Vaughns v. Board of Educ. of Prince George's County

• Decision Date: 13 July 1990
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 72-325-K,K-89-186 and K-89-289.,K-81-2597
• Citation: 742 F. Supp. 1275
• Parties: Sylvester J. VAUGHNS, Jr., et al. v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, et al. NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE, et al. v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, et al. UNITED STATES of America v. The BOARD OF EDUCATION OF PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, MARYLAND Deborah A. STONE, et al. v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland

742 F. Supp. 1275

Sylvester J. VAUGHNS, Jr., et al. v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, et al.

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE, et al. v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, et al.

UNITED STATES of America v. The BOARD OF EDUCATION OF PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, MARYLAND

Deborah A. STONE, et al. v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY.

Civ. Nos. 72-325-K, K-81-2597, K-89-186 and K-89-289.

United States District Court, D. Maryland.

July 13, 1990.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

George H. Mernick, III and Deborah J. Jeffrey, and Hogan and Hartson, Washington, D.C., Thomas I. Atkins, Michael Sussman, Teresa Demchak, N.A.A.C.P. Special Contribution Fund, Brooklyn Heights, N.Y., William L. Robinson and Norman J. Chachkin, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Washington, D.C., for plaintiffs in Civ. Nos. 72-325-K and K-81-2597.

Dick Thornburgh, Atty. Gen. of the U.S., James P. Turner, Acting Asst. Atty. Gen., James S. Angus, Barbara E. Thawley and Michael D. Ricciuti, Attys., Civil Rights Div., U.S. Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., and Breckinridge L. Willcox, U.S. Atty., Baltimore, Md., for plaintiff in Civ. No. K-89-186.

Clint Bolick, Jerald L. Hill, Mark Bredemeier, Landmark Legal Foundation Center for Civil Rights, Washington, D.C., and Edward Blanton, Blanton & McCleary, Towson, Md., for plaintiffs in Civ. No. K-89-289.

Paul M. Nussbaum and Andrew W. Nussbaum, Greenbelt, Md., and George D. Solter, Gerson B. Mehlman and Alfred L. Scanlan, Jr., Baltimore, Md., for defendants.

FRANK A. KAUFMAN, Senior District Judge.

Has the Board of Education of Prince George's County, Maryland (the Board), operating under an order to eliminate all vestiges of past, de jure discrimination, violated either the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution or Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act¹ by the assignment of teachers in order to achieve certain degrees of racial integration within the faculty of each school in its system? That is the question presently before this Court in this consolidated litigation which includes cases instituted both prior to² and during 1989. One of the two cases commenced in 1989 was brought by the United States;³ the other was commenced by a group of black and white teachers.⁴ All parties in these cases have agreed to the consolidation of all issues presently pending in these cases. However, those issues which relate to immunity defenses and to damages have not yet been fully briefed and argued and are reserved for later decision; all other pending issues have been fully argued and are decided in this opinion.⁵

I.

The Board operates a school system consisting of approximately 170 schools, over 100,000 students, and more than 6,000 teachers. The Superintendent of Schools of Prince George's County nominates for appointment by the County Board all principals, teachers and other certified personnel; the Superintendent assigns them to positions in the schools and transfers them as the needs of the schools require.⁶ The Maryland State Board of Education promulgates the regulations by which teachers' employment contracts are governed; the ordinary employment contract expressly provides that the certificated employee is "hereby employed in the public schools of the said County subject to assignment by the County Superintendent or transfer to some other position with the County...."⁷

In the late 1960's and the early 1970's, public education in the State of Maryland came under scrutiny by the Office of Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW). In 1971, the Maryland State Board of Education promulgated a policy which required local boards of education to develop and implement plans and procedures for the attainment of racial balance in the public school systems.⁸ According to the State directive:

Local boards of education shall develop and implement plans and procedures for the attainment of racial balance at the various levels of the public school system, reflective of the composition of the population of their respective jurisdictions. These plans and procedures shall apply to the hiring, placing, and promotion of all personnel employed at the various levels of the school system....

Pursuant to that regulation, and in an effort to comply with HEW directives, the Board, on March 25, 1971, adopted Rule 4115.3. Rule 4115.3 requires that "the teaching staff of each of the various public schools of Prince George's County ... be generally consistent with and reflective of the County-wide racial composition of all teachers employed by the Board of Education."⁹ Rule 4115.3, as amended since 1971, remains in effect today as the general policy of the Board.

