Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-almd-2_66-cv-02455/USCOURTS-almd-2_66-cv-02455-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 28:1331 Federal Question: Other Civil Rights

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IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE

MIDDLE DISTRICT OF ALABAMA, NORTHERN DIVISION

ANNIE YVONNE HARRIS, et al., )

)

Plaintiffs )

)

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, )

)

Plaintiff-Intervenor )

)

NATIONAL EDUCATION )

ASSOCIATION, INC., )

)

Plaintiff-Intervenor )

) CIVIL ACTION NO.

v. ) 2:66cv2455-MHT

) (WO)

CRENSHAW COUNTY BOARD OF )

EDUCATION, et al., )

)

Defendants. )

OPINION

In this longstanding school desegregation case, the

plaintiffs, a class of African-American students,

obtained relief from race discrimination in the

operation of a de jure segregated school system. The

defendants are the Crenshaw County Board of Education and

its members and superintendent, as well as the Alabama

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State Board of Education, its members, the State

Superintendent of Education, and the Governor of Alabama.

The school board and its members and superintendent have

moved for declaration of unitary status and termination

of this litigation. Based on the evidence presented, the

court concludes that this litigation should be terminated

as to those defendants.

I. BACKGROUND

 A. Early Litigation and 

the 1998 Consent Decree

This case began in 1966 when Anne Yvonne Harris,

representing black students and their parents, sued the

Crenshaw County Board of Education and its superintendent

seeking relief from the continued operation of a racially

segregated school system. On September 12, 1966, the

United States was granted leave to intervene as

plaintiff-intervenor in order that the public interest in

the administration of justice would be represented. A

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desegregation plan for the Crenshaw County Public Schools

was ordered in 1970.

 On February 12, 1997, this court entered an order

affecting eleven school systems, stating that the court

was “of the opinion that the parties should now move

toward ‘unitary status’ ... and for the termination of

the litigation [for the school systems] in these cases.”

Following extensive discovery and negotiations by the

parties, the court approved a consent decree on June 16,

1998, finding that the Crenshaw County School District

had achieved unitary status in the areas of

transportation and facilities. Further remedial action

was found to be necessary in the areas of faculty hiring,

promotion and assignment; student assignment; and

instruction within schools, including special education,

graduation and student discipline. Courts may allow

partial or incremental dismissal of a school

desegregation case before full compliance has been

achieved in every area of school operations; jurisdiction

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is retained over the remaining parts of a desegregation

case. Freeman v. Pitts, 503 U.S. 467, 490-91 (1992). 

The parties agreed that in order for the district to

attain unitary status in the remaining areas, the school

board would undertake certain actions including

developing policies and procedures in the identified

areas to eliminate the remaining vestiges of the dual

system. The consent decree set forth in detail the areas

to be addressed and the actions to be undertaken. In

other words, the consent decree represented “a roadmap to

the end of judicial supervision” of the Crenshaw County

School System. NAACP v. Duval County Sch. Bd., 273 F.3d

960, 963 (11th Cir. 2001). The school board was required

to file a comprehensive report with the court each year,

and the plaintiff parties had the opportunity to advise

the school system of any concerns about compliance with

the terms of the 1998 consent decree. Concerns raised by

the plaintiff parties were noted in annual progress

reports and discussed at yearly status conferences. The

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school board addressed these concerns through continued

review and modification of its programs. Impasses

regarding the sufficiency of the board’s actions were

referred to a U.S. Magistrate Judge for mediation. The

1998 decree provided that the board could file for

dismissal of the case three years after filing the third

annual report.

B. The 2006 Motion for

 Declaration of Unitary Status

The Crenshaw County Board of Education filed its

motion for declaration of unitary status and termination

of this litigation on May 1, 2006. A fairness hearing

was scheduled for June 30, 2006.

The court required the school board to give all

plaintiff class members appropriate notice of the motion

as well as procedures for lodging objections. After the

court approved the notice form, the school board

published, in local newspapers over a three-week time

period, notice of the proposed termination of this

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litigation and the date of the fairness hearing. The

notice also provided procedures for class members and

interested persons to file comments and objections with

the court regarding the proposed dismissal of this

lawsuit. Copies of all relevant documents–-the unitary

status motion, 1998 consent decree, and annual court

reports--and forms for objections and comments were made

available at each Crenshaw County public school facility,

the Luverne Public Library, the Brantley Public Library,

and the local school board office. On June 30, 2006, the

court held a fairness hearing on the motion for

declaration of unitary status and termination. 

