United States v. Halifax County Board of Education
| Decision Date | 23 May 1970 |
| Docket Number | No. 1128-Civ.,1128-Civ. |
| Citation | 314 F. Supp. 65 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of North Carolina |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, (Original), Plaintiff, v. HALIFAX COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION, a body corporate, Ferd L. Harrison, as Mayor of the Town of Scotland Neck, J. A. Andrews, F. G. Shearin, Frank B. Shields and J. I. Walston, Members of the Board of Commissioners of the Town of Scotland Neck, and the Town of Scotland Neck, a public body corporate, (Original) Defendants, and The Scotland Neck City Board of Education, a body corporate, (Additional) Defendant, and Maryetta Richardson and her infant children, Montenia, Timmie, Charlotte and Jimmy Richardson (Haliwa Indians), on behalf of several other hundred citizens and residents of Halifax County and Warren County, North Carolina, (Additional) Defendants, and Robert Morgan, Attorney General of North Carolina in behalf of the State of North Carolina, (Additional) Defendant, and Pattie Black Cotton, Edward M. Francis, and others, (Additional) Plaintiffs, and Mr. Henry Overman, Superintendent of Halifax County Schools, the Board of Commissioners of Halifax County, Scotland Neck City Board of Education, Franklin B. Bailey, Superintendent of Scotland Neck City Schools, Littleton-Lake Gaston School District and Russell N. Manning, Superintendent of Littleton-Lake Gaston School District, and the North Carolina State Board of Education, and Dr. Craig Phillips, North Carolina State Superintendent of Public Instruction, (Additional) Defendants. |
Charles K. Howard, Jr., Atty., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., Warren H. Coolidge, U. S. Atty., Raleigh, N. C., for the United States.
W. Lunsford Crew, of Crew & Moseley, Roanoke Rapids, N. C., for Halifax County Bd. of Education.
C. Kitchin Josey, Scotland Neck, N. C., Walton K. Joyner, Raleigh, N. C., for The Scotland Neck City Bd. of Education.
Ralph Moody, Deputy Atty. Gen., Dept. of Justice, Raleigh, N. C., for Robert Morgan.
James R. Walker, Jr., Weldon, N. C., Samuel S. Mitchell, Raleigh, N. C., for Pattie Black Cotton and others.
William S. McLean, of McLean, Stacy, Henry & McLean, Lumberton, N. C., for Littleton-Lake Gaston School District.
Robert Morgan, Atty. Gen. of N. C., Raleigh, N. C., for North Carolina State Bd. of Education and Dr. Craig Phillips.
Rom B. Parker, of Parker & Dickens, Enfield, N. C., for Bd. of County Commissioners of Halifax County.
The subject of this opinion and one of the primary issues in this case is the constitutionality of Chapter 31 of the North Carolina Session Laws of 1969,1 a local act which carved out of the Halifax County, North Carolina, school system a separate administrative unit for the operation of the public schools in Scotland Neck, a town with a population of approximately 3000 located in the southeastern section of Halifax County. The plaintiff contends that the act is unconstitutional and that its implementation should be permanently enjoined because the act is inconsistent with the State's duty under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to dismantle its dual school system. Defendants Scotland Neck City Board of Education and the State of North Carolina contend that the act is not violative of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States.
This controversy came before the court upon the filing of plaintiff's complaint on June 16, 1969, attacking the constitutionality of Chapter 31 of the Session Laws of 1969 and seeking to require the Halifax County Board of Education to desegregate its school system. Following a three-day hearing on plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction in Raleigh, North Carolina, this court, on August 25, 1969, entered a Memorandum Opinion and Order enjoining the Scotland Neck City Board of Education additional defendants and its officers and agents, etc., from taking any further action pursuant to the provisions of Chapter 31 pending a final determination on the merits of the constitutional questions raised by plaintiff's challenge of the act.
On October 30, 1969, this Court allowed certain named Haliwa Indians to intervene and on November 3, 1969, this court entered an Order allowing Robert B. Morgan, Attorney General of North Carolina, to intervene as a defendant on behalf of the State of North Carolina.
