Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp2/458/1273/2568095/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 06:06:02+00:00

Document:
United States District Court, N.D. Alabama.
*1275 Alice H. Martin, U.S. Attorney, U.S. Attorney's Office, Birmingham, AL, James U. Blacksher, Birmingham, AL, Craig M. Crenshaw, Jr., U.S. Department of Justice-Civil Rights Division, Educational Opportunities, Litigation Sec, Washington, DC, Jeremiah Glassman, U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Educational Opportunities Section, Washington, DC, Susan J. Watterson, Birmingham, AL, Sarah L. Thompson, Sarah L. Thompson, Attorney at Law, Northport, AL, Naomi Hosea Truman, Housing Authority of the Birmingham District, Birmingham, AL, Demetrius C. Newton, Birmingham, AL, James L. North, James L. North & Associates, Birmingham, AL, Deval L. Patrick, U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Criminal Section, Washington, DC, Leslie M. Proll, Naacp Legal Defense & Educational Fund Inc, Washington, *1276 DC, Sharon D Simmons, U.S. Attorney's Office, Birmingham, AL, for U.S. of America, Plaintiff.
Edward S. Allen, Balch & Bingham LLP, Birmingham, AL, Gregory M. Biggs, State of Alabama Department of Corrections Legal Division, Montgomery, AL, M. Stanford Blanton, Balch & Bingham LLP, Birmingham, AL, Ernest N. Blasingame, Jr., Florence, AL, David R. Boyd, Balch & Bingham LLP, Montgomery, AL, Richard F. Calhoun, Calhoun Faulk Watkins Clower & Cox, Troy, AL, J. Russell Campbell, Balch & Bingham LLP, Birmingham, AL, Milton C. Davis, Tuskeegee, AL, Terry G. Davis, Davis & Hatcher LLC, Montgomery, AL, Armand G. Derfner, Derfner Altman & Wilborn LLC, Charleston, SC, Jeffery A. Foshee, Foshee & George LLC, Montgomery, AL, Edward M George, Foshee & George LLC, Montgomery, AL, Fred D. Gray, Gray Langford Sapp, McGowan Gray & Nathanson, Tuskegee, AL, Stanley F. Gray, Gray Langford Sapp, McGowan Gray & Nathanson, Tuskegee, FL, Edgar R. Haden, Balch & Bingham LLP, Birmingham, AL, Robert M. Hill, Jr., Robert M. Hill Jr., Florence, AL, Robert D. Hunter, Altec Inc, Birmingham, AL, Jim R. Ippolito, Jr., Alabama Department of Transportation, Montgomery, Carl E. Johnson, Jr., Bishop Colvin Johnson & Kent, Birmingham, AL, Michael G. Kendrick, Waldrep Stewart & Kendrick LLC, Birmingham, AL, Robin G. Laurie, Balch & Bingham LLP, Montgomery, AL, Norma M. Lemley, University of Alabama System University Counsel, Tuscaloosa, AL, Thomas M. Lovett, University of North Alabama, Florence, AL, Richard N. Meadows, State of Alabama, Personnel Department, Montgomery, AL, Larry T. Menefee, Montgomery, AL, Stanley J. Murphy, Murphy & Murphy LLC, Tuscaloosa, AL, William F. Murray, Jr., Burr & Forman LLP, Birmingham, AL, Darnell D. Coley, State of Alabama Department of Education, Montgomery, AL, Larry E. Craven, Alabama Department of Education, Montgomery, AL, Robert W. Rieder, University of Alabama System, Huntsville, AL, C. Glenn Powell, University of Alabama System, Office of Counsel, Tuscaloosa, AL, William K. Thomas, Cabaniss Johnston, Gardner Dumas & O'Neal, Birmingham, AL, Jean Walker Tucker, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL, Mark T. Waggoner, Hand Arendall LLC, Birmingham, AL, Joseph A. Wallace, Elkins, WV, Joe R. Whatley, Jr., Whatley Drake LLC, Birmingham, AL, Michael R. White, Sr., Alabama Department of Education, Montgomery, AL, R. M. Woodrow, Doster & Woodrow, Anniston, AL, Reginald L. Sorrells, Alabama Department of Education, Montgomery, AL, John B. Tally, Jr., Adams & Reese/Lange Simpson LLP, Birmingham, AL, Gerald A. Templeton, The Templeton Group PC, Birmingham, AL, for Alabama, State of, Defendant.
Whit Colvin, Bishop Colvin Johnson & Kent, Birmingham, AL, for University of Montevallo, Defendant.
J. Cecil Gardner, Gardner Middlebrooks Gibbons Kittrell Olsen Walker & Hill PC, Mobile, AL, for Jonathan R. Borden, Dr. Robert W. Drakeford, Movants.
William F. Gardner, Cabaniss Johnston, Gardner Dumas & O'Neal, Birmingham, AL, for Alabama, State of, Troy State University, Defendants.