The court concludes that the school board complied

with the directives of the court in providing adequate

notice of the proposed dismissal to class members as well

as to the community. Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(e). 

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II. DISCUSSION

A. Standards for Termination of a

School Desegregation Case

It has long been recognized that the goal of a school

desegregation case is to convert promptly from a de jure

segregated school system to a system without ‘white’

schools or ‘black’ schools, but just schools. Green v.

County Sch. Bd. of New Kent, 391 U.S. 430, 442 (1968).

The success of this effort leads to the goal of

ultimately returning control to the local school board

since “local autonomy of school districts is a vital

national tradition.” Freeman v. Pitts, 503 U.S. 467, 490

(1992) (quoting Dayton Bd. of Educ. v. Brinkman, 433 U.S.

406, 410 (1977)). Returning schools to the control of

local authorities “at the earliest practicable date is

essential to restore their true accountability in our

governmental system.” Id.

The ultimate inquiry concerning whether a school

district operating under a school desegregation order to

dismantle a de jure segregated school system should be

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declared unitary is whether the school district has

complied in good faith with the desegregation decree, and

whether the vestiges of prior de jure segregation have

been eliminated to the extent practicable. NAACP,

Jacksonville Branch v. Duval County Sch., 273 F.3d 960,

966 (11th Cir. 2001) (citing Missouri v. Jenkins, 515

U.S. 70, 88 (1995), and Freeman v. Pitts, 503 U.S. 467,

492 (1992)); see also Manning v. School Board of

Hillsborough County, 244 F.3d 927, 942 (11th Cir. 2001);

Lockett v. Bd. of Educ. of Muscogee County, 111 F.3d 839,

843 (11th Cir. 1997).

In addition to these articulated constitutional

standards, here the school board was also required to

comply with the contractual requirements of the 1998

consent decree which set forth specific steps the

Crenshaw Board was to take to attain unitary status.

NAACP, Jacksonville Branch, 273 F.3d at 963. The parties

agreed that the school board would analyze and review

programs and practices in each of the areas in which

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further actions were required. The board was to

formulate and adopt procedures and practices designed

specifically to address each of these areas. The board

was thus required to take specific actions to address

concerns the parties argued were vestiges of the prior

dual system, and to ensure that the district was being

operated on a nondiscriminatory basis.

The legal standards for dismissal of a school

desegregation case were set forth in the 1998 consent

decree as (1) whether the district has fully and

satisfactorily complied with the court’s decrees for a

reasonable period of time; (2) whether the vestiges of

past discrimination have been eliminated to the extent

practicable; and (3) whether the district has

demonstrated a good-faith commitment to the whole of the

court’s decrees and to those provisions of the law and

the Constitution that were the predicate for judicial

intervention. Missouri v. Jenkins, 515 U.S. 70, 87-89

(1995). By emphasizing that the good-faith component has

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two parts (that is, that a school district must show not

only past good-faith compliance, but a good-faith

commitment to the future operation of the school system),

the parties looked both to past compliance efforts and to

a good-faith commitment to the future operation of the

school system through “specific policies, decisions, and

courses of action that extend into the future.” Dowell

v. Bd. of Educ. of the Oklahoma City Pub. Sch., 8 F.3d

1501, 1513 (10th Cir. 1993) (citations omitted).

Regardless, “[t]he measure of a desegregation plan is its

effectiveness.” Davis v. Bd. of Sch. Comm’rs, 402 U.S.

33, 37 (1971).

B. Terms of the 1998 Consent Decree

and Compliance Efforts

1. Faculty and Administrator Hiring and Assignment:

The school board was required (i) to take specific steps

to increase the number of African-American applicants in

the pool from which it selects its teachers and

administrators to fill administrative and faculty

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vacancies, and (ii) to develop policies and procedures to

ensure that faculty and staff were assigned to schools

across the district such that the proportion of minority

staff, faculty, and administrators at each school is

substantially the same as the ratio district-wide.

Singleton v. Jackson Municipal Separate Sch. Dist., 419

F.2d 1211, 1218 (5th Cir. 1969). 

As evidenced by the annual reports filed with the

court, the district has undertaken a number of efforts to

recruit and employ minorities. Significantly, the

district created a central office position called Consent

Decree Coordinator and assigned a long-term AfricanAmerican employee to fill the position. Under the

leadership of the Consent Decree Coordinator, the

district revised its employment procedures and developed

and implemented a plan to increase the recruitment of

minority faculty, staff, and administrators.

