Rackley v. SCHOOL DISTRICT NUMBER 5, ORANGEBURG COUNTY, SC

• Decision Date: 16 September 1966
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 8458.
• Citation: 258 F. Supp. 676
• Parties: Gloria B. RACKLEY, Plaintiff, v. SCHOOL DISTRICT NUMBER 5, ORANGEBURG COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA, a public body corporate, and Larry R. Wells, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of School District Number 5, Orangeburg County, Dr. Harvey Atwill, Jr., R. S. Williams, Jr., Talley Smith, and Edgar Culler, Members of the Board of Trustees of School District Number 5, Orangeburg County, South Carolina, and H. A. Marshall, Superintendent of School District Number 5, Orangeburg County, South Carolina, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of South Carolina

258 F. Supp. 676

Gloria B. RACKLEY, Plaintiff, v. SCHOOL DISTRICT NUMBER 5, ORANGEBURG COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA, a public body corporate, and Larry R. Wells, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of School District Number 5, Orangeburg County, Dr. Harvey Atwill, Jr., R. S. Williams, Jr., Talley Smith, and Edgar Culler, Members of the Board of Trustees of School District Number 5, Orangeburg County, South Carolina, and H. A. Marshall, Superintendent of School District Number 5, Orangeburg County, South Carolina, Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 8458.

United States District Court D. South Carolina, Orangeburg Division.

September 16, 1966.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Matthew J. Perry, Lincoln C. Jenkins, Jr., Columbia, S. C., Earl W. Coblyn, Zack E. Townsend, Orangeburg, S. C., Jack Greenberg, New York City, for plaintiff.

Hugo S. Sims, Jr., Sims & Sims, C. Walker Limehouse, Orangeburg, S. C., for defendants.

ORDER

SIMONS, District Judge.

This is a suit in equity wherein the plaintiff prays for a preliminary and permanent injunction enjoining School District No. 5, Orangeburg County, South Carolina, its members and its Superintendent, from refusing to reinstate plaintiff, Gloria B. Rackley, to her position as a teacher in the school systems of School District No. 5, Orangeburg County, because she has from time to time engaged in certain activities protected by the United States Constitution, and to enjoin the defendants from withholding from the plaintiff all salaries, expenses and emoluments which rightfully accrue to her on account of said employment, and from offering plaintiff a contract to teach in the defendant school system on this account.

The defendant by answer admitted that on October 7, 1963 H. A. Marshall, Superintendent of District No. 5, wrote the plaintiff as follows:

"Dear Mrs. Rackley:

"The purpose of this letter is to confirm to you in writing the fact that I have this day relieved you of all duties in connection with your position as a teacher in School District Number 5, Orangeburg County.

"This is also to notify you that I intend to recommend to the board of trustees at its next meeting on Monday, October 14, 1963, that they discharge you for cause. If you desire a hearing before the board concerning this matter, please advise me in writing by October 11, 1963.

"My recommendation to the board that you be discharged is based on an investigation into your personal conduct which revealed, among other things, that:

"(1) You were a leader and spokesman of a group of approximately two hundred demonstrators who breached the peace of the community on September 28, 1963, and that your conduct was such that it encouraged juveniles to break the law, jeer at policemen, promote violence, and disturb good order and public tranquility.

"(2) You have been arrested a number of times recently for trespassing on the property of other people, including once in Orangeburg on August 31, 1963, and once in Charleston on June 13, 1963.

"(3) You were arrested on September 7, 1963, for distributing handbills on the streets of Orangeburg in violation of a city ordinance.

"It would appear that you have become so rabid in your desire for social reform that you are advocating breaking the law as a means of calling attention to what you consider your grievances. A teacher in the public schools cannot advocate lawlessness without destroying her usefulness in teaching young people.

"Sincerely yours "H. A. Marshall "Superintendent."

Jurisdiction is based upon Title 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3), Title 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983, 1985 and the First, Fifth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. The sole issue is whether the defendant School Board, exercising its discretionary powers under the facts here, was justified in terminating the employment of plaintiff for cause during the school year 1963-64 while she was under contract and in failing to offer her reemployment as a teacher in subsequent years. This case was heard on September 2, 1965,¹ and from the evidence presented the court makes the following findings of fact and conclusions of law:

FINDINGS OF FACT

1. Plaintiff is a Negro citizen of the United States, and at the commencement of this action was a citizen of South Carolina residing at Orangeburg, South Carolina. By vocation she is a school teacher holding Bachelor and Master of Science Degrees. In plaintiff's employment in School District No. 5 her capability and performance was characterized as "excellent". Her classroom performance, attitude, and relation to her superiors were unquestioned,² there being no contention on the part of defendants that she was not a very capable, qualified and competent classroom teacher.