C. A. Gonzalez, Atlanta, GA, for Carlos A. Gonzalez, Miscellaneous Pro se.
Edward A. Hosp, Maynard Cooper & Gale PC, Birmingham, AL, for Board of Trustees of University of Alabama, Defendant.
Mary Kirby, United States District Court Northern District of Georgia, Rome, GA, for Mary Kirby, Miscellaneous.
Michael Vance McCrary, Gardner Middlebrooks Fleming Gibbons & Kittrell, Birmingham, *1277 AL, for Joe L. Reed, Intervenor Defendant.
Candis A. MeGowan, John D. Saxon PC, Birmingham, AL, for Jonathan R. Borden, Dr. Robert W. Drakeford, Movants.
Ramadanah M Salaam, Thomas Means Gillis & Seay, PC, Montgomery, for Alabama State University Board of Trustees, Defendant.
Braxton Schell, Jr., Braxton Schell Jr. PC, Birmingham, AL, for Alabama, State of, Alabama A & M University (AAMU), Defendants.
Solomon S. Seay, Jr., Solomon S. Seay Jr. PC, Montgomery, AL, for Alabama, State of, Alabama State University Board of Trustees, Defendants.
Kenneth L Thomas, Thomas Means Gillis & Seay, PC, Montgomery, for Alabama State University Board of Trustees, Defendant.
Kimberly C. Walker, Gardner Middlebrooks, Gibbons Olsen & Walker PC, Mobile, AL, for Joe L. Reed, Intervenor Defendant.
This is a desegregation lawsuit involving all public universities in the State of Alabama and a plaintiff class consisting of all black citizens of the State of Alabama. The case is before the Court on Plaintiffs' Motion for Additional Relief with Respect to State Funding of Public Higher Education .
1. On January 15, 1981, John F. Knight, Jr. and a class of other alumni, students, and faculty members of Alabama State University ("ASU") filed this lawsuit in the Middle District of Alabama, attacking vestiges of discrimination in the State of Alabama's public higher education system. Knight v. Alabama, 787 F. Supp. 1030, 1048 (N.D.Ala.1991) ("Knight I"). The Court subsequently held two bench trials, the first in 1991, which lasted six months, and the second in 1995, which lasted six weeks. In both of those bench trials, the Court found that the vestiges of segregation remained within the Alabama system of public higher education, and that those vestiges violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as well as the Federal Constitution. Knight I, 787 F. Supp. at 1368; Knight v. Alabama, 900 F. Supp. 272, 280-81 (N.D.Ala.1995) ("Alabama II").
2. As a result of the Court's findings in those bench trials, the Court has fashioned and approved a number of remedies, too voluminous to recount here. Those remedies are calculated to eliminate the vestiges of historical discrimination within the Alabama system of public higher education. The Court has also retained active jurisdiction over the case to the present time. Pursuant to this jurisdiction, the Court has appointed a Monitor and an Oversight Committee to oversee on a daily basis the administration of the Courtordered remedies in this litigation. The Court also conducts periodic reviews of the effectiveness of the Courtordered remedies.
3. Plaintiffs contend that serious underfunding of the Educational Trust Fund ("ETF"), from which appropriations are made for both K-12 and higher education, has jeopardized the success of the remedies crafted by the Court to eliminate the vestiges of historical discrimination in the State of Alabama's *1278 system of public higher education.
4. Plaintiffs claim that adequate state funding is necessary for fashioning an effective, educationally sound, and practicable remedy for the State of Alabama's history of de jure racial discrimination. Specifically, Plaintiffs claim that adequate funding is necessary for: (1) recruiting and retaining of black faculty members and highranking administrators at historically white institutions ("HWT"); (2) providing ASU and Alabama A & M University ("AAMU") with the necessary resources to overcome a century of underfunding by the State; (3) providing AMU and AAMU the ability to fund adequately scholarships to attract other-race students after the Court-ordered scholarships expire; and (4) developing new, high-quality programs at ASU and AAMU, including the capital facilities and faculty necessary to operate them.
5. According to Plaintiffs, severe cuts in state funding have severely impeded the ability of ASU and AAMU to implement successfully remedial programs calculated to spur growth in academic, research, and public service functions. Plaintiffs specifically point to Alabama's property tax system, which Plaintiffs claim is unfair, inadequate, and unconstitutional. Plaintiffs argue that because of low and inadequate property taxes, which are intended to be the primary source of 12 funding, the State of Alabama has been forced to allocate an increasingly greater percentage of funds from the ETF to K-12 appropriations. As a result, over the past several years, all of the public state universities have been forced to increase tuition dramatically. Plaintiffs submit that the State's tax burden disproportionately falls on the low-income portion of the population, which remains predominately black, and consequently acts as a barrier against blacks obtaining public higher education.
