Price v. Austin Independent School Dist.

• Decision Date: 17 October 1991
• Docket Number: No. 90-8154,90-8154
• Citation: 945 F.2d 1307
• Parties: 70 Ed. Law Rep. 335 Samantha PRICE, etc., et al., Plaintiffs, Brandon McMurthy, etc., et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. AUSTIN INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 1307

945 F.2d 1307

70 Ed. Law Rep. 335

Samantha PRICE, etc., et al., Plaintiffs, Brandon McMurthy, etc., et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. AUSTIN INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 90-8154.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Oct. 17, 1991.

Napoleon B. Williams, Jr., Julius LeVonne Chambers, New York City, for plaintiffs-appellants Brandon McMurthy, etc., et al.

David Van Os, Austin, Tex., for Harrington & Central Texas ACLU.

James R. Raup, William H. Bingham, John H. Spurgin, Austin, Tex., for defendants-appellees.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas.

Before WISDOM, KING and JOLLY, Circuit Judges.

KING, Circuit Judge:

The plaintiffs ¹ in this action allege that the Austin Independent School District (AISD), by instituting a new student assignment plan, violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution by returning to the former dual school system which had been held unitary in 1983. After a two-day trial, the district court entered judgment for AISD. ² Price v. Austin Indep. School Dist., 729 F.Supp. 533 (W.D.Tex.1990). In a thorough opinion, the court held that the plaintiffs in this case "failed to establish that ... [AISD] acted with the intent to discriminate against racial or ethnic minority persons in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution." Id. at 552-53.

The plaintiffs appeal the judgment, claiming that the district court failed to shift the burden of proof to AISD once the plaintiffs had demonstrated a prima facie case of discrimination. The plaintiffs also claim that the district court, in finding that AISD had acted free of discriminatory intent, relied on improper evidence, failed to consider AISD's history of purposeful discrimination, and gave too much weight to the earlier finding of unitariness.

We find that the district court's legal analysis is consistent with the law of the United States and this circuit. We also hold that the district court's findings of fact, based on the testimony presented and the record considered as a whole, were not clearly erroneous, and we therefore AFFIRM the judgment below.

I. BACKGROUND

A. The Previous Litigation

In 1970, the United States, acting under the authority granted to the Attorney General by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000c-6(a) and (b), brought suit against the Texas Education Agency and AISD. The suit alleged that AISD operated a dual school system in violation of the U.S. Constitution. In 1971, this court granted a motion permitting the intervention of a group of black and Mexican-American parents. See United States v. Texas Educ. Agency, 467 F.2d 848, 853 n. 1 (5th Cir.1972) (Austin I ). During the 1970s, this court repeatedly held that AISD had intentionally discriminated against black and Mexican-American students. ³

In November 1979, the district court entered a memorandum opinion and order calling for the submission of an integrative student assignment plan. On January 2, 1980, the district court approved a consent decree, agreed to by all the parties in the litigation. The 1980 consent decree represented the resolute commitment of all parties to transform AISD into a unitary school system. The decree provided for the implementation of busing, alteration of attendance-zone lines, as well as other integrative actions. Under the decree, the [district court] would retain jurisdiction over the case for three years. Upon the expiration of the three-year period, subsequent to notice and the opportunity to object, AISD would be declared a unitary school system and the case dismissed.

Price, 729 F.Supp. at 535. ⁴

The plaintiff-intervenors in 1983 objected to the scheduled declaration of unitariness, but later withdrew their objections and all the parties filed an agreed motion to dismiss, accompanied by a stipulation. This decree declared AISD unitary and dismissed the case. The stipulation, which continued in effect until September 1986, granted the plaintiff-intervenors the right to a hearing if AISD changed the student assignment plan in a way which discriminated against students on the basis of race, color or national origin. At such a hearing, AISD would be required to show cause why the case should not be reopened. In September 1986, by its own terms, the stipulation's period of effect ended, and it was no longer enforceable. Id.; see also United States v. Overton, 834 F.2d 1171, 1174 (5th Cir.1987).

B. The 1987 Student Assignment Plan

In April 1987, the Board adopted a revised student assignment plan, to become effective in the 1987-88 school year. The new plan primarily affected elementary schools, and eliminated crosstown busing (which had been a part of the 1980 consent decree, and was designed to further desegregation) of most students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade.