2. Plaintiff was an active member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and was an ardent leader in the civil rights movement in Orangeburg County and other areas of South Carolina. She engaged in peaceful picketing and demonstrations designed to end segregated practices in places of public accommodation such as hospitals, lunch counters, hotel dining rooms, and public restrooms. As a consequence of her participation in these demonstrations plaintiff was arrested on several occasions and charged with various offenses including breach of peace, trespass, and distributing handbills. She was adjudged guilty in the cases that were tried and appealed in all instances. These appeals were still outstanding when the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000a et seq., was signed into law on July 2, 1964. Other charges in the City of Orangeburg have never been brought to trial.

3. For the school year 1963-64 plaintiff's salary was $4845, of which she was paid a total of $780.39 for twenty-nine days' work. She was discharged "for cause" by the Board of Trustees, upon recommendation of the Superintendent, effective October 15, 1963, by letter of L. R. Wells, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of defendant School District. She has not been paid the balance of her salary, to wit, the sum of $4064.61 according to her contract with the School District for the school year 1963-64. Subsequent to her discharge, she has not been offered reemployment by the School Board for any later school year. During the period from October 1963 to September 1964 she was employed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for a total of ten weeks on a part-time basis earning a total of $900 for this employment. In September 1964 she began teaching at Norfolk State College in Norfolk, Virginia at $6500 per year, substantially more than she had received as a teacher in School District No. 5. She has continued to teach there at a salary considerably in excess of the salary she received while teaching in the Orangeburg public schools; thus, beginning with the school year 1964-65 she has suffered no monetary damages as a result of the termination of her employment by defendants. Nevertheless, at the hearing before the court, plaintiff testified that she wanted to return to her home in Orangeburg and again teach school there.

4. Although plaintiff's contract was ultimately terminated by the Board of Trustees of School District No. 5, the actual determination to fire Mrs. Rackley was instigated by the Superintendent, H. A. Marshall, who recommended to the Board of Trustees that she be discharged for the reasons stated in his letter of October 7, 1963 to plaintiff, supra. Although the Superintendent testified inter alia that plaintiff's contract had been terminated because she had left an extra-curricular teacher's workshop early so as to participate in civil rights activities, thereby implying that her duties as a teacher were neglected, it is obvious that the real complaint against plaintiff was her civil rights activities.³ Defendant's failure to offer plaintiff a teaching position for the 1964-65, 1965-66, and 1966-67 school years was for the same reason.

5. Plaintiff was initially employed by defendant school district as a substitute teacher in the early part of the 1958-59 school year. She completed the last semester of that school year as a full-time teacher. She was employed as a full-time teacher from that time until her employment was terminated October 15, 1963.

6. Defendant school district's first dissatisfaction with plaintiff occurred as a result of an injury to plaintiff's fourteen year old daughter on October 12, 1961. (See testimony of Superintendent Marshall in Note 3, supra.) Following the injury plaintiff took her daughter to the Orangeburg Regional Hospital. After their arrival she was subsequently shown to a waiting room. Without explanation to her she was later directed to another waiting room reserved for colored persons. She refused to enter and returned to the white waiting room. When the police arrived she went into the hall and left with her daughter without further incident some minutes later. Two weeks thereafter when plaintiff returned her daughter to the hospital for further treatment, the same incident occurred but this time plaintiff refused to leave, whereupon both plaintiff and her daughter were arrested for "disturbing the business of the hospital."

7. The following spring, Superintendent Marshall held up her employment contract for 1962-63 until he could counsel her. He explained that what had happened was "embarrassing to the school system and particularly to our profession." He testified that there were no unpleasantries, but "cautioned her in terms of the image that is created on the part of a professional group of people like teachers." The next day plaintiff received a letter notifying her that she had been elected for another year's employment. Plaintiff and her daughter later brought a class action that resulted in a desegregation of the entire hospital facility. See Rackley v. Board of Trustees of the Orangeburg Regional Hosp., D.C., 238 F.Supp. 512 (1965). See also 310 F.2d 141 (1962), and D.C., ...