The district’s faculty-recruitment strategies

included development of a Unitary Status Handbook that

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has been in place since June 2002; appointment of a

Minority Recruitment Committee whose membership includes

a board member, district employees, and community

members, several of whom are African-American; creation

of a Recruitment Team Handbook for use by the recruitment

committee; expanded on-site recruiting at historically

African-American colleges and universities in Alabama and

other colleges and universities in the immediate area

which grant degrees in education; encouraging all

faculty, particularly African-American faculty, to

participate actively in recruitment efforts; establishing

chapters of Future Teachers of America at each of the

district’s schools to interest local students in becoming

teachers; and funding scholarships to assist current

district employees in completing their degrees in teacher

education. 

In 1997-98, 12 % of the teachers in Crenshaw County

public schools were African-American. At the time of the

hearing, the number of African-American teachers had

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increased to just over 14 %. The teachers were

distributed among district schools as follows: Highland

Home, 13 % African-American; Brantley, 11 % AfricanAmerican; and Luverne, 15 % African-American.

2. Student Assignment: The 1998 consent decree

required the school board to ensure that student

assignment to schools was made on a nondiscriminatory

basis with strict enforcement of established zone lines.

Cf. Singleton, 419 F.2d at 1211. The board complied with

this provision and annually verifies the residency of new

students to the system to ensure that student assignment

conforms to the district’s boundary lines. The board

adopted a policy providing that students seeking to

transfer into district schools from outside Crenshaw

County have permission from the superintendent of their

home district. This requirement has effectively stopped

transfers from outside the county.

3. Student Instruction: The 1998 consent decree

addressed several areas involving student participation,

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particularly by African-American students, in special

programs such as college preparatory, gifted and

talented, and honors and advance placement classes. To

ensure that such special programs were operated on a

nondiscriminatory basis, the board formulated and adopted

procedures to provide notice to parents and students

regarding the availability of these programs and to

recruit African-American students to participate in them.

The board’s efforts included placing special emphasis on

‘Child Find,’ an annual event with the state targeting

participation in the gifted program; sending letters home

from the principal telling parents about special

programs; and advertising the programs in local media,

both cable and newspaper. The superintendent annually

reviews student participation in special programs.

The number of African-American students in the gifted

program has increased over the life of the consent

decree. For the 2005-06 school year, African-American

student participation stood at 16.9 %.

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4. Extracurricular Activities: The 1998 consent

decree required the board to take all reasonable steps to

ensure an equal opportunity for all students to

participate in extracurricular activities, including

providing notice about activities to students and

parents, recruiting African-American faculty members to

be sponsors, and monitoring participation in

extracurricular activities. The school system has made

a sustained effort in this area, by working to inform and

recruit all students in extracurricular activities and

maintaining records that reflect the racial makeup of

students participating in school activities. These

efforts have resulted in increased minority participation

in extracurricular activities during the term of the

consent decree. Additionally, approximately 40 % of

current minority employees sponsor a student organization

or extracurricular activity.

5. Student Discipline: The school board was

required to ensure that student discipline was meted out

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on a nondiscriminatory basis, which entailed tracking

discipline referrals and reviewing referrals that

exceeded the racial makeup of a individual school by more

than 10 %. The record reflects that the board complied

with this provision of the consent decree.

6. Graduation and Diplomas: The school board was

required to identify students who were at risk of

dropping out of school for intervention programs and to

review the effectiveness of drop-out prevention programs.

The board was also required to review the incidence of

special education and disciplinary designations among

students who failed to graduate, and, to the extent

practicable, to ensure that the distribution of the

Certificate of Completion was not racially

disproportionate.

The annual reports document the board’s efforts in

this area. In the spring of a student’s eighth grade

year, the district invites the parents of rising high

school freshmen to an information session where

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requirements of the three graduation tracks are

explained. Parents are encouraged to start with the

higher track because it is easier to move from a higher

track to a lower track than vice-versa. A document filed

at the direction of the court discloses that, for the

2005-06 school year, the diploma distribution among the

three district schools was as follows: 

Diploma Total Issued Percent Black

Advanced Diploma 52 31

Regular Diploma 45 33

Cert. of Attendance 14 64

Cert. Of Completion 10 70 

7. Special Education: The state-wide issues

involving special education were resolved by a consent

decree entered on August 30, 2000. Lee v. Butler County

Bd. of Educ., 183 F. Supp. 2d 1359, 1366 (M.D. Ala. 2002)

(Thompson, J.). According to the terms of the state-wide

decree, any claims in the area of special education would

be raised with the state defendants. Even if any such

claim involving the Crenshaw County School System were

pending, it could not prevent a declaration of unitary

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status since the matter would be addressed with the state

defendants as part of the commitments made under the

state-wide decree.