On January 9, 1970 the court allowed the motion for leave to intervene on behalf of Pattie Black Cotton, Edward M. Francis and others, and ordered additional defendants named therein to plead within 20 days.
This court scheduled a hearing on the merits of the constitutionality of Chapter 31 and similar questions in the case of Turner et al. v. Warren County Board of Education et al., Raleigh Division, for Wednesday, December 17, 1969. A trial on the merits in this case and the Turner et al. v. Warren County Board of Education et al. case was conducted by this court on December 17 and 18, 1969. Following the trial, this court carefully considered the transcripts, exhibits, briefs, depositions and arguments of counsel; and, now being fully advised in the premises, the court makes the following Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law.
Scotland Neck, a small town with a present population of approximately 3000 is located in the southeastern corner of Halifax County, a rural and agricultural region of North Carolina which has a predominantly black population. The population of the town itself is approximately 50% white and 50% black.
The schools within the corporate limits of Scotland Neck were operated as a city administrative unit until 1936 at which time they became part of the Halifax County unit pursuant to a procedure authorized by the General Statutes of North Carolina.2 The construction of the elementary school in 1903 and the high school in 1923 was financed entirely by local funds.
Following the consolidation with Halifax County in 1936, the schools of Scotland Neck were operated as part of a dual school system, completely segregated, until 1965, at which time the Halifax County Board of Education adopted a freedom-of-choice plan for the assignment of pupils. The county maintained the freedom-of-choice assignment plan for the next three years during which a few black students attended formerly all-white schools and no white students attended formerly all-black schools. For example, during the 1967-68 school year, all of the white students and 97% of the black students attended schools previously maintained for their own races. In that year, 10 of the 450 teachers in 18 schools were assigned across racial lines. About 35 black students attended the Scotland Neck schools during the 1967-68 school year.
On July 27, 1968, the United States Department of Justice, pursuant to its authority under Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, sent the Halifax County Board of Education a "notice letter" which advised that Halifax County had failed to disestablish its dual school system and that additional steps should be taken for the Board to be in compliance with the United States Supreme Court's decision in Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, 391 U.S. 430, 88 S.Ct. 1689, 20 L.Ed.2d 716 (1968). Negotiations ensued between the attorneys for the Justice Department and the Halifax County School Board, and a tentative agreement was reached whereby the Board would disestablish the dual school system by the commencement of the 1969-70 school year and would implement certain intermediate steps at the beginning of the 1968-69 school year. The Justice Department agreed to withhold suit in consideration of the promises made by the Board.
The negotiations and the Board's promise to desegregate its schools were well-publicized in the local press. The newspaper in Scotland Neck reported on August 9, 1968, that the county had been ordered to end its dual school system and that there were several forms of grade organization, such as zoning or pairing of schools, which would be more effective than the freedom-of-choice plan as a means of converting to a unitary non-racial school system. The portion of the agreement which affected the Scotland Neck schools, that is, the proposed combining of the seventh and eighth grades of the previously all-black Brawley school, just outside the corporate limits of Scotland Neck, with the all-white junior high, was also publicized in the Scotland Neck newspaper on August 16, 1968.
On or about July 1, 1968, in anticipation of their obligation to comply with the Green decision, the Halifax County Board of Education asked the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction to conduct a school survey to determine the steps necessary for the Board to meet its desegregation obligations and to recommend "the most effective organizational patterns for the county schools in order to insure the best education possible for the children." The survey, prepared in response to the request, was completed in December 1968. It recommended as an Interim Plan a combination of geographic zoning with grade reorganizations at some schools, including the pairing of the predominantly white Scotland Neck school and the all-black Brawley school with respect to certain grades. The Long Range plan suggested the construction of two new consolidated high schools to be financed by a proposed four million dollar bond issue. The survey also recommended that the county schools be consolidated with the schools in the city units of Roanoke Rapids and Weldon (two city administrative units also located within Halifax County). The Halifax County Board of Education subsequently declined to implement the plan which would have resulted in a majority of black students in 17 of the 18 schools in the Halifax County system.3
The legislative bill proposing the creation of a separate administrative...
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