6. Plaintiffs claim that the State's tax system is traceable to a prior de jure segregation regime. Specifically, Plaintiffs contend that the restrictions on the amount of taxes that can be levied on real property are directly traceable to a policy of shielding the real property of white landowners from taxes that would benefit the education of blacksa policy that Plaintiffs claim persists to this day. Plaintiffs identify six provisions of the Alabama Constitution that they claim are traceable to a legislative intent to preserve racial segregation throughout the State's system of public education and thwart and deny blacks an equal opportunity to obtain the benefits of public higher education in Alabama.
(6) Ala. Const. Amendment 373, which amends the property classes subject to taxation, lowers further the assessment ratios, establishes the current use method of property assessment, and establishes lower "lids" on total ad valorem taxes.
(5) grant Plaintiffs an award of attorneys' fees and expenses.
9. On July 28, 2003, Plaintiffs filed their Motion for Additional Relief with Respect to State Funding of Public Higher Education. On October 29, 2003, Plaintiffs filed a Motion for Partial Summary Judgment Regarding Their Motion for Additional Relief with Respect to State Funding of Public Higher Education. On January 8, 2004, the Court held a hearing with respect to Plaintiffs' Motion for Summary Judgment, and on January 28, 2004, the Court entered an Order granting an evidentiary hearing with respect to Plaintiffs' Motion for Additional Relief with Respect to State Funding of Public Higher Education. The Court subsequently denied without prejudice Plaintiffs' Motion for Partial Summary Judgment.
10. From May 4 to 5, 2004, the Court held an evidentiary hearing with respect to Plaintiffs' Motion for Additional Relief with Respect to State Funding of Public Higher Education. The Court now resolves that Motion.
[D]uring Reconstruction, the experience of [Black Belt] whites had been a county government which was controlled by blacks and their Republican allies and which had very heavily taxed them, and taxed them for purposes that they largely regarded as illegitimate, such as the education of the Freedmen. Now that they had power back into their own hands, they were intent on ... using that new control to protect themselves from the possibility that the black majority in their counties would ever again be able to use that political power ... to tax them in a way that would force them as the property holders to cough up the funds, ... which would be used to the benefit of the majority of the people in the Black Belt who were black and essentially nonproperty holding .... And so they wanted to write into the Constitution permanent protections.
[T]here is a wide variety of opinions about ... the interaction of education and race. There are delegates who believe that blacks should receive essentially only vocational education. And there, on the other hand, are delegates who believe that over a long period of time through the educational mechanism, it might be possible to improve the status of blacks. There is nobody at the convention who is not a white supremacist, but there are varieties of opinions about ... whether white supremacy is an immediate necessity or whether white supremacy will always exist because of inherent differences between the races. And everything in between. That's a whole spectrum of opinions. I doubt, however, that there was anyone in the white counties who needed to be convinced, at least of the immediate necessity, of white supremacy. There is nobody at the convention who's not a white supremacist.
For many years after Brown the feeling was quite widespread in the South that there simply was going to be no way that the federal government would ever have the power to bring integration to the state. There was no sense ... that integration was impending or even very likely. And if you are quite confident that that's true, then you can continue to be an advocate of increased funding for the schools and the confidence that these schools ... will continue segregated.
If, on the other hand, you believe that there is some real likelihood that schools will be integrated, then you would have very much more substantial doubts because all political leaders at this period said, and some actually believed, that the outcome of the integration of the schools would be the abolition of the schools. Certainly Governor John Patterson was, not merely in rhetoric but actually in his heart, ... to the abolition of the public school system of the state if integration came to the state, or particular school districts, ... if there was no likelihood that it was going to become statewide, he was prepared to close them in particular districts and leave them open elsewhere.
And Governor Wallace, I think actually welcomed the thought of general conversion to a system ... of private segregated academies if there continued to be some form of public funding that did not go to the school, but instead went to the parents in the form of tuition grants or scholarships,... which the parents could then use to send their child to the segregated private academy.
were committed to the idea that public education could not continue if in fact it was ordered to occur on an integrated basis. The schools would simply have to be closed; public education would have to end because an integrated education was not acceptable. [W]ith that as a fundamental first priority, any efforts to raise property tax, increase any kind of funding of schools, was in serious trouble and of great question until the matter of school integration was settled. And so when there were funding crises in education in the 1950's, ... it was very difficult to get support for that even when it was advocated by the staunchest of segregationists like Governor John Patterson, who understood that the white schools needed money, the universities needed money, but he also had to announce ... this is with... the understanding that any new funding occurs only with the understanding that schools stay separate.
*1288 48. Meanwhile, throughout the 1950s and 1960s, it was becoming more and more certain that the courts would order reform of the crazy quilt system of property assessments around the state. (Thornton Dep. at 167.) Public utilities, because their property was assessed at the state level, were having state and local millage rates applied to their property's fair market value based on substantially higher assessment ratios (although not the full sixty percent state law called for) than were being applied to others by county tax assessors. (Id. at 169.) "The highest assessment level in the state was 30 percent. And that was in Jefferson County. Everything else ... was below 30 percent. And it was ... in some counties vastly, grossly below 30 percent." (Id.) The Alabama Supreme Court ruled in favor of the utilities when they challenged their assessments in court. State v. Ala. Power Co., 254 Ala. 327, 48 So. 2d 445 (1950).
