Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-almd-2_70-cv-03098/USCOURTS-almd-2_70-cv-03098-0/pdf.json

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

---

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE

MIDDLE DISTRICT OF ALABAMA, NORTHERN DIVISION

ANTHONY T. LEE, et al., )

 )

Plaintiffs, )

)

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, )

)

Plaintiff-Intervenor )

and Amicus Curiae, )

)

NATIONAL EDUCATION ) CIVIL ACTION NO.

ASSOCIATION, INC., ) 2:70cv3098-T

) (WO)

Plaintiff-Intervenor, )

)

v. )

)

AUTAUGA COUNTY BOARD OF )

EDUCATION, et al. )

)

Defendants. )

OPINION

Back in the 1960s, the plaintiffs (a class of black

students and their parents) filed this lawsuit against the

defendants (the Autauga County Board of Education, its

members, the Autauga County School Superintendent, the

Alabama State Board of Education, its members, the State

Superintendent of Education, and the Governor of Alabama)

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seeking relief from race discrimination in the operation of

a de jure segregated school system for Autauga County,

Alabama. On April 28, 2005, the Autauga County Board of

Education and its members and superintendent moved for

declaration of full unitary status and termination of this

litigation. Based on the evidence presented, the court

concludes that the school district’s motion should be

granted and this litigation terminated as to the Autauga

County Board of Education and its members and

superintendent.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Earlier Litigation

This case was originally part of the Lee v. Macon County

litigation, a statewide class action that began in 1963 as

a challenge to the State of Alabama’s operation of a

racially segregated school system. The United States was

added as a plaintiff-intervenor and amicus curiae. Lee v.

Macon County Bd. of Educ., 267 F. Supp. 458, 460 (M.D. Ala.

1967), aff’d sub nom., Wallace v. United States, 389 U.S.

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215, 88 S.Ct. 415 (1967). The procedural history of the

early litigation of this case is set forth at length in Lee

v. Autauga County Board of Education, 2004 WL 1699068, at

*1-2 (M.D. Ala. 2004).

In October 1995, the Autauga County Board of Education

petitioned for a declaration of unitary status. The

subsequent discovery, mediation, and extended negotiations

between the parties culminated in a consent order, which the

court adopted on June 18, 1997. In that consent order, the

court specified those areas of operation in which the school

district was unitary and those in which further remedial

action was required. Many of the fields addressed in the

consent order are considered “Green factors,” those areas of

a school district’s operation traditionally considered

indicia of a segregated (or not) system. Green v. Sch. Bd.

of New Kent County, Va., 391 U.S. 430, 88 S.Ct. 1689 (1968).

The consent order also addressed several issues that fall

under the broader ambit of “quality of education” issues

first recognized by the Supreme Court in Freeman v. Pitts,

503 U.S. 467, 492-93, 112 S.Ct. 1430, 1446-47 (1992). The

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court decreed that the Autauga County school system had

achieved unitary status in the areas of transportation,

physical facilities, discipline, and equity in salary

supplements; injunctions or portions thereof pertaining to

these areas were dissolved, returning control of these

functions to the Autauga County Board of Education. The

consent order also provided a roadmap for the school

district’s attainment of unitary status in those areas in

which it was not then unitary: faculty and staff

(assignment, recruitment, hiring, and promotion),

curriculum, extracurricular activities, student assignment,

special programs, special education, drop-out intervention,

advanced programs, majority-to-minority transfers, and

student achievement.

B. Recent Activity

Having operated under the 1997 consent order for several

years, the Autauga County Board of Education renewed its

motion for a declaration of unitary status and dismissal of

this lawsuit on September 30, 2002. This motion prompted an

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exchange of information between the parties and a series of

court-ordered mediation sessions before a magistrate judge,

and ultimately resulted in the parties’ agreement that the

school district had satisfied the requirements of the 1997

consent order with respect to the issues of drop-out

intervention, special education, majority-to-minority

transfers, special programs, and extracurricular activities.

