Case Name: Johnny BROWN, Jr., etc., et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees-Cross Appellants, v. DADE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS, INC., etc., et al., Defendants-Appellants-Cross Appellees
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1977-07-25
Citations: 556 F.2d 310
Docket Number: No. 75-3260
Parties: Johnny BROWN, Jr., etc., et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees-Cross Appellants, v. DADE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS, INC., etc., et al., Defendants-Appellants-Cross Appellees.
Judges: Before'/BR0WN, Chief Judge, ^EWIN, v"coleman, Goldberg, "Ainsworth, GODBOLD, DYJER, MORGAN, VULARK, vRONEY, GEE,vTJOFLAT, and HILL, Circuit Judges.
Reporter: Federal Reporter 2d Series
Volume: 556
Pages: 310–326

Head Matter:
Johnny BROWN, Jr., etc., et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees-Cross Appellants, v. DADE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS, INC., etc., et al., Defendants-Appellants-Cross Appellees.
No. 75-3260.
United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
July 25, 1977.
Rehearing Denied Sept. 12,1977.
Lawrence R. Metsch, Miami, Fla., for defendants-appellants-cross appellees.
Ellis S. Rubin, Miami, Fla., for plaintiffsappellees-cross appellants.
Before'/BR0WN, Chief Judge, ^EWIN, v"coleman, Goldberg, "Ainsworth, GODBOLD, DYJER, MORGAN, VULARK, vRONEY, GEE