"They oppose the means for providing education." Id.
54. Engelhardt's attitudes about the threat to whites' property taxes posed by rising black political influence was typical of whites' attitudes throughout Alabama, particularly in the Black Belt. May 4, 2004, Tr. at 90.
From their historical experience in Alabama, the most basic and first public policy effort that blacks had made during Reconstruction once they got the franchise initially was to enact property taxes that were much higher on land than had ever existed in Alabama up to that time. So, there's that historical experience that informed for subsequent generations of Alabamians that ... what a black voter, an empowered black citizen, would want to do, ... was to put taxes on white landowners.
In 1969 the State Department of Revenue commenced an assessmentsales ratio study to determine the ad valorem tax assessment ratio of fair and reasonable market value of real property in each county in the state and to determine the statewide median ratio. The results of this study, the reliability of which is not in issue, reveal that the median ratios for the individual counties in the State of Alabama range from lows of 6.7 and 7 percent of fair market value in rural Hale and Washington Counties to highs of 23.1 and 26.8 percent of fair market value in urban Madison and Jefferson Counties. The study further reveals that the median assessment ratio for the state was approximately 16.9 percent of fair market value.
Education is still the primary function of State Government, and I believe under existing revenues we can have a teacher salary increase, a better free textbook program, a better retirement program which has already been introduced.
Other legislation along this line will be introduced, because I am proud of the fact that during the time I was Governor the first time, a breakthrough in education came. The largest increases at any time because of our interest. But I am frank to tell you, and to tell educators, that the people of Alabama are simply turned off on education and some educators because of what the Federal Courts and HEW have done to their children from Huntsville to Mobile. Every one of you know I am telling you the truth when I tell you that.
Wallace, in the Fall, August, of '71, threatens to close some schools. This gave him a very powerful issue looking toward the 1972 presidential election, and in that context, when he called for a series of special sessions of the legislature to deal with, he said, reapportionment;they had to act on reapportionment at this exact same timehe called for an anti-busing piece of legislation, which was passed and of course was declared unconstitutional. *1294 The same night he called for that, he calls for a lid bill to cap property taxes in Alabama in the eontext of burgeoning private schools and massive exit from public schools in Alabama because of busing. He says, "we're goingwe're going to cap property taxes, make sure that no federal judge"now, he's talking ... about his old colleague, college mate, law school mate, Frank Johnson, the man who ... during Lee versus Macon, the ... original desegregation case throughout Alabama, he'd said... Judge Johnson, needed a barbed wire enema. Well, you know, that kind of baiting of federal judges, ... is applied then to Pointer in Birmingham, to Pittman in Mobile. It's clearly the kind of racial code messages that Wallace has perfected already at this point he applies in Alabama in the fall of 1971 in calling for a shoring up of the caps on property tax which became the Lid Bill.
74. The provision in Amendment 325 giving the Legislature authority to vary *1295 the assessment ratios from county to county, and the laws enacted pursuant to it, Ala.Code § 40-8-1 (1975), were challenged on non-racial equal protection grounds in a separate federal lawsuit filed in Mobile. (Pis.' Request for Admissions ¶136.) On April 21, 1978, Judge Hand ruled that the statutory variations of assessment ratios among the counties violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. McCarthy v. Jones, 449 F. Supp. 480, 484 (S.D.Ala. 1978). Judge Hand declined, however, to strike down Amendment 325 in its entirety on the theory that it was possible that the Legislature could vary the assessment ratios among counties in a rational way that met equal protection standards. Id. at 485.
78. Dr. Norrell agreed with another point Dr. Thornton made in his deposition: [A]ll tax policy made or revised in the 20th century has effectively been made to conform with the commitments of taxation capped by constitutional mandate, reinforced by limits on local control, local authority to tax, and that of course was the result of fears, especially among Black Belt counties, that in the future some reenfranchised black electorate would raise property taxes, the very fear that Sam Engelhardt acted on starting about 1950. And Thornton then takes us into the more modern period and effectively says, you know, these themes continue right through the important policy decisions made with regard to property taxes in 1971 and shored up to an extent in 1978.
[S]tate policies about property taxes were formulated in the context of the racially charged circumstance of Reconstruction and the immediate post Reconstruction years. Those property tax policies were created to maintain the lowest possible taxation because property taxation is associated with funding for education for black children, and ... that's anathema to this very conservative white supremacist group that gains dominance in 1875, that reinforces and sort of strengthens its structure in the 1901 [constitution], the time at which the vast majority of black voters are taken out of the polity in Alabama, and that those policies of minimal property taxes, of white supremacist control of local government, of minimal support for black education in Alabama are effectively uninterrupted even through the various anxieties and concerns that white supremacists had in Alabama as a result of the coming... civil rights movement and the reality of the civil rights movement. And even after we think of the modern civil rights movement having succeeded with the Civil Rights Act of '64, the Voting Rights Act of '65, that those same forces are able to further reinforce the historic commitment *1297 to minimal property taxation, minimal support for education now because of course it ... means education, desegregated or integrated racial education in Alabama. So, ... it's a story for me and for Thornton of powerful continuities established in 1875 or thereabouts and continuing effectively uninterrupted in the making of policy through 1978, and ... folks in Alabama still live very much under policies that were effectively created in 1875 and continuously reinforced up through the years.
