Morris v. Williams

• Decision Date: 05 January 1944
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 555.
• Citation: 59 F. Supp. 508
• Parties: MORRIS v. WILLIAMS et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Arkansas

59 F. Supp. 508

MORRIS v. WILLIAMS et al.

Civil Action No. 555.

District Court, E. D. Arkansas, W. D.

January 5, 1944.

Scipio A. Jones, J. R. Booker, and Myles Hibbler, all of Little Rock, Ark., and Thurgood Marshall, of New York City, for plaintiff.

Rose, Loughborough, Dobyns & House and William Nash, all of Little Rock, Ark., for defendants.

TRIMBLE, District Judge.

This action was instituted by and in the name of Susie Morris, for herself and others similarly situated, and by the City Teachers Association of Little Rock, Arkansas, an unincorporated association, against Robert M. Williams, Chairman, and the several other members of the Board of Directors of the Little Rock Special School District, and Russell T. Scobee, Superintendent of schools for the District. Upon motion of the defendants, after argument of counsel and submission of briefs, the City Teachers Association was dismissed as party plaintiff and the cause proceeded in the name of Susie Morris, as plaintiff for herself and on behalf of those other persons similarly situated and affected.

Plaintiff alleges as follows: She is colored, a person of African descent, and of Negro blood; is a taxpayer of the City of Little Rock and State of Arkansas; is a teacher by profession and training, regularly employed in a public high school maintained and operated by defendants; that defendants, over a long period of years, have consistently pursued and maintained a policy, custom and usage of paying colored teachers and principals less salary than white teachers and principals in the system, possessing the same professional qualifications, licenses and experience, exercising the same duties and performing the same services as colored teachers and principals; that such discrimination is being practiced against the plaintiff and all other colored teachers and principals in the system based solely upon race and color; that by rules, regulations, practice, usage and custom of the state acting by and through defendants the plaintiff and all other colored teachers and principals in the system are being denied the equal protection of the laws, in that solely by reason of their race and color they are being denied compensation from public funds for their services as teachers equal to that being paid to white teachers with equal qualification and experience for equivalent services, pursuant to rules, regulations, custom and practice of the State acting by and through its agents and agencies. She alleges that she has to satisfy the same requirements as those expected of all other teachers, while or colored; that she exercises the same duties, and performs services substantially equivalent to those performed by other holders of a like license, and that notwithstanding this all white teachers in the system holding a like license with less or equal experience receive larger salaries than does plaintiff.

She then alleges: "Pursuant to the policy, custom and usage set out above the Defendants acting as agents and agencies of the State of Arkansas, have established and maintained a salary schedule used by them to fix the amount of compensation for teachers and principals in the public schools of Little Rock which provides a lower scale of salaries for Negro teachers and principals than for white teachers and principals with equal qualifications and experience and performing essentially the same duties; the practical application of this salary schedule has been, is, and will be to pay Negro teachers and principals of equal qualifications, licenses and experience with white teachers and principals less compensation from public funds solely on account of race and color."

It is then alleged that by reason of these things being done, solely on account of race and color, the plaintiff Susie Morris, and all others similarly situated and affected, are denied the equal protection of the laws and due process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and that in enforcing said discriminatory system and schedule defendants' acts are the acts of the State, and are void and unconstitutional.

She then sets out that: "By virtue of the discriminatory salary schedule for teachers established and maintained by the defendants, hereinbefore set forth * * *, and the custom set out * * * the plaintiff is denied an equal and proportionate participation in the benefit derived from that portion of her taxes devoted to the public school fund and the payment of teachers' salaries therefrom; she is denied said equal and proportionate participation in said benefit and return solely on account of race and color," all of which she says is contrary to the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; that she has suffered special damage, and is without remedy save this court issue a writ of injunction as prayed. She then makes other supporting allegations not necessary to be set forth.

Her prayer is for a declaratory judgment and injunction.

Defendants filed an answer denying some of the allegations and admitting some, so that the issues are squarely joined upon three propositions:

(1) The existence of a schedule of salaries by which the plaintiff and those similarly situated and affected are discriminated against solely on account of race and color;

(2) A policy, custom or usage to pay to colored teachers and principals less salary and compensation solely on account of race and color; and

(3) The constitutional question raised by the pleadings.

These questions will be considered in the order above set out.

As in all cases of a civil nature the burden is upon the plaintiff to establish her case by a fair preponderance of the evidence. The evidence in the case is very voluminous and it would serve no useful purpose to include a summary of it in this opinion, and it has been clearly and succinctly set forth in the abstract filed by the defendants.

The Little Rock Special School District is a part of the public school system of the State of Arkansas, provided by the state pursuant to the mandate in the State Constitution, and to that extent constitutes a state agency. The defendant directors are elected to their office by the voters of the city, and serve without pay. They have the duty and authority to employ such supervisory officers, teachers, employees and servants as may be required to operate the schools efficiently and properly. They are charged with the financial affairs of the district, receive the funds and pay them out in accordance with the law.

In the performance of their duties they have the duty to employ the best fitted persons obtainable for each position to be filled, within the statutory and constitutional limitations. In employing personnel they have the duty and responsibility of investigating the qualifications of the applicants and fixing their compensation if employed, to assign their duties and provide supervision of their work. They have the right to and duty to discharge any teacher whose work they consider unsatisfactory, or under the law they may discharge a teacher for any reason which the directors deem sufficient. They have the right and authority to reclassify and change the rate of salary of any or all teachers within the exercise of their best judgment. They may also refuse or fail to execute a new contract at the expiration of the old, and their action in such case is final, whatever their reason for so doing. 24 R.C.L. page 613; Seattle High School, etc., v. Sharples, 159 Wash. 424, 293 P. 994, 996, 72 A.L.R. 1215; People ex rel. Fursman v. City of Chicago, et al., 278 Ill. 318, 116 N.E. 158, 160, L.R.A.1917E, 1069.

The directors, in carrying out their duties, have employed a general superintendent, and have assigned to him the customary duties of such a position. With only one exception the individual members of the Board of Directors are without experience in the teaching profession, and they rely to a very great extent upon the advice of the superintendent in the operation of the schools, and especially in the selection and employment of teachers, and renewal of contracts. Mr. Scobee, the Superintendent here, came to the system on February 1, 1941, hence at the time suit was instituted had been with the system just over one year. He has testified at length as to his training and experience, not only as a teacher, but as a trained and experienced school administrator, and more particularly as to his experience in employing and rating teachers, determining their value as teachers, and fixing their compensation, which work he began in 1923.

Within the system are employed supervisors who visit the schools, observe the teachers and advise with them in their work, assist them in improving their teaching methods, and who report to the superintendent their observations and suggestions for improvement. At the request of the superintendent or board they make rating sheets, on which they rate the individual teachers under their supervision for certain qualifications and abilities. These rating sheets are in turn assembled into one rating by the superintendent or under his directions, and the information gotten in this way is considered by him. Some of these rating sheets have been introduced in evidence over the objection of plaintiff. The supervisors in preparing these rating sheets did not know the salary the teacher was receiving, and the ratings were not prepared with the fixing of salaries in view.

It has not been the practice according to the evidence before the court, as in some of the reported cases, for the principals of the schools to rate the teachers under them and for the individual teachers to rate the principal of the school. Such a practice would, to say the least, cast grave doubt on the value of the ratings. A partial exception to this practice was in the white senior and junior high schools, and for those schools the system does not provide supervisors, and there the...