US v. COUNTY SCHOOL BD., PRINCE GEORGE COUNTY, VA.
| Decision Date | 24 June 1963 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 3536. |
| Citation | 221 F. Supp. 93 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America v. COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD OF PRINCE GEORGE COUNTY, VIRGINIA, James O. Morehead, Division Superintendent of Schools of Prince George County, E. J. Oglesby, Edward T. Justice and Alfred L. Wingo, Members of the Pupil Placement Board, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Virginia |
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED
St. John Barrett, John Ossea, Jr., Washington, D. C., Attys., Dept. of Justice, C. V. Spratley, Jr., U. S. Atty. (Harold H. Greene and Alan G. Marer, Attys., Dept. of Justice, on briefs), for United States.
John S. Battle, Jr., Richmond, Va., F. L. Wyche, Commonwealth Atty. for Prince George County, for County School Bd. of Prince George County and James O. Morehead.
A. B. Scott, Richmond, Va., for Pupil Placement Bd., E. J. Oglesby, Edward T. Justice and Alfred L. Wingo.
Robert Y. Button, Atty. Gen. of Virginia, R. D. McIlwaine, III, Asst. Atty. Gen. of Virginia, for Commonwealth of Virginia.
The United States seeks an injunction requiring the defendants to admit Negro children who are dependents of military and civilian personnel stationed or employed at Fort Lee, Virginia to schools attended only by white pupils.
The United States bases its claim upon two grounds; first, that pursuant to P.L. 815, Chapter 19 of Title 20 U.S.C. (20 U.S.C. § 631 et seq.), the Prince George County School Board gave assurance that its school facilities will be available to the federally-connected children on the same terms in accordance with the laws of the State as they are available to local children. The plaintiff urges that this is a contractual obligation or a statutory obligation.
The second ground is that the defendants have unlawfully burdened the United States in the exercise of its war powers under the Constitution.
The principal defense raised by motions and answers is that the United States does not have standing to assert the claim set forth in the complaint. The defendants also allege that the attorneys of record for the plaintiff have no authority to prosecute the suit and that the complaint does not state a claim upon which relief can be granted. They deny that the assurance given by the County School Board constitutes either a contractual or statutory obligation and they further deny that they are burdening the plaintiff in the exercise of its war power.
The Commonwealth of Virginia also asserts that it is not a necessary or proper party.
There is little material conflict in the evidence. The Court finds the following facts.
Fort Lee is situated in Prince George County, Virginia. It is the home of the United States Army Quartermaster School and the United States Army Logistical Management Center. Also stationed at the Fort are various other army units.
Approximately 5,000 military personnel are stationed at the Fort, of whom 694 are Negroes. The Army employs about 2,000 civilians there, of whom 350 are Negroes. The school-age dependents of military personnel include 159 Negroes. The school-age dependents of civilian personnel include 426 Negroes.
The Government maintains 1,484 family housing units on the Fort. More than 600 Negroes live on the post, and of these, 57 have families living with them.
None of the facilities and activities on the post is segregated on the basis of race or color.
No educational facilities are maintained on the post for the education of the dependents of the service men except a nursery for pre-school children. Children living on the post obtain their education in public and private schools in the Fort Lee area.
The County School Board of Prince George County administers 11 public schools. The following schools are attended solely by white children: William A. Walton Elementary, Carson Elementary, Disputanta Elementary, Burrowsville Elementary, and Prince George Junior-Senior High School.
The following are attended solely by Negro children: Burrowsville Graded Elementary, Providence Elementary, Bessie H. Mason Elementary, Old Academy Elementary, Harrison Grove Elementary, and J. E. J. Moore Junior-Senior High School.
The Pupil Placement Board is an agency of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Pursuant to Section 22-232.1, Code of Virginia, 1950, as amended, it is vested with the power of placing pupils in public schools.
The School Board of Prince George County accepts applications for placement in the public schools in the County on a standard form issued by the Pupil Placement Board. The applications are transmitted by the School Board to the Pupil Placement Board for assignment of the child to a particular school.