Q. And the 1971 and 1978 lid bills reinforced those same policies?
79. The Plaintiffs introduced the testimony of Professor Susan Pace Hamill, Professor of Law at the University of Alabama, who has conducted an indepth study of Alabama's property tax system. See generally Susan Pace Hamill, Constitutional Reform in Alabama: A Necessary Step Toward Achieving a Fair and Efficient Tax Structure, 33 Cumb. L.Rev. 437 (2002-03) (the "Cumberland Law Review article"); Susan Pace Hamill, An Argument for Tax Reform Based on Judeo-Christian Ethics, 54 Ala. L.Rev. 1 (2002) ("the Alabama Law Review article").
80. In her Alabama Law Review article Professor Hamill empirically documented how Alabama's income, sales, and property tax laws unfairly burden poor and lower-income Alabamians. (May 4, 2004, Tr. at 10.) According to Professor Hamill, Alabama's state and local tax injustice takes two forms: regressive income and sales tax laws overtax poor and lower-income citizens, while grossly inadequate revenues supporting education deny those citizens opportunities to improve their condition. (Id.) Professor Hamill's research demonstrates that the property tax provisions are the primary force driving both injustices. Alabama Law Review Article at 11-20.
The nationwide average of property tax collections per capita imposed at the state, county, municipal, and school district levels, exceeded Alabama's per capita property tax collections by more than three times. The top three ranked states in the nation collected over six times more property tax per person than Alabama, and among the Southeastern states, Florida collected almost four times, while Georgia collected almost three times more property taxes per person than Alabama. Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky each collected around twice as much property tax per person as Alabama.
Id. at 20-21 (footnotes omitted).
84. As way of example, property tax revenues from timber lands, which constitute seventy-one percent of Alabama's geographic land mass, average less than $1.00 per acre and account for only two percent of all property tax revenue. (Pis.' Ex. 56; May 4, 2004, Tr. at 22-25.) Further, an increase in millage rates alone would not increase the proportion of the property tax revenue derived from timber. (May 4, 2004, Tr. at 27.) Thus, even with greater millage rates, timber land would still provide merely two percent of revenue derived from property tax.
What we have found is that based on disaggregation of test scores, that the most critical variable in terms of success in school is poverty. In other words, higher poverty, less success. And what we have found are for students that are in schools that are not well funded, they do not have access to advanced classes that would be required to have a good chance of success at Jacksonville or Alabama State or Auburn. So all of those contribute to a high probability of lack of success.
What you have are schools that have good local funding would be able to offer advanced placement courses, foreign language courses, higher level math, and in many cases the classes would be smaller and offered on a regular basis. So those students then would be able to take four years of aggressive mathematics. As I previously mentioned, mathematics seems *1302 to be the subject that creates most problems for students. So I would just say that the schools with less funding are less able to offer advanced courses that would be instrumental in a student's success in college.
I think we have 128 school systems now, or 129 perhaps, but 80 of that number used its textbook monies to some degree to avoid layoffs. In fact, we have had several school systems, 20 some-odd if I remember correctly, that had not purchased textbooks in three years. Now, you have to keep in mind, what's the problem. Well, they have kept the textbooks they have for six years already, so you add three more years on top of that. So you have got textbooks you have been using for nine years. Obviously the condition is bad, pages missing, and in some cases dated, you know, like science and social studies. So that was a tremendous impact, had a tremendous impact, and it was reflective of school systems that had low local support as well.
In terms of the specific issues related to the impact of the property tax and the relationship between K-12 funding and higher ed. funding, that relationship got a lot tighter after the foundation program was passed in '95, and so that ... starting 95-96 and then coming forward, that's where you start to see this sort of steady downward trend. And I would call ... to the court's attention [that] we already have a difference which amounts to as much as 200 million dollars between what would have been generated by the share a few years ago and what would be generated by it today .... [T]he trend is fairly steadily in the downward direction, and ... so one might anticipate that, absent any change, the higher ed. share could continue to decline.