 On July 14, 2004, after proper notice of the motion to all

plaintiff class members, the court held a fairness hearing

on these issues, and on July 30, 2004, the court, based on

the evidence received, granted the school board’s motion for

partial unitary status, dissolving federal judicial

supervision over special programs, extracurricular

activities, dropout intervention, special education, and

majority-to-minority transfers, and returning control of

those areas to the local authority. Lee v. Autauga County

Bd. of Educ., 2004 WL 1699068, at *8 (M.D. Ala. 2004). The

court declared that the Autauga County school system had

achieved unitary status in all local issues except faculty

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and staff, parity in curriculum, and student assignments.

Id.

Shortly thereafter, the parties reached an agreement on

student assignment, wherein the board vowed to maintain the

high school grades at the Autaugaville School, subject to

certain limitations, and the plaintiffs withdrew their

opposition to a declaration of unitary status. The board

moved for unitary status on this issue, and, following

proper notice to all plaintiff class members, the court held

a fairness hearing on October 13, 2004. On October 19,

2004, the court, based on the evidence received, granted the

school board’s motion for unitary status on the issue of

student assignment. Lee v. Autauga County Bd. of Educ.,

2004 WL 2359667, at *6-7 (M.D. Ala. 2004). 

Meanwhile, as a result of the parties’ mediation before

the magistrate judge, the plaintiff parties and school board

reached agreements for further relief on the faculty-andstaff and parity-in-curriculum issues, in which the board

committed to making several additional improvements and the

plaintiffs agreed to withdraw opposition to the board’s

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motion for unitary status at a predetermined future time.

Specifically, as to the faculty-and-staff issue, the board

committed to notify several specific predominately black

colleges and universities of certified position openings;

post the vacancy notices on the board’s website, at several

school locations, and with several statewide placement

services; contact surrounding school districts for

referrals; and send the notices to private plaintiff’s

counsel. The board also agreed to send representatives,

including an African-American representative, to the career

days of several specific predominately black colleges and

universities; establish internship opportunities with

predominately black teacher colleges in Alabama; advertise

teacher openings on local radio and television stations with

established African-American listener/viewerships; and

ensure that interview panels were composed of at least 30 %

African-American representation. The board agreed to

provide monthly updates on teacher personnel actions,

including hires, non-renewals, resignations, and

retirements, and plaintiffs agreed to respond with any

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concerns within 15 days of receiving the reports. In

exchange for the board’s successful compliance with these

terms, the plaintiff parties agreed to withdraw any

opposition to a declaration of unitary status on this

element at the end of the 2004-2005 school year. The court

approved the parties’ agreement on April 9, 2004.

In the area of parity in curriculum, the board committed

to several programs intended to address the underachievement

of students at the predominately African-American

Autaugaville School. The agreement obligated the board to

implement a daily tutoring program, expand the school’s SAT10 examination tutorials, continue the Alabama Reading

Initiative program, continue the Alabama High School

Graduation Exam preparation, and provide semi-annual reports

demonstrating its compliance with these requirements. The

board also was required to continue its “At-Risk Plan,”

composed of several programs aimed at meeting the needs of

the entire at-risk student population at Autaugaville; a

Title I School-wide Improvement Plan; an Academic

Improvement Plan; and its Distance Learning Technology.

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Moreover, as a result of earlier mediation, the board had

agreed to provide the Autaugaville School with a full-time

staff person responsible for in-school suspensions, a parttime Title I curriculum program specialist, and

approximately $3,000 worth of computer software and

enhancements. For their part, the plaintiff parties agreed

to waive objection to unitary status on this issue one year

from the date the agreement was adopted by the court, so

long as the board implemented and continued these remedies.

The court approved this agreement on April 9, 2004. 

