Valley v. Rapides Parish School Bd., s. 80-3722

• Decision Date: 18 May 1981
• Docket Number: 80-3988,80-3008,Nos. 80-3722,81-3013,80-3776,80-3855,81-3033 and 81-3083,s. 80-3722
• Citation: 646 F.2d 925
• Parties: Virgie Lee VALLEY et al., Plaintiff-Appellee, United States of America, Intervenor-Appellee, v. RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL BOARD et al., Defendants-Appellants. Virgie Lee VALLEY et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, United States of America, Intervenor-Appellee, v. RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL BOARD et al., Defendants, Clyde Holloway et al., Defendants-Appellants. Virgie Lee VALLEY et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL BOARD, Defendant, v. Nelson LaBORDE et al., Intervenors-Appellants, v. UNITED STATES of America, Intervenor-Appellee. Virgie Lee VALLEY et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, United States of America, Intervenor-Appellee, v. RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL BOARD, Defendant, Marshall T. Cappel, Sheriff of Rapides Parish, Movant-Appellant. Virgie Lee VALLEY et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL BOARD, Defendant, v. Nelson LaBORDE et al., Intervenors-Appellants, v. UNITED STATES of America, Intervenor-Appellee. Virgie Lee VALLEY et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, and United States of America, Intervenor-Appellee, v. RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL BOARD, Defendant, State of Louisiana et al., Defendants-Appellants. . Unit A
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 925

646 F.2d 925

Virgie Lee VALLEY et al., Plaintiff-Appellee, United States of America, Intervenor-Appellee, v. RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL BOARD et al., Defendants-Appellants.

Virgie Lee VALLEY et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, United States of America, Intervenor-Appellee, v. RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL BOARD et al., Defendants, Clyde Holloway et al., Defendants-Appellants.

Virgie Lee VALLEY et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL BOARD, Defendant, v. Nelson LaBORDE et al., Intervenors-Appellants, v. UNITED STATES of America, Intervenor-Appellee.

Virgie Lee VALLEY et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, United States of America, Intervenor-Appellee, v. RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL BOARD, Defendant, Marshall T. Cappel, Sheriff of Rapides Parish, Movant-Appellant.

Virgie Lee VALLEY et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL BOARD, Defendant, v. Nelson LaBORDE et al., Intervenors-Appellants, v. UNITED STATES of America, Intervenor-Appellee.

Virgie Lee VALLEY et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, and United States of America, Intervenor-Appellee, v. RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL BOARD, Defendant, State of Louisiana et al., Defendants-Appellants.

Nos. 80-3722, 80-3776, 80-3855, 80-3988, 80-3008, 81-3013,

81-3033 and 81-3083.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Unit A

May 18, 1981.

Rehearing Denied No. 80-3988 July 9, 1981.

Opinion on Rehearing, No. 80-3722 Aug. 14, 1981.

See 653 F.2d 941.

John F. Ward, Jr., Robert L. Hammonds, Baton Rouge, La., for Rapides Parish School Board.

Daniel Popeo, Gen. Counsel, Washington, D.C., amicus curiae, for Washington Legal Foundation.

Michael R. Connelly, Baton Rouge, La., amicus curiae for Justice Foundation.

Louis Berry, C. Spencer Torry, Alexandria, La., for Valley in all cases.

Walter W. Barnett, Atty., Carol E. Heckman, James P. Turner, Dept. of Justice, Civil Rights Div., Washington, D.C., for U. S. A.

Christopher J. Roy, Alexandria, La., Professor Paul Baier, Baton Rouge, La., for Holloway, et al., defendants-appellants in No. 80-3776 and as intervenors-appellants in No. 80-3855.

J. Minos Simon, Lafayette, La., for LaBorde.

Charles F. Wagner, Pineville, La., for Cappel.

Ellis C. Magee, Asst. Atty. Gen., Thomas F. Wade, Baton Rouge, La., for State of La.

Christopher J. Roy, Alexandria, La., for Judge Lee.

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

Before COLEMAN, GARZA and SAM D. JOHNSON, Circuit Judges.

GARZA, Circuit Judge:

Twenty-seven years after Brown v. Board of Education and sixteen years after the commencement of this litigation, we are confronted with yet another set of appeals arising from implementation of the command to desegregate public schools in Rapides Parish, Louisiana. The current appeals stem from the district court's response to a Motion for Supplemental Relief filed by the private plaintiffs in 1979. We consolidated them for argument, and now render our decision in each by this opinion.

Though the Rapides Parish School Board was long ago admonished of its continuing duty to accomplish the dismantling of racial duality in pupil and staff assignments, complex and important issues have been raised by the effort to achieve this goal. Is the school system fully unitary? If not, what further relief is required? Are the orders issued below a proper response to the facts of the case and previous directives of this court?

Sadly, these are not the only issues. This case has been unnecessarily complicated by the failure of all parties in interest to adequately aid the district court, as well as by overt interference with and defiance of its orders by certain elements in the community. We are therefore called upon to decide whether additional orders issued by the district court in aid of its jurisdiction and authority were within the permissible bounds of discretion.

