived them of rights, privileges or immunities secured them by the federal laws or Constitution. It is clear from the record, as the court below found, that the board acted in good faith and in obedience to Carter I's authoritative declaration of what Singleton required it to do. And though it was the board's notices of dismissal which were the immediate cause of plaintiffs' loss of their positions, the board, acting under great pressure of time, took race into primary account only because a federal court's decree, affirmed in an expedited appeal, stated that they were required by Singleton to do so. We are unable, under the unique facts of this cace, to ascertain meaningful state action in the initial discharges. The effective action was the direct result of initial erroneous decrees of the federal courts. It would be a travesty 0n justice to subject the board to penalties or sanctions for actions it had no choice but to perform.

As for the claimed application of Roth-Sindermann, it is stipulated that no plaintiff had any form of tenure. None, therefore, had any property interest. Nor were any discharged for reasons even arguably reflecting discredit upon...