On April 28, 2005, the board moved for a declaration of

full unitary status and dismissal of this lawsuit. The

court required the school board to give all plaintiff class

members appropriate notice of the motion as well as

procedures for registering objections. After the court

approved the notice form, the board arranged to have

published, in the local newspaper over a three-week time

period, notice of the proposed termination of judicial

oversight and the date of the fairness hearing; the notice

also provided procedures for class members and interested

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persons to file comments and objections with the court

regarding the proposed declaration of unitary status. Forms

for objections and comments were made available in numerous

public locations. In addition to the published notice,

copies of the school board’s motion for unitary status and

the board’s annual reports were made available at the school

board office. Notice forms along with forms for objections

and comments were sent home with every student enrolled in

the Autauga County School System. One written objection was

filed.

On June 27, 2005, the court held a fairness hearing on

the motion for declaration of unitary status on the

remaining issues in this case. One oral objection was made

during the hearing. The court concludes that the Autauga

County Board of Education 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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C. School District Profile

The Autauga County School District operates four

attendance zones: Autaugaville in the southwest quadrant of

the county, Billingsley in the northwest quadrant, Marbury

in the northeast quadrant, and Prattville in the southeast

quadrant. The Autaugaville, Billingsley, and Marbury

quadrants are rural areas, while the Prattville zone

contains the City of Prattville, a growing suburb of the

City of Montgomery, Alabama. Among the four attendance

zones, Autaugaville is and has been the only predominately

African-American zone. The other zones are predominately

white.

The school system operates eleven schools (and a small

disciplinary center and technology center): seven schools in

the Prattville zone, a K-12 school in the Autaugaville zone,

a K-12 school in the Billingsley zone, and an elementary

school and high school in the Marbury zone. The system

enrolls approximately 8,800 students, 23% of whom are

African-American. The student population enrolled at the

Autaugaville School is 98% African-American.

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Overall, 22% of the district’s faculty is AfricanAmerican. The breakdown of African-American faculty at each

district school as of May 2005 was as follows: 

School % black teachers

Prattville Kindergarten 21 %

Prattville Primary 20 %

Prattville Elementary 22 %

Prattville Intermediate 21 %

Daniel Pratt Elementary 21 %

Prattville Jr. High 22 %

Prattville High 20 %

Pine Level Elementary 20 %

Marbury 21 %

Billingsley 16 %

Autaugaville 42 %

TOTAL: 22 %

II. DISCUSSION

A. Legal Standard

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

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or “black” schools, but just schools. Green v. County Sch.

Bd. Of New Kent County, Va., 391 U.S. 430, 442, 88 S.Ct.

1689, 1696 (1968). The success of this effort leads to the

ultimate aim of returning control of the school system to

the local school board since “local autonomy of school

districts is a vital national tradition.” Freeman v. Pitts,

503 U.S. 467, 490, 112 S.Ct. 1430, 1445 (1992) (quoting

Dayton Bd. of Educ. v. Brinkman, 433 U.S. 406, 410, 97 S.Ct.

2766, 2770 (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

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)

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(citing Missouri v. Jenkins, 515 U.S. 70, 88, 115 S.Ct.

2038, 2049 (1995), and quoting Freeman v. Pitts, 503 U.S.

467, 492, 112 S.Ct. 1430, 1446 (1992)). The good-faith

component has two parts. A school district must show not

only past good-faith compliance, but also 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 Public Schools, 8 F.3d 1501, 1513 (10th Cir.

1993) (citations omitted). 

In addition to these constitutional standards, the

Autauga County Board of Education also was required to

comply with the contractual obligations of the 1997 consent

order, which articulated detailed and specific steps the

board was to take to achieve unitary status. NAACP,

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

(11th Cir. 2001). In the 1997 consent order, the parties

agreed that the board would analyze and review programs and

practices in a number of areas which required further

actions. The board was to formulate and adopt procedures

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and practices designed specifically to address ongoing

concerns, including concerns with faculty and staff issues

and parity in curriculum. The board was thus required to

take specific actions to address concerns the parties

contended were vestiges of the prior dual system to ensure

that the district was being operated in a nondiscriminatory

manner.

