Source: https://www.clearinghouse.net/detail.php?id=1050
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 07:51:48+00:00

Document:
This is the case in which the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals took the firm position that "freedom of choice" plans could be legally insufficient to meet the constitutional obligations of a formerly de jure segregated school system to convert from "dual" to "unitary" schools. 372 F.2d 836 (1966) (Judge John Minor Wisdom), and that the Department of Health Education and Welfare's approach to school desegregation planning was appropriate. It stood in contrast the opposite view taken by the lower court in Briggs v. Elliot, ("Nothing in the Constitution or in the decision of the Supreme Court takes away from the people freedom the choose the schools they attend. The Constitution, in other words, does not require integration. It merely forbids discrimination.") 132 F.Supp. 776, 777 (E.D.S.C.1955). Not until 1968 did the Supreme Court take a side in this debate, coming down firmly (and unanimously) against freedom of choice as alone sufficient, in Green v. County School Board, 391 U.S. 430 (1968).
On June 4, 1964, an action on behalf of a class of black schoolchildren was filed against the Jefferson County (AL) Board of Education in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. The plaintiffs, represented by attorneys of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., sought to desegregate the public schools of Jefferson County, Alabama. Finding that the school board maintained a racially segregated school system, the district court entered an unpublished order requiring the board to submit a desegregation plan. Following submission of the board's plan, the United States intervened as an additional plaintiff, represented by counsel from the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division. Intervention was pursuant to Section 902 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000h-2.
On July 27, 1965, District Judge Seybourn H. Lynne entered an unpublished order approving the Board's plan and overruling objections filed by the plaintiffs and the United States. The plaintiffs and the United States appealed and, on August 17, 1965, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated the district court order and remanded the case for further consideration in light of certain recently-decided appellate cases. United States v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 349 F.2d 1021 (5th Cir. 1965) (per curiam).
Upon remand, the board filed an amendment to its school desegregation plan which was approved by the district court on August 27, 1965. On October 25, 1965, the United States again appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The appeal was consolidated, for briefing purposes, with similar appeals in six other school desegregation cases (United States v. Board of Education of the City of Fairfield; United States v. Board of Education of the City of Bessemer; United States v. Caddo Parish School Board; United States v. Bossier Parish School Board; Johnson v. Jackson Parish School Board; and Banks v. Claiborne Parish School Board). All the cases were from federal district courts in the Northern District of Alabama and the Western District of Louisiana.
A panel of the appellate court reversed the rulings below, and found that the desegregation standards set by guidelines of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) were within the rationale of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), and the congressional objectives of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. United States v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 372 F.2d 836 (1966) (Circuit Judge John Minor Wisdom). Relying on language in the Supreme Court's second decision in Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U.S. 294 (1955), Judge Wisdom wrote that the Constitution compels formerly de jure segregated public school systems based on dual attendance zones (and using what were called "permissive freedom of choice" plans) to shift to unitary, non-racial systems, with or without federal funds. The court found it appropriate for the federal government to condition local schools' receipt of federal funds on the schools' compliance with the HEW desegregation guidelines (which, according to Judge Wisdom, restated the judicial standards applicable to disestablishing de jure segregation in the public schools) or upon a school's agreement to comply with an applicable court desegregation order. The panel opinion observed that the Constitution is color blind in the sense that "a classification that denies a benefit, causes a harm, or imposes a burden must not be based upon race. But the Constitution is color conscious to prevent discrimination being perpetuated and to undo the effects of past discrimination." Id., at 876. The court then discussed specific elements of a freedom of choice plan which would be mandatory, annual and available to all students, regardless of race. An appendix attached to the opinion consisted of a proposed decree to be entered by the district courts, upon remand, and modified only upon proof of exceptional circumstances.