To achieve the goals outlined in Rule 4115.3, the Board issued two corollary rules, 4115.3(a) and 4115.3(b), thereby implementing a two-phased plan to achieve racial desegregation goals among the faculty of the schools of Prince George's County (the County) by September, 1972. In the first phase, the Board sought to achieve a goal of 5% to 40% black faculty at each school by September, 1971. The second phase of the plan called for minority staffing of no less than 11% and no more than 25% of the faculty at each school by September, 1972, a goal which reflected, within seven percentage points, the percentage of blacks employed by the Board as faculty members in the County schools, namely, 18% in 1972. Although Rules 4115.3 and 4115.3(a-b) did not expressly require that minority staffing approximate the racial composition of the population of the County as a whole, compliance with the rules would have effectively resulted in faculty assignments reflecting the County's minority population representation, since, in 1972, minorities also comprised 18% of the County's population. The two-phase plan of Rules 4115.3(a-b) brought the County's faculty assignment policies into compliance with the directives issued by HEW. Vaughns v. Bd. of Educ. of Prince George's County, 574 F.Supp. 1280, 1293 (D.Md.1983), aff'd in part, rev'd in part, 758 F.2d 983 (4th Cir.1985) (Vaughns II).

II.

In 1972, after the Board had already adopted Rule 4115.3 and had begun implementing procedures for correcting racial segregation in faculty assignments, Sylvester J. Vaughns, the father of a student in the County public schools, filed a class-action suit to eliminate segregated conditions and their vestiges from the County school system. In Vaughns v. Bd. of Educ. of Prince George's County, 355 F.Supp. 1034 (D.Md.1972); 355 F.Supp. 1038 (D.Md. 1972), remanded for further proceedings, 468 F.2d 894 (4th Cir.1972); 355 F.Supp. 1051 (D.Md.1972), aff'd, No. 73-1024 (4th Cir. Jan. 23, 1973), cert. denied, Eller v. Bd. of Educ. of Prince George's County, 410 U.S. 910, 93 S.Ct. 968, 35 L.Ed.2d 272 (1973) (Vaughns I), the complaint included, inter alia, allegations of discrimination in student and faculty assignment and sought injunctive and other relief. On July 6, 1972, plaintiffs and defendants in Vaughns I filed a Joint Stipulation of Facts with this Court which acknowledged that "many of the schools operated by the defendant which have racially disproportionate student bodies also have racially disproportionate faculties."¹⁰ The Joint Stipulation also stated, however, that: (1) in 1971 the Board had adopted Rule 4115.3 requiring that "every public school operated by the defendant will have a racial balance of the teaching staff generally consistent with and reflective of the countywide racial composition of all the teachers employed by the Board of Education prior to the commencement of school opening, September 1972"; (2) the Board had accomplished the first phase of the two-stage faculty desegregation plan by September 1971; and (3) the Board had begun the process of transferring teachers to achieve its Phase II faculty desegregation goals.¹¹

On July 25, 1972, this Court granted the Vaughns I plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment, holding that the defendants had maintained a school system racially segregated by law until 1954 and had failed to take adequate steps to dismantle that system between 1954 and 1972. As a result, this Court ordered the Board to develop a workable desegregation plan. In its opinion, this Court noted that it "has been informed by counsel for both sides that ... a plan for faculty integration was already in existence." Vaughns I, 355 F.Supp. 1034, 1037 n. 3. Later, in a December 13, 1972 opinion, this Court noted that "counsel are agreed that current faculty assignments and proposals probably meet federal constitutional standards and that administration seemingly does not present a particularly difficult issue." Id. at 1044, 1045 n. 1. Subsequently, this Court observed that "between January 1973 and November 27, 1974, all of the non-student attendance issues were resolved by agreement among the parties. One of those agreements was embodied in a consent decree dated February 20, 1974, relating to faculty hiring and promotion." Vaughns II, 574 F.Supp. at 1284. The relevant provision of the consent decree read:

All hiring, promotion practices and other conditions of employment shall be maintained and conducted in a manner which does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, religion or natural origin in violation of the Constitution of the United States or of Title VII

....

Id. at 1378. Then, in 1974 and 1975, "this Court relinquished jurisdiction in Vaughns subject to the right of any party to seek to have this Court again resume jurisdiction." Id. at 1284-85.

III.

On September 1, 1981, a Motion to Reopen the Vaughns litigation was filed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Although the motion was primarily concerned with increasing segregation of student bodies, the NAACP also alleged that the defendants had disproportionately assigned black teachers to predominately...