BACKGROUND

While Rapides Parish is predominantly rural, it contains one large city, Alexandria. A single school system serves the entire parish. Prior to 1965, the system was classically dual, with one set of schools operated for white pupils and another for blacks.

This litigation was instituted on March 23, 1965, and resulted in the employment of a number of devices to establish a unitary system. Originally, the district court approved a desegregation plan relying on "free transfer" provisions, which remained in effect until 1969. Under its operation, white pupils continued to attend all-white schools and more than 96 per cent of black pupils continued to attend all black schools.

The plaintiffs moved for supplemental relief following the Supreme Court's decision in Green v. School Board of New Kent County, 391 U.S. 430, 88 S.Ct. 1698, 20 L.Ed.2d 716 (1968), invalidating a freedom of choice plan which had failed to achieve meaningful desegregation. The district court held that the plan then in effect did create a real prospect of dismantling the dual school system. Conley v. Lake Charles School Board, 293 F.Supp. 84, 88 (W.D.La.1968).

We reversed and remanded for the implementation of a new plan. Hall v. St. Helena Parish School Board, 417 F.2d 801 (5 Cir. 1969), cert. denied 396 U.S. 904, 90 S.Ct. 218, 24 L.Ed.2d 180 (1969). Upon review of the relevant statistical facts, it was held "abundantly clear that freedom of choice as presently constituted and operating does not offer the 'real prospect' contemplated by Green." 417 F.2d 801 at 809. Alternative measures were suggested, including "geographic zoning pairing of grades or of schools, educational clusters or parks, discontinuance of use of substandard buildings and premises, rearrangement of transportation routes, consolidation of schools, appropriate location of new construction, and majority-to-minority transfers." Id.

Once again, however, there was a disparity between the intended effect of relief and the actual result. In 1969 and 1970, the court below adopted three neighborhood zoning plans, each of which was reversed for failure to present an adequate prospect of dismantling the dual school system.

In July of 1969, the court approved a plan offered by the school board which relied on neighborhood zoning or partial pairing, but left 13 schools over 90 per cent black. This court reversed and remanded in Valley v. Rapides Parish School Board, 422 F.2d 814 (5 Cir. 1970), again ordering the formulation of a new plan.

The district court next chose a school board plan which made minimal student assignment changes, citing "the extreme shortness of time confronting the school board." We reversed summarily, remanding the case with "instructions to the district court to implement pendente lite (a plan offered by HEW) or a plan devised by the district court to accomplish a unitary system within the teachings of Green v. County School Board." Valley v. Rapides Parish School Board, 423 F.2d 1132, 1133 (5 Cir. 1970).

On remand, the district court adopted its own plan for Wards 1 and 8 of the parish, which encompass the city of Alexandria. (See the map of Rapides Parish attached as an appendix hereto.) The plan assigned pupils in those wards to the schools nearest their homes, and reinstated previous plans for the remaining wards with some modifications. Once again, this court was obliged to partially reverse. In Valley v. Rapides Parish School Board, 434 F.2d 144, 145 (5 Cir. 1970), those portions of the order below "which (did) not concern either student assignment in Wards 1 and 8 or the majority-to-minority transfer policy" were affirmed. As for the city wards, the court noted that black pupils accounted for 47 per cent of the total enrollment and held:

Because of the residential dichotomy between Alexandria's black and white citizens, the so-called "neighborhood school plan" adopted by the district court, although admittedly impartial as to race, still leaves 60% of the black students in schools where their race is an approximately 90% or greater majority. Of the twenty-four remaining schools seven remain predominantly negro.

The end result is that neighborhood zoning in Alexandria, Louisiana, leaves the majority of the city's negro students in a virtually segregated school system. Id.

The court then set out in detail a plan to remedy the deficiency in eliminating racially identifiable schools, and ordered the district court to implement that plan or one which would achieve the same result. Notably, it was admonished that "(T)he fact that the plan complies with the requirements for a neighborhood system as enunciated by this court in Ellis v. Board of Public Instruction of Orange County, Florida, (5 Cir. 1970), 423 F.2d 203, does not make the system constitutionally palatable unless the plan actually works to achieve integration." Id.

Following this remand, a geographic plan for Wards 1, 8 and 9 was devised and implemented. The district court retained jurisdiction. In 1973 and 1974, the United States, as intervenor, moved for supplemental relief. It alleged that enrollments projected under the 1971 plan had not been met, and pointed to the continued existence of racially identifiable schools. The 1973 motion resulted in some adjustments and the 1974 motion was suspended "until further orders of (the) court."

Renewal of litigation leading immediately to these appeals began on August 31, 1979, when the private plaintiffs filed a Motion for Supplemental Relief complaining of the persistent spectre of one-race schools. They further alleged non-compliance with the teacher ratio requirements of Singleton v. Jackson Municipal Separate School District, 419 F.2d 1211 (5 Cir. 1969), and employment discrimination in the hiring of staff and faculty. The government moved to reschedule hearing on its 1974 motion, contending that the same schools which had been all-black or virtually so in 1974 remained segregated in 1979.

Statistical facts supporting the need for further relief were compelling. At the close of the 1979-80 school year, the board operated thirty elementary, seven junior...