8. Future Action: The school board understands that

the declaration of unitary status does not relieve it of

its responsibility to its faculty, staff, students, and

the community it serves. To this end, on April 18, 2006,

the board adopted a resolution which acknowledges the

commitment of the school board to maintain the

improvements in the district that resulted from its

efforts to comply with the consent decree.

9. Monitoring: The school board filed three annual

reports, as required by the 1998 consent decree, as well

as a fourth annual report submitted at the plaintiff’s

request. Each report detailed the school district’s

efforts and accomplishments in implementing the

provisions of the decree during the preceding school

year. These reports were reviewed and monitored by the

plaintiff parties who were given the opportunity to

advise the board of any continued concerns about these

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efforts. Progress reports were filed outlining the

positions of the parties for discussion at the annual

status conferences.

C. June 30, 2006, Fairness Hearing

As stated, after the school board and its members and

superintendent filed their motion for declaration of

unitary status and termination of this litigation, the

court required publication and notice of the proposed

dismissal, scheduled a fairness hearing, and established

procedures for filing comments and objections. No

objections were filed with the court.

The court conducted a fairness hearing on June 30,

2006, and heard testimony and received evidence offered

by the school board in support of the motion for unitary

status and termination. Kathi Wallace, Superintendent of

Crenshaw County schools, testified concerning the school

board’s affirmative efforts to comply with the consent

decree. As of April 24, 2006, 34 % of the students

enrolled in Crenshaw County schools are African-American,

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and the county’s three schools range from 31 % to 37 %

African-American. Superintendent Wallace testified that

the board is committed to continuing its good-faith

compliance strategies, as evidenced by the board’s April

18, 2006 resolution. The superintendent emphasized that

the board will continue vigorously recruiting, assigning,

and attempting to retain African-American faculty and

staff if the court declares the district unitary.

Counsel for the plaintiff parties stated no objection to

the request for unitary status.

III. CONCLUSION

On the basis of the record evidence, witness

testimony, and averment of counsel, the court finds that

the Crenshaw County Board of Education and its members

and superintendent have met the standards entitling the

school district to a declaration of unitary status and

termination of this litigation. The board has fully and

satisfactorily complied with the orders of this court.

The vestiges of the prior de jure segregated school

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system have been eliminated to the extent practicable.

The court also finds that the board and its members and

superintendent have demonstrated a good-faith commitment

to the whole of the court’s decrees and to those

provisions of the law and the Constitution that were the

predicate for judicial intervention in this school system

in the first instance, through their compliance with the

court’s orders over the years, through their good-faith

implementation of their contractual obligations under the

1998 consent decree, and through their adoption of

specific policies and actions that extend into the future

demonstrating their commitment to operating the school

system in compliance with the Constitution.

The plaintiff parties have succeeded in the task they

began decades ago to seek the end of the seemingly

immovable de jure system of school segregation in

Crenshaw County. This lawsuit sought to bring the

district into compliance with the constitutional

requirement of equal protection under the law, and the

court states today that they have succeeded. NAACP,

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Jacksonville Branch v. Duval County Sch., 273 F.3d 960,

976 (11th Cir. 2001). By its actions today, the court

recognizes and congratulates the sustained efforts of the

parties. In so doing, the court notes, as the Eleventh

Circuit stated in Duval Countv School, that “[t]he Board,

and the people of [Crenshaw County] who, in the end,

govern their school system, must be aware that the door

through which they leave the courthouse is not locked

behind them. They will undoubtedly find that this is so

if they fail to maintain the unitary system [the court]

conclude[s] exists today.” Id. at 976-77. 

Therefore, with the judgment the court will enter

today, control over the Crenshaw County School System is

properly returned to the Crenshaw County Board of

Education and its members and superintendent. The motion

for declaration of unitary status and termination of this

litigation filed by the board and its members and

superintendent will be granted, all outstanding orders

and injunctions will be dissolved, and this litigation

dismissed as to the board and its members and

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superintendent. However, the state defendants are not

dismissed, and the orders dealing with the state-wide

‘special education’ and ‘facilities’ issues are not

dissolved. 

 DONE, this the 11th day of September, 2006.

 /s/ MYRON H. THOMPSON 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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