107. Dr. Sullivan identified that an important consequence of the reduction in the share of ETF revenue appropriated for higher education *1305 has been that the gap between what the State appropriates and what ACHE defines as the "need" for the senior institutions, based on the median funding of the SREB  region, continues to widen. (May 5, 2004, Tr. at 86-88.) Since this case was tried in 1990, Alabama's state appropriations to senior institutions have declined from 84.1% of the ACHE regional standard to 55.8% of the ACHE regional standard. (Id. at 88; Pis.' Ex. 72 (chart demonstrating relationship between ETF appropriation for senior institutions and need, as measured by the ACHE standard).) In real dollars, these percentages represent a difference of over $650 million between Alabama's state appropriations and the regional standard of need and $400 million less than the 84% level of need that was being met during the 1990 trial. (May 5, 2004, Tr. at 89.) Moreover, "these data understate the magnitude of that drop because beginning in 95-96 the appropriation includes the retirement benefits that weren't in there in the early years that were separately appropriated. So that we've got some amount of money, somewhere perhaps between 50 and 100 million dollars, that's now imbedded into thatthis higher ed. appropriation that wasn't there in the earlier years." (Id. at 88.) 108. Dr. Sullivan testified that senior institutions having to cope with budgets that represent a smaller fraction of their need have been adversely impacted in two ways: (1) the institutions have been unable to increase salaries as fast as institutions in other states and thus have fallen further behind their SREB counterparts and the United States as a whole (May 5, 2004, Tr. at 89-90); Pis.' Ex. 74(chart indicating median household in SREB states); and (2) the institutions have been forced to dramatically increase in tuition (May 5, 2004, Tr. at 91).
109. Although the dramatic increase in tuition is certainly not unique to Alabama, the results of the tuition increase are more burdensome in the State because (1) there is not a corresponding increase in need-based scholarship funding to ensure continued access for students from lower income households, and (2) the percent of students in Alabama who would be eligible for such aid (using federal guidelines) is well above average. (May 5, 2004, Tr. at 91-99; Pis.' Exs. 74, 76 (chart comparing need-based financial aid from state sources for students at public institutions) & 77 (chart indicating Pell grant funding in United States, SREB States, and Alabama from 1990-91 to 2000-01).) Those circumstances place considerably more of the burden of increased tuition on low-income students. (May 5, 2004, Tr. at 92.) That is, compared to the situation in other states, it is becoming relatively easier for wealthy students to attend a state university in Alabama and relatively more difficult for poor students to do so.
Because the Alabama Legislature during its Special Session in September, 2003 significantly reduced funding for the state's only need-based student aid program that receives federal matching funds, Alabama must return its $446,119 share of federal funds for 2003-2004, as the state no longer meets the required maintenance of effort necessary to qualify for the federal monies. As a result, Alabama will not receive any federal need-based aid funds for 2003-2004 or 2004-2005.
[T]he big payoff in labor markets today is actually going to college and getting a bachelor's degree. If you go back a generation or two, the big payoff was the difference between dropping out of high school and getting a high school diploma. Back in the days when, you know, we used to quaintly call it a good middle class wage could be earned by a high school graduate, could go out and get a good job often in manufacturing, often in the public sector, earn a good wage without having to go to college. And in those days a generation or two ago, there wasn't as much of what economists call the college wage premium, the difference between a high school graduate, what he or she earns, and a college graduate. Well, in the last *1310 two decades, that college wage premium has increased quite a bit, and what we see today the biggest jump is the difference between that high school diploma now and somebody getting a bachelor's degree..... There's not much of a premium in terms of earnings between staying in high school and dropping out of high school, but there's a huge premium when somebody goes on to college and gets a bachelor's degree.
1. In United States v. Fordice, 505 U.S. 717, 112 S. Ct. 2727, 120 L. Ed. 2d 575 (1992), the Supreme Court set forth a three-part constitutional analysis governing higher education desegregation lawsuits to determine "whether a state has fully met its remedial obligation" to dismantle policies and practices that inhibit free choice by students with respect to attending institutions of higher education. Knight v. Alabama, 14 F.3d 1534, 1540^2 (11th Cir. 1994).
2. The first step requires the plaintiff to show that a policy "challenged as segregative is `traceable' to decisions that were made or practices that were instituted in the past for segregative reasons, thus rendering it a vestige of discrimination." Knight, 14 F.3d at 1540. Put differently, "[o]nce it is determined that a particular policy was originally adopted for discriminatory reasons, the Fordice test inquires whether the current policy is `traceable' to the original policy, or is `rooted' or has `antecedents' in that original policy." Id. at 1550.
3. The burden of proof to satisfy the "traceable to" prong lies on the plaintiff: "Where plaintiffs in a lawsuit contend that a state or other public actor has not discharged its duty to dismantle its former system of de jure segregated higher education, the burden of proof lies with the charging party to show that a challenged contemporary policy is traceable to past segregation." Knight, 14 F.3d at 1540-41.
4. The second step in the Fordice analysis requires that if the plaintiff *1311 successfully demonstrates that a challenged contemporary policy is traceable to past segregation, the burden next shifts to the State to show that the policy no longer has continuing segregative effects. Knight, 14 F.3d at 1541. Upon proving that a challenged policy has no segregative effects, the State "is relieved of its duty to eliminate or modify the policy." Id. (citing Fordice, 505 U.S. at 738-39, 112 S.Ct. 2727).
