Case Name: Birdie Mae DAVIS et al., Appellants, v. BOARD OF SCHOOL COMMISSIONERS OF MOBILE COUNTY, ALABAMA et al., Appellees
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1963-07-09
Citations: 322 F.2d 356
Docket Number: No. 20657
Parties: Birdie Mae DAVIS et al., Appellants, v. BOARD OF SCHOOL COMMISSIONERS OF MOBILE COUNTY, ALABAMA et al., Appellees.
Judges: 
Reporter: Federal Reporter 2d Series
Volume: 322
Pages: 356–363

Head Matter:
Birdie Mae DAVIS et al., Appellants, v. BOARD OF SCHOOL COMMISSIONERS OF MOBILE COUNTY, ALABAMA et al., Appellees.
No. 20657.
United States Court of Appeals Fifth. Circuit.
July 9, 1963.
On Rehearing July 18, 1963.
Dissenting Opinion July 30, 1963.
Certiorari Denied Oct. 28, 1963.
See 84 S.Ct. 170.
Bell, Circuit Judge, dissented on original hearing and dissented in part on rehearing.
Cameron, Circuit Judge, dissented from refusal to grant an en bane hearing.
Vernon Z. Crawford, Mobile, Ala., C. B. Motley, New York City, for appellants.
George F. Wood, Mobile, Ala., Joseph F. Johnston, Birmingham, Ala., for appellees.
Before BROWN, WISDOM and BELL, Circuit Judges.

Opinion:
PER CURIAM.
Plaintiffs here seek an injunction by this Court pending our determination of the merits of an appeal from an order entered on June 24, 1963, by the District Court for the Southern District of Alabama. This suit originated when Plaintiffs filed a class action seeking the desegregation of the Mobile County school system. Plaintiffs sought an immediate order requiring the Defendant School Commissioners to submit a plan of desegregation within thirty days. This motion was denied by the District Court. In the alternative, Plaintiffs sought a preliminary and permanent injunction prohibiting the further operation of segregated schools. The Court took this motion under submission and ordered briefs to be filed within a specified time. Plaintiffs appealed from this ruling asserting that the failure to immediately rule on the motion for preliminary injunction amounted to a denial of the motion. On that appeal, this Court held that the trial Judge had not abused his discretion. Davis v. Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County, 5 Cir., 1963, 318 F.2d 63.
Subsequently, the District Court held a hearing and made the following determination. By its order of June 24, the Court denied Plaintiffs' motion for preliminary injunction. The case was set for trial on November 14, 1963 and the Defendants were directed "to present at the trial a specific plan for the operation of the schools under their authority and control on a racially non-discriminatory basis, consistent with the principles established by the Supreme Court, to commence not later than the beginning of the 1964-65 school year." It is from this order that Plaintiffs have appealed to this Court, seeking in the meantime an injunction requiring the Mobile County schools to commence integration not later than September 1963.
We are in agreement with Plaintiff's theory. The Defendant Board has not come forward with an acceptable reason why the integration program should be further delayed. No one disputes that the public schools of Mobile County are presently operated on a segregated basis.
"It is now more than nine years since this Court held in the first Brown decision 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873, that racial segregation in state public schools violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
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"Given the extended time which has elapsed, it is far from clear that the mandate of the second Brown decision [349 U.S. 294, 75 S.Ct. 753, 99 L.Ed. 1083] requiring that desegregation proceed with 'all deliberate speed' would today be fully satisfied by types of plans or programs for desegregation of public educational facilities which eight years ago might have been deemed sufficient. Brown never contemplated that the concept of 'deliberate speed' would countenance indefinite delay in elimination of racial barriers in schools Watson v. City of Memphis, 1963, 373 U.S. 526, 83 S.Ct. 1314, 10 L.Ed.2d 529.
"Now eight years after [the second Brown decision] was rendered and over nine years after the first Brown decision, the context in which we must interpret and apply this language ['all deliberate speed'] to plans for desegregation has been significantly altered." Goss v. Board of Education of City of Knoxville, 1963, 373 U.S. 683, 83 S.Ct. 1405, 10 L.Ed.2d 632.
The District Judge in his memorandum opinion discusses two principal reasons why preliminary injunctive relief should not now be granted. The first is that there would be an impossible administrative burden placed on the school system. The second is the Court's belief, based upon experience over the past several years in other race civil rights matters, that if this action is not too hastily taken, the problem will work itself out with no strife or similar consequences.
For reasons which bear on both of them, we think neither of these grounds is sufficient. The administrative problem is not one created by the Plaintiffs. They have for nearly a year sought without success to get the school authorities to desegregate the schools. The fact that the suit was not filed until March 1963 is not therefore of controlling importance. As to the second ground, there is nothing on the present record to afford either the District Judge or this Court any assurance that the requested forebearance will produce effective results. The Defendants have not even answered as yet. They have filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. Although it seems to be acknowledged on all hands that a racially segregated system is still maintained, the Defendants' legal position under this motion is that the Plaintiffs have not set forth a claim entitling them to relief. So far as this record shows, the Defendant school authorities have not to this day ever acknowledged that (a) the present system is constitutionally invalid or (b) that there is any obligation on their part to make any changes at any time. At this late date the Plaintiffs, who represent Negro children who are presently being denied constitutional rights, are entitled to minimum effective relief. With the trial date now fixed in November, it means that effective relief is denied for another school year with no assurance that even at such later date anything but a reaffirmation of the teaching of the Brown decision will be forthcoming. The Plaintiffs showed a clear case entitling them to interim relief pending a final hearing, and it was an abuse of the District Court's discretion not to enter a preliminary injunction.
The "All Writs" statute, 28 U.S.C.A. § 1651, gives us the power to grant the relief sought by Plaintiffs. Stell v. Savannah-Chatham County Board of Education, 5 Cir., 1963, 318 F.2d 425. However, as in that case, we think it more appropriate to frame the injunction and direct by mandate that this injunction be made the order of the District Court.
It is therefore, ORDERED that the District Court for the Southern District of Alabama enter the following judgment and order:
"The Defendant, Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County and the other individual Defendants (naming them specifically) and their agents, servants, employees, successors in office and those in concert with them who shall receive notice of this order, be and they are hereby restrained and enjoined from requiring and permitting segregation of the races in any school under their supervision, from and after such time as may be necessary to make arrangements for admission of children to such schools on a racially non-discriminatory basis with all deliberate speed, as required by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 1955, 349 U.S. 294, 75 S.Ct. 753, 99 L.Ed. 1083.
"It is further ordered, adjudged and decreed that said persons be and they are hereby required to make an immediate start in the desegregation of the school of Mobile County, and that a plan be submitted to the District Court by August 1, 1963, which shall include a statement that the maintenance of separate schools for the Negro and white children of Mobile County shall be completely ended with respect to the first grade during the school year commencing September 1963, and with respect to at least one successively higher additional grade each school year thereafter."
The District Court may modify this order to defer desegregation of rural schools in Mobile County until September 1964, should the District Court after further hearing conclude that special planning of administrative problems for rural schools in the county make it impracticable for such schools to start desegregation in September 1963.
This order shall remain in effect until the final determination of the appeal of the within case in the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on the merits, and until the further order of this Court. During the pendency of this order the trial court is further directed to enter such other and further orders as may be appropriate or necessary in carrying out the expressed terms of this order.
The Clerk is directed to issue the mandate forthwith.