B. Terms of the 1997 Consent Order

and Compliance Efforts

Faculty and Staff (Recruitment, Hiring, Promotion,

Assignment): The multi-pronged faculty and staff component

of the 1997 consent order required, among other things, that

the Autauga County Board of Education make every reasonable

effort to increase the pool of black applicants for faculty

and administrator vacancies by implementing a comprehensive

recruiting plan; conduct all hiring on a non-discriminatory

basis; and assign faculty and administrators in a way to

ensure that no school in the system could be perceived as a

white school or black school because of the racial

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composition of its staff. Since implementation of the

consent order, the board has developed a comprehensive

recruiting plan aimed at ensuring that applicant pools have

a strong minority presence, and has revised its recruitment,

application, and selection practices to ensure that these

activities are conducted on a non-discriminatory basis. The

board participates in recruitment fairs at a number of

Alabama universities, including several with predominately

African-American enrollments, and efforts are made to ensure

that African-Americans are among the district’s recruiters.

Interview panels consistently include African-American

members, and over the past eight years, 24 % of the board’s

faculty hires have been African-American. As for faculty

assignment, all but one school in the district is within 6 %

of the district-wide average, well within what has come to

be known as the Singleton ratio, which essentially requires

school districts that formerly operated a segregated system

to ensure that the ethnic distribution of teachers in each

school match, within a certain percentage, the ethnic

distribution of teachers district-wide. See Singleton v.

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Jackson Mun. Separate Sch. Dist., 419 F.2d 1211 (5th Cir.

1969). Although the eleventh school, Autaugaville, teeters

on the outer limit of the Singleton ratio at 42 % AfricanAmerican teachers, this is still within an acceptable range.

Moreover, as a small school employing only 38 teachers,

Autaugaville is susceptible to broader percentage swings by

the movement of only one or two employees, and Autaugaville

has been closer to the district-wide average in recent years

(for instance, in the 2000-2001 school year, 32 % of the

school’s faculty were African-American). Furthermore, as

required by the mediation agreement, the board has filed

regular personnel reports with the plaintiff parties,

detailing recruitment, hires, retirements, and non-renewals,

and the plaintiff parties have raised no objection to the

district’s operations.

 Parity in Curriculum: The 1997 consent order charged

the board with ensuring that curricula among the district’s

various schools were substantially similar, and endeavoring

“to address the underachievement of Autaugaville students.”

The 2004 mediation agreement identified specific

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improvements. Toward satisfying this element, the board

implemented a daily tutoring program, expanded the SAT-10

examination tutorials, and continued a series of other

programs at Autaugaville, including the Alabama Reading

Initiative and the “At-Risk Plan.” Given that the true

measure of any desegregation effort is its effectiveness,

Davis v. School Comm’rs of Mobile County, 402 U.S. 33, 37,

91 S.Ct. 1289, 1292 (1971), the board’s efforts at

addressing the underachievement of Autaugaville students

have been clearly successful. Participation in the tutoring

programs has been high; all 35 seniors at Autaugaville

passed the high school graduation exam last year, Erin E.

Mosely, Seniors leave no classmate behind, Montgomery

Advertiser, May 21, 2004; and 100% of Autaugaville’s

kindergartners scored at or above grade level on the 2005

Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS)

exam. Erin Elaine Mosely, Students’ reading scores soar,

Montgomery Advertiser, June 19, 2005.

Future Action: The Autauga County Board of Education

understands that the declaration of unitary status does not

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relieve it of its responsibility to its faculty, its staff,

its students, and the community it serves. To this end, the

board had adopted resolutions committing to the continuation

of the district’s compliance with the obligations necessary

to maintain a unitary system of public education.

C. June 27, 2005, Fairness Hearing

After the board filed its motion for unitary status and

termination of this litigation, the court required

publication and notice of the proposal to declare the system

unitary with respect to the remaining issues; scheduled a

fairness hearing; and established procedures for filing

comments and objections. As stated, one written objection

was filed with the court. 

The court conducted a fairness hearing on June 27, 2005,

heard testimony, and received evidence offered by the

Autauga County Board of Education in support of the motion

for unitary status in the area of student assignment. The

Superintendent of Education for the Autauga County School

System testified concerning the school board’s affirmative

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efforts to comply with those parts of the consent order at

issue, and the board’s resolution to remain in compliance

with the directives of the consent order in the future. One

witness, Doris Striggles, objected to the board’s motion for

unitary status. Striggles contended that there were few

African-American teachers at Billingsley School.

Billingsley does have the lowest percentage of AfricanAmerican teachers of any school in the district (16 %).

However, the school district’s personnel director testified

that the board has struggled to increase the number of

African American teachers at Billingsley because of its

remote location in the county, and that the board has

offered teaching positions to at least three AfricanAmerican applicants in the last year only to be turned down.

Moreover, the court notes that Billingsley is only 6 % below

the district-wide average for African-American teachers,

which is well within an acceptable range.

As stated, there was one written objection. Reverend

Lee D. Kimbrough described several instances of what he

believed to be discrimination in employment. It suffices to

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note that there is no evidence that either Reverend

Kimbrough or the alleged victims of race discrimination have

attempted to raise any of their complaints through the

school system's grievance procedures, sought to intervene in

this action, filed a separate civil action, or filed a

charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment

Opportunities Commission. Reverend Kimbrough does not

adequately identify any systemic violation of any

outstanding order so as to controvert the evidence of the

defendants' substantial compliance. If a teacher or other

staff member has a viable claim (an issue the court declines

to address here), he or she may pursue that claim through a

separate action. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,

as amended, 42 U.S.C.A. §§ 1981a, 2000e through 2000e-17,

and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, 42 U.S.C.A. § 1981,

provide adequate avenues for full and immediate redress. 

Insofar as Reverend Kimbrough argues that the presence

of the court is needed to assure that the school system

operates within the confines of the law, the court addresses

his concern by adopting, with modification, comments it

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expressed in a then-long-standing case involving gender

discrimination in a law-enforcement agency: "To be sure,

the [Autauga County School System] will probably be the

object of future lawsuits charging [race] discrimination,

and some of these lawsuits may even be found to have merit.

But this court does not sit to prevent all future

wrongdoing; a [school system], like all governmental

entities, is made up of humans, and the [system] simply

cannot assure that its employees will never do wrong, that

they will never engage in [race] discrimination in the

future. Indeed, even under the continued eye of the court,

there can be no absolute assurance that a supervisor or a

co-worker will not engage in [race] discrimination. What

the [school system] can do, and has done here, is to take

reasonable steps to decrease the likelihood of such

discriminatory conduct in the future. Thus, the mere fact

that there may be impermissible discrimination in the future

does not, by itself, warrant the continued assumption of

court control over a governmental entity for past

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misconduct." Jordan v. Wilson, 951 F.Supp. 1571, 1582-83

(M.D. Ala. 1996).

III. CONCLUSION

On the basis of the record evidence, witness testimony,

and averments of counsel, the court finds that the Autauga

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, and the vestiges of the prior

de jure segregated school system have been eliminated to the

extent practicable. The court also finds that the board and

its members and superintendent have demonstrated a goodfaith 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. The court finds that the

board and its members and superintendent have demonstrated

their good-faith commitment through their compliance with

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

implementation of their contractual obligations under the

1997 consent order, and through their adoption of specific

policies and actions that extend into the future

demonstrating their commitment to the operation of a 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 Autauga 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, Jacksonville Branch v. Duval County

School, 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 County School, that

"[t]he Board, and the people of [Autauga 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

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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 Autauga County School System is properly

returned to the Autauga 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 superintendent. However, as outlined in

this court’s October 19, 2004, opinion and judgment, Lee v.

Autauga County Bd. of Educ., 2004 WL 2359667, at *6-7 (M.D.

Ala. 2004), declaring the school system unitary in the area

of student assignment, the court retains jurisdiction until

October 19, 2012, for the limited purpose of enforcing the

contractual obligations set forth in the revised settlement

agreement regarding student assignment, and the state

defendants are not dismissed, and the orders dealing with

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the statewide “special education” and “facilities” issues

are not dissolved. 

DONE, this the 19th day of July, 2005.

 /s/ Myron H. Thompson 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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