The School Board recommends to the Pupil Placement Board the assignment. The School Board has not heretofore recommended the placement of any Negro children in a school attended by white children nor has it recommended the placement of a white child in a school attended by Negroes. It is the practice of the Pupil Placement Board routinely to approve the recommendations of the School Board as to placement of the children in particular schools, unless the parent or guardian of a child has requested a school assignment different from that recommended by the School Board. The Pupil Placement Board has never acted contrary to a placement recommendation by the School Board.
The Pupil Placement Board ordinarily does not consider a request for placement or transfer to a specific school in September other than a school in the usual attendance area of a child, unless the request is filed no later than May 31.
For the past several years the County School Board has had an informal agreement with the School Board of the City of Petersburg, Virginia, to provide for the education of the children of Negro military personnel residing at Fort Lee in the Petersburg schools. A directive issued by the headquarters of Fort Lee on July 23, 1962, advised Negro parents of this. The arrangement was suspended by the Superintendent of Schools of Petersburg on or about September 15, 1962, because of the crowded conditions of the Petersburg schools. There are no present plans to reinstate the agreement. However, during the 1962-1963 school term Negro children from Fort Lee attended school in Petersburg.
In August 1962 eight Negro members of the Armed Forces residing at Fort Lee, applied at white schools in Prince George County for the enrollment of their children. Shortly thereafter, the Division Superintendent of Prince George Schools, wrote the parents that they should request application for placement of the pupils by the Pupil Placement Board through the City School Board of Petersburg.
In September the County School Board transmitted to the Pupil Placement Board the pupil placement applications made by the Negroes mentioned above. The County School Board recommended that the children be placed in schools of the City of Petersburg. The Pupil Placement Board did not consider the applications upon their merits, but routinely approved the School Board's recommendation on the ground that each of the requests for placement had been filed after May 31, 1962. In its letter advising the parents of this action the Pupil Placement Board stated that the placement was made without prejudice to the parents' right to make application for the school year 1963-1964, prior to June 1, 1963.
The Pupil Placement Board had previously, upon the basis of prior pupil placement applications filed by the same parents with the Superintendent of Schools of the City of Petersburg, placed seven of the Negro children in Petersburg schools. At the time the Pupil Placement Board denied the second applications, seven of the children were in attendance in schools in Petersburg. The eighth child was attending a parochial school.
Several other Negro members of the Armed Forces arrived at Fort Lee after the school term opened in September. Their children were not sent to Petersburg because by that time Petersburg had terminated its arrangement for educating the children of Fort Lee Negro personnel. These children were tentatively placed by the County School Board in Negro schools in the County. Under the prevailing practice, the Pupil Placement Board made routine formal assignment of the children in the same schools.
None of the children, or their parents, exhausted the administrative remedies of the Pupil Placement Board.
Since the opening of the school term in the Fall of 1962, the School Board has accepted 338 children for enrollment in the public schools in the County. Of these, 63 have been enrolled and placed in William A. Walton Elementary School.
The School Board of Prince George County has applied for and received from the United States under P.L. 815, Chapter 19 of Title 20, U.S.C. (20 U.S.C. § 631 et seq.), the following grants for the construction of schools in Prince George County on account of the federally-connected children attending the Prince George County schools:
Date of
Approval School Amount
6/20/51 Prince George Junior-Senior High $364,008.00
11/ 8/55 Same (addition) 159,695.00
3/22/56 J. E. J. Moore Junior-Senior High 87,685.00
8/24/59 Wm. A. Walton Elementary 600,400.00
1/23/62 New Elementary School 94,500.00
6/27/62 New Elementary School 99,663.50
Pursuant to 20 U.S.C. § 636(b) (1) (F), the County School Board, when applying for each of the foregoing grants, gave assurance that its "* * * school facilities * * * will be available to the children for whose education contributions are provided in Title 2 of Public Law 815 on the same terms, in accordance with the laws of the State in which Applicant is situated, as they are available to other children in Applicant's school district".
In 1950 at the time of ...
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