The plan would result in sixteen elementary schools which would have predominantly minority student populations (90% or more, according to the district court's opinion). See 729 F.Supp. at 539 n. 9. ⁵ These sixteen schools were to be the subject of additional funding and other preferential treatment, such as a choice of teachers and staff. This preferential treatment was known as the "Plan for Educational Excellence," or the "Priority Schools Program."

The 1987 plan also included other elements. It retained the district's policy of majority-minority transfer, by which "any student whose race or ethnicity constitutes the majority of the school's population [may] transfer with free transportation to a school where the student's racial or ethnic group is a minority of the school's population." Id. at 538. Furthermore, the plan permitted any student, who had been bused for integration purposes under the 1980 consent decree, to remain at the school to which he or she had been assigned under that decree. ⁶

The 1987 student assignment plan was the result of two related concerns. First, the need for revised student assignment boundary changes had been a subject of discussion since 1985. In June 1986, the Board adopted a set of nine criteria to be used by AISD staff in formulating student assignment and boundary proposals. See id. at 537. These criteria included a target of ethnicity in each school of within ten percentage points of the districtwide proportions. The criteria also sought to limit the extent and length of busing as a means of achieving the necessary integration. One of these criteria stated that "[i]f students must be bused in order to attain the target at each school, grades 6 through 12 should be bused[.]" Id. The criteria also provided for the adoption of the middle school structure, a change implemented by the 1987 plan. Finally, the criteria called for "additional resources to provide an enriched learning environment" at schools which did not meet the target for ethnicity and which had "high concentrations of low achieving/low-income students[.]" Thus, the 1987 plan substantially followed the criteria adopted by the Board. The district court found that the second factor leading to the adoption of the 1987 plan was "a conscious decision by the Board to establish neighborhood elementary schools in AISD." Id. at 538.

C. The Present Suit

In 1987, the plaintiffs-intervenors in Austin I-IV sought to reopen that case in order to challenge the new student assignment plan. The district court dismissed that attempt, holding that anyone seeking to challenge the new student assignment plan must file a new lawsuit. The plaintiffs in this case then took the field by filing a new complaint seeking, inter alia, a preliminary injunction against the implementation of the new student assignment plan. The district court denied the injunction. In a consolidated appeal, we affirmed both the refusal to reopen the earlier litigation and the denial of a preliminary injunction. United States v. Overton, 834 F.2d 1171, 1177-78 (5th Cir.1987), aff'g 671 F.Supp. 484 (W.D.Tex.1987).

After the case returned to the district court, nearly two years of discovery and pre-trial proceedings ensued. The case was tried before the district court November 6-8, 1989. The plaintiffs and defendants produced a total of twenty witnesses, and the court received a significant number of exhibits into the record. After evaluating the testimony, the district court entered judgment for AISD. The district court's opinion thoroughly outlined the evidence presented, and stated the court's reasons for attributing relative credibility to various witnesses. The court concluded that the Board had not adopted the 1987 plan with the intent to discriminate against blacks or Mexican-Americans, and that valid educational concerns were served by the plan's adoption and implementation. Price, 729 F.Supp. at 549.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

We review the district court's factual findings for clear error. The determination that AISD did not purposefully discriminate in violation of the Constitution is a factual finding, reviewable only under the clearly erroneous standard. Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 573, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 1511, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985); Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 456 U.S. 273, 287, 102 S.Ct. 1781, 1789, 72 L.Ed.2d 66 (1982); Norris v. Hartmarx Specialty Stores, Inc., 913 F.2d 253, 255 (5th Cir.1990). "If the district court's findings are plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety, we must accept them, even though we might have weighed the evidence differently if we had been sitting as a trier of fact." Norris, 913 F.2d at 255.

Rule 52(a) emphasizes the deference to be given the trial judge's findings when they rest on credibility determinations: "due regard shall be given the opportunity of the trial court to judge the credibility of the witnesses." Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a). We therefore must apply the clear error standard with particular care in cases involving demeanor testimony. See, e.g., Anderson, 470 U.S. at 575, 105...