Where plaintiffs show that a current policy is traceable to past segregation, and defendants fail to demonstrate either (1) that the policy, in combination with other policies, has no current segregative effects, or (2) that none of the full range of less segregative alternative remedies are practicable and educationally sound, defendants must adopt the practicable and educationally sound alternatives that will bring about the greatest possible reduction in the segregative effects. "If the state has not discharged [this remedial] duty, it remains in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment."
Knight, 14 F.3d at 1542 (citing Fordice, 505 U.S. at 727,112 S.Ct. 2727).
7. The Court first considers whether Plaintiffs have demonstrated that the constitutional restrictions placed on the property tax authority of both state and local governments are traceable to Alabama's prior de jure dual system.
8. Based on the extensive record before the Court, the Court finds that Plaintiffs have met their burden to demonstrate that the current ad valorem tax structure is a vestige of discrimination inasmuch as the constitutional provisions governing the taxation of property are traceable to, rooted in, and have their antecedents in an original segregative, discriminatory policy.
9. It is clear that the current tax structure in Alabama cripples the effectiveness of state and local governments in Alabama to raise funds adequate to support higher education. The Lid Bill and the low assessment ratios impede and restrict the ability of the *1312 State and local governments from raising revenue from taxation of property.
10. Plaintiffs having satisfied their burden to show that the current tax structure is "traceable to" de jure segregation, the burden shifts to Defendants to show that the challenged provisions of the Alabama constitution do not have a continuing segregative effect. Knight v. Alabama, 14 F.3d at 1541.
11. Defendants contend that the property tax is not related to Alabama's system of higher education-i.e., that no nexus exists between the lack of funds derived from state and local property taxation and the effect on student enrollment decisions. Consequently, Defendants submit, the challenged provisions of the Alabama Constitution do not and cannot have a continuing segregative effect.
12. Plaintiffs contend that a causal nexus does indeed exist, arguing that the lack of property tax revenue has financially strained K-12 schools in Alabama, thereby requiring that the State allocate an increased proportion of the ETF to K-12. As a result of this inequitable distribution, Plaintiffs claim that tuition at Alabama's institutions of higher education has skyrocketed and that funds available for need-based financial assistance have plummeted. Consequently, the ability of poorer students, who are disproportionately black, to attend college is adversely affected.
13. The Court appreciates Plaintiffs' argument, and agrees that the current property tax system in Alabama has a crippling effect on the ability of local and state government to raise revenue adequately to fund K-12 schools. Nevertheless, the Court cannot agree that the property tax structure stymies school choice in such a way that results in an unconstitutional denial of a student's right to make a decision unfettered by vestiges of discrimination.
14. The Court finds that the relationship between the funding of higher education and finding of K-12 is marginal insofar as ad valorem property tax is concerned. Put differently, the effect of the state's inability to raise revenue due to the challenged constitutional provisions is simply too attenuated to form a causal connection between the tax policy and any segregative effect on school choice.
17. The Court concludes, therefore, that although the ad valorem taxation system in Alabama may be traceable to past discriminatory decisions, Defendants have satisfied their burden to demonstrate that the challenged provisions *1313 of the Alabama constitution do not continue to have a segregative effect on student choice.
18. Plaintiffs also argue that the challenged provisions of the Alabama constitution violate the Fourteenth Amendment by restricting blacks' full participation in the political process. Specifically, Plaintiffs contend that those provisions were adopted for the racially discriminatory purpose of restricting the ability of black voters to influence property tax policy through ordinary lawmaking precesses both in the Alabama Legislature and in their local governments, especially in majority-black counties, municipalities, and school districts; therefore, the provisions at issue in the instant Motion unconstitutionally burden the ability of blacks to further their political aims.
19. Plaintiffs rely principally on Hunter v. Erickson, 393 U.S. 385, 89 S. Ct. 557, 21 L. Ed. 2d 616 (1969), in which the Supreme Court struck down an amendment to the Akron, Ohio, city charter that restricted the city counsel's authority to enact an ordinance prohibiting racial, religious, or ancestral discrimination in housing without prior voter approval. Hunter, 393 U.S. at 387, 89 S. Ct. 557. All other ordinances, including ordinances preventing housing discrimination on grounds other than race or religion, could be enacted simply with the support of the Akron City Counsel. Id. at 389-90, 89 S. Ct. 557.
20. Although the Akron amendment was facially neutral, the real effect of the legislation was to "disadvantage those who would benefit from laws barring racial, religious, or ancestral discriminations as against those who would bar other discriminations or who would otherwise regulate the real estate market in their favor." Hunter, 393 U.S. at 391, 89 S. Ct. 557. The Supreme Court further reasoned that "the reality is that the law's impact falls on the minority" in that the *1314 amendment "places special burdens on racial minorities within the governmental process." Id.
21. Likewise, in Washington v. Seattle School District No. 1, 458 U.S. 457, 102 S. Ct. 3187, 73 L. Ed. 2d 896 (1982), the Supreme Court, following Hunter, struck down an initiative that was "carefully tailored to interfere with desegregative busing." Washington, 458 U.S. at 471, 102 S. Ct. 3187. In particular, that initiative prohibited school boards from requiring any student to attend a school other than the school nearest or next nearest to the student's residence. Id. at 462, 102 S. Ct. 3187. Like the ordinance in Hunter, the challenged initiative in Washington sought to frustrate attempts to provide legislation, i.e. busing for integration, designed to primarily benefit minorities. Id. at 472-74, 102 S. Ct. 3187. The Supreme Court therefore concluded that "[g]iven the racial focus of [the initiative], this suffices to trigger application of the Hunter doctrine." Id. at 474, 102 S. Ct. 3187.
22. The Court is unpersuaded that the instant case falls under Hunter and its progeny. Specifically, unlike the challenged legislation in Hunter and Washington, Alabama's property tax structure uniformly affects all citizens of Alabama, regardless of race, burdening all of the constituency by making it difficult to influence or change the property tax structure.
23. Additionally, the purpose underlying the enactment of the legislation in both Hunter and Washington differs from the instant case. In those cases, the challenged legislation sought to eliminate the possibility of legislation specifically tailored to remedy discrimination and segregation. Here, on the other hand, the challenged constitutional provisions were not ratified with the intent to foreclose legislation specifically tailored to remedy discrimination. Accordingly, the Court does not find that the circumstances of this case trigger the applicability Hunter and its progeny.
24. In conclusion, therefore, although the provisions of the Alabama constitution may represent poor public tax policy, the Court finds that those provisions do not violate the Fourteenth Amendment.
ACCORDINGLY, the Court DENIES Plaintiffs' Motion for Additional Relief withe Respect to State Funding of Public Higher Education.
We made a two-year study on every single aspect of education's operation. All right. Just to give you a couple of examples.... We went in and we looked at utility bills for schools that we felt were adequately heated and cooled, and averaged those out. We looked at the laws on the books, what does it require for special education? We looked at how much it costs to transport students. That was required. We looked at even how much money teachers are having to spend beyond the supply money that they were allocated. We went out and looked at bills and invoices. It took us about two years. So we could tell you three years ago how much it costs to meet existing state laws, and to meet existing costs in Alabama. We didn't compare ourselves to Tennessee or anything else, just what it costs in Alabama. Just to meet existing state laws and to meet the actual cost of operation.
We believed that in order to go to the legislature and say, what is adequacy? You know, everybody has a different definition, like dropout rate, it's adequate one place, it's not adequate somewhere else. So we felt like we would just look at the actual cost of what does it cost to maintain the building, what does it cost to sweep the floors, the whole thin[g], and then we would then go to the legislature because we felt like that's eventually where we were going to have to go. Or, if it was picked up by an appellate court, then they would say, all right, we agree that adequacy is required. How much does it cost in Alabama? And then we could offer those numbers to support our case.
 Southern Regional Education Board, whose member states currently include sixteen Southeastern states.
 While the University of South Alabama and the University of Alabama both have medical schools, the expenditures for hospital related appropriations are not included in O & M as seen on the chart compiled by Dr. Mabry that depicts key revenue sources for Alabama's public universities. (May 4, 2004, Tr. at 167; Pis.' Ex. 124 (chart indicating sources of revenue for Alabama universities).) Dr. Mabry focused instead on the non-hospital related appropriations.
Fordice recognized as having segregative effects policies that "influence student enrollment decisions.'' In its discussion of several of the Fordice plaintiffs' specific challenges to Mississippi higher education policy, the Court offered examples of two broad categories of practices that can inhibit "free choice" by students as to university attendance. The first category comprises policies that have the effect of discouraging or preventing blacks from attending HWIs, examples of which include the maintenance of more stringent admissions requirements for HWIs than for [Historically Black Institutions ("HBIs")]. The second category consists of policies that discourage whites from seeking to attend HBIs, examples of which include: duplication of programs at HBIs and HWIs in the same geographic area; the assignment to HBIs of institutional missions that restrict them to programs of instruction that cannot effectively attract whites; and the failure to fund HBIs comparably to HWIs or to locate high-prestige programs at HBIs. As a result of such policies, disproportionate numbers of whites can satisfy their curricular desires at HWIs, and cannot satisfy them at HBIs, thereby discouraging them from choosing to attend HBIs.
Arguably, nothing currently at issue in this case fits into either of those two categories. Plaintiffs' claims that the State is not funding K-12 adequately and that as a result higher education is receiving a lesser share of the ETF, do not appear to fit the Fordice mold, let alone impede black students' free choice in determining which university to attend. The Court has previously imposed the requirements of Fordice, and the Court questions whether the issues presently before the Court trigger the application of Fordice.

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