Robinson v. Shelby County Board of Education, 20629.
| Decision Date | 10 May 1971 |
| Docket Number | No. 20629.,20629. |
| Citation | 442 F.2d 255 |
| Parties | Claude Bernard ROBINSON and Julia D. Robinson, Infants, by Melvin Robinson, Their Father and Next Friend, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. SHELBY COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION et al., Defendants-Appellees, United States of America, by Ramsey Clark, Acting Attorney General, Plaintiff-Intervenor. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Norman J. Chachkin, New York City, for plaintiffs-appellants; William E. Caldwell, Walter L. Bailey, Jr., Russell B. Sugarmon, Jr., Ratner, Sugarmon & Lucas, Memphis, Tenn., Jack Greenberg, New York City, on brief.
R. Lee Winchester, Jr., Memphis, Tenn., for defendants-appellees; Goff, Winchester & Walsh, Memphis, Tenn., on brief.
Before WEICK, McCREE and MILLER, Circuit Judges.
This is an appeal from a District Court order approving, with minor modifications, the most recent desegregation plan proffered by appellee Board of Education. The original suit in this controversy was commenced on June 12, 1963 to compel the desegregation of the public schools within the district consisting of all Shelby County, Tennessee, outside the City of Memphis. This court recently was presented another aspect of this case in defendants' appeal from a District Court order rejecting a plan submitted by the Board of Education prior to the 1969-70 school year. At the same time, we were presented a companion appeal, brought by plaintiffs from a District Court order denying their motion to require adoption of a unitary system immediately. Before we reached a decision on the merits of those appeals, the 1969-70 school year ended and the District Court entered, on April 6, 1970, the opinion and order which is the subject of this appeal. We therefore dismissed the earlier appeals as moot. A more detailed discussion of the recent history of this case is included in the District Court's April 6 opinion which is published as Robinson v. Shelby County Bd. of Educ., 311 F. Supp. 97, 99-101 (W.D.Tenn.1970).
Under the plan approved by the District Court, no pupil is allowed to attend a school outside the zone in which he lives except for very limited administrative or educational reasons. The court found that, with one exception, the boundaries of the proposed zones were not gerrymandered to preserve segregation. After the gerrymandered boundary was changed, the court approved the Board's plan.
The court also had before it the suggestions of the Title IV Consulting Center of the University of Tennessee and the suggestions of the United States Attorney General. The primary differences between the Board's plan and the suggestions of the Center and the Attorney General are summarized in the court's opinion. In three instances, the Center and the Attorney General would pair two schools. Under the Board's plan, each of these schools constituted a separately zoned school. In one instance, the Center and the Attorney General would close a school and consolidate its students with those of another nearby school. Additionally, both the Center and the Attorney General suggested changing the line dividing two zones in order to improve the racial balance in the affected schools. Finally, the Center recommended another change in the location of a boundary between two zones. Each of the changes proposed by the Center and the Attorney General would significantly increase the effectiveness of the plan in disestablishing the state-imposed segregation. However, the District Judge concluded that:
* * * a school system that has honestly drawn unitary geographical zone lines, that is, zones not gerrymandered to preserve segregation, and that severely limits transfers as hereinafter provided, is not a "dual system" with respect to pupils. We also should state * * * that any proposal of the defendant Board that is constitutional must be approved. 311 F.Supp. at 102-103. (Footnote omitted).
Although this may be a correct statement of the duty imposed upon a school district which has not practiced racial segregation, it does not apply here where there has been a long history of segregated education. In this case, the Supreme Court has recognized the affirmative duty of the lower courts to require the eradication of the effects of past unlawful discrimination in this language:
We bear in mind that the court has not merely the power but the duty to render a decree which will so far as possible eliminate the discriminatory effects of the past as well as bar like discrimination in the future. Green v. County School Bd. of New Kent County, 391 U.S. 430, 438 n. 4, 88 S.Ct. 1689, 1694, 20 L.Ed.2d 716 (1968).
The Court also stated that:
It is incumbent upon the school board to establish that its proposed plan promises meaningful and immediate progress toward disestablishing state-imposed segregation. It is incumbent upon the district court to weigh that claim in light of the facts at hand and in light of any alternatives which may be shown as feasible and more promising in their effectiveness. Id. at 439, 88 S.Ct. at 1695.
We have restated the duty of a school board to eradicate the effects of its prior policies of segregation. In Kelley v. Metropolitan County Bd. of Educ. of Nashville and Davidson County, 436 F.2d 856 (6th Cir. 1970), we quoted with approval the language of the District Court to illustrate our interpretation of the Supreme Court's mandate:
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Cunningham v. Grayson
...Dist., 443 F.2d 573, 577 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 913, 92 S.Ct. 233, 30 L.Ed.2d 186 (1971); Robinson v. Shelby County Bd. of Educ., 442 F.2d 255, 258 (6th Cir. 1971); Mapp v. Board of Educ., 329 F.Supp. 1374, 1383 (E.D.Tenn.1971), aff'd, 477 F.2d 851 (6th Cir.) (en banc), cert. de......
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...A-5 and A-6. 16 See, e. g.: Robinson v. Shelby Co. Bd. of Educ., 311 F.Supp. 97, 105 (W.D.Tenn.1970), remanded on other grounds, 442 F.2d 255 (6th Cir. 1971) (ratio of white to black teachers in each school to be, within a tolerance of 10%, the same as in the system as a whole); Board of Ed......
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Kelley v. Metropolitan Cty. Bd. of Ed. of Nashville, Tenn.
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Robinson v. Shelby County Bd. of Educ.
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