The appellate panel's opinion was adopted by the full Fifth Circuit's subsequent en banc review of the case. United States v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 380 F.2d 385 (5th Cir. 1967) (en banc) (per curiam). The proposed decree was revised in this review, in accordance with updated HEW guidelines. The decree addressed topics including speed of desegregation, exercise of choice, prospective students, transfers, services, facilities and activities, and programs, school equalization, new construction, faculty and staff, and reports to the court. The court emphasized that it was not enough for school boards to offer the opportunity for black children to attend formerly all-white schools. Overcoming the effects of the unconstitutional dual school systems required integration of faculties, facilities, and activities, as well as students. Id.
Details of this case's activity in the district court during the next few years are not currently available to the Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse; however, by 1971 an unpublished district court ruling resulted in another appeal to the Fifth Circuit. In a brief order, the appellate court vacated the district court's ruling and directed that, on remand, the district court must require the school board (including the boards of any splinter districts created since the filing of the original action) to implement a student assignment plan compliant with recent Supreme Court precedent. The district court was told (1) to not recognize the creation under state law of splinter school districts having the effect of thwarting the implementation of a unitary school system, (2) to fully implement recent Fifth Circuit precedent relating to faculty and staff desegregation, transfer policy, transportation, school construction and site selection, and attendance outside system of residence, and (3) to require the school board to file semi-annual status reports. Stout v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 448 F.2d 403 (5th Cir. 1971) (per curiam). The appellate ruling was followed by District Judge Sam C. Pointer's issuance of an amended order, on September 8, 1971, addressing details, per attendance zone and otherwise, of the school board's obligations under the decree.
For a time, near-yearly appeals to the Fifth Circuit followed, sometimes involving multiple cases consolidated on appeal. In 1972, a panel of that court upheld Judge Pointer's order, affirming his direction that a county school board take over the operations of a splinter school district when the latter's board refused to comply with the district court's decree. The appellate court required the district judge's annual review of the non-compliance, however, so that local control of schools could be re-established as soon as possible. In its decision, the Fifth Circuit also revised, or required the district court to study and revise, limited aspects of Judge Pointer's order addressing transportation, transfers and school construction. Stout v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 466 F.2d 1213 (5th Cir. 1972) (per curiam). In 1973, an appeal resulted in an opinion that affirmed the district court's order modifying certain attendance zones and transforming, at the county school board's request, a formerly all-black high school into an integrated center for exceptional children. Stout v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 483 F.2d 84 (5th Cir. 1973) (per curiam). On remand, Judge Pointer addressed additional attendance zones within the school district. Then, when one high school's subsequent attendance figures suggested a white boycott was occurring, the school board sought modification of the judge's orders. Judge Pointer denied the request and the board appealed. The Fifth Circuit affirmed, finding the board could not show an abuse of discretion had occurred, since the district judge's action resulted from an in-chambers, unreported hearing. Stout v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 489 F.2d 97 (5th Cir. 1974) (per curiam).
During the period following issuance of the 1971 decree, the United States also appealed. Once, when Judge Pointer refused to modify attendance zones for two elementary schools in accord with a federal proposal, his decision resulted in maintaining the schools as all black. On appeal, the Fifth Circuit affirmed, finding that the district judge acted in the context (1) of already-achieved dismantling of the dual public school system in Jefferson County, (2) of concern for the risk to children stemming from lengthy bussing over busy roads and through mountains, and (3) with an experienced-based assessment that his decision minimized the risk of further white boycotting of the schools. Stout v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 537 F.2d 800 (5th Cir. 1976) (Circuit Judge Thomas Gibbs Gee). The appellate court observed, however, that this limited existence of single-race schools in the county's now unitary school system warranted continued scrutiny of the school system by the district court. Id. The United States' application for rehearing or for rehearing en banc was denied. Stout v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 544 F.2d 1342 (5th Cir. 1976) (Circuit Judge Gee).
Over a decade later, the unitary status of Jefferson County's public remained an issue. By this time, the former Fifth Circuit had been divided into two courts, one retaining the Fifth Circuit appellation and the newer one forming as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. With Alabama included in the Eleventh Circuit's boundaries, the new court had jurisdiction over an appeal resulting from Judge Pointer's action. In his district court in August 1987, a group of black schoolchildren filed as plaintiffs. They lived in an area recently annexed from the county into a city. This led to their being assigned to attend heavily black city schools, with the county schools the plaintiffs would have attended then being predominately white. Plaintiffs sought an injunction allowing them to remain in the county school system. Judge Pointer denied the requested relief in an unpublished order. He relied upon the fact that the city schools had been declared unitary, that the county school board did not cause the change in attendance districts, and that that board had been following a consistent policy applied in all cases of annexation.
The plaintiffs appealed to the Eleventh Circuit. Circuit Judge Phyllis A. Kravitch, writing for the court, noted that the plaintiffs wrongly sought interdistrict relief without demonstrating both an interdistrict violation and interdistrict effect, contrary to Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974). The argument that, despite the involvement of two school systems, the plaintiffs actually sought intradistrict relief (with the requested injunction simply being a means to ensure the effectiveness of the original desegregation order applicable to the county) also failed, since the city system had already been declared unitary and the plaintiffs sought essentially permanent relief, depriving a locality of control over its schools without a finding of a constitutional violation. As for Jefferson County's school system, Judge Kravitch noted the Fifth Circuit's 1976 ruling (above) declaring that the county now operated a unitary system, the qualification of that declaration via the continuation of court supervision over the district, and a later Eleventh Circuit statement (in a different case, Brown v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 808 F.2d 1445 (11th Cir. 1987)) that the county system had yet to be declared unitary. Stout v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 845 F.2d 1559 (5th Cir. 1988).
Again, over a decade passed. On September 15, 2000, prompted by the proposed closure of two schools, a consent order proposed by the parties was signed by District Judge Inge Prytz Johnson. The order, which included supporting data, required certain attendance zone modifications and student reassignments. The order cited the defendant school board's acknowledgment that it had failed to appropriately monitor intra-district transfers for compliance with applicable court rulings and set out plans to remedy that shortcoming.
Over forty years after this case began, the district court continued to require compliance by Jefferson County's public schools with constitutional standards and the 1971 remedial order. In May 2005, Judge Johnson approved an unpublished consent order (twice modifying it that August) which approved the operation, within Jefferson County, of the City of Trussville's newly-formed school system. The order reflects that counsel for the plaintiffs, for the United States and for the defendants were all apprised, in advance, of the planned new system and given the opportunity to review relevant information concerning its formation, operation and impact, so that the court could ensure that there would be no impediment to the desegregation process. The order included an inter-district transfer policy, a pupil transportation policy, and plans for attendance zone issues arising during the transitional period. Acknowledging the impact of new legislation, the order also addressed the impact of transfers which might result from requirements imposed on schools by provisions of the federal "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001," 20 U.S.C. §§ 6316. The consent order explicitly observed that the new district was subject to the court's 1971 order and imposed detailed reporting requirements for the Trussville school board. One of Judge Johnson's August 2005 modifications approved certain student transfers requested under the No Child Left Behind Act, noting that transfer obligations the Act imposed on the board can fundamentally conflict with transfer guidelines in prior desegregation orders issued by the court.
In an unpublished August 7, 2007, order, upon motion from the county school board, Judge Johnson again approved proposed student transfers for the upcoming school year, as had been requested under the No Child Left Behind Act. Court supervision continued, with Judge Johnson approving, in an unpublished August 24, 2007, order, a joint motion seeking approval of the county board's plan to build a new middle school. In following months, school boards subject to court supervision in this case continued to file status reports with the court.
On May 26, 2009, the Court approved a modification to school zone lines; on January 1, 2010 approved more construction projects; and on April 14, 2011, approved a grade reconfiguration and classroom construction.
On July 29, 2011, the Court issued an order modifying the existing desegregation order to allow transfers under No Child Left Behind that fundamentally conflicted with the existing desegregation order for the 2010-2011 school year.
The case remains ongoing, with yearly status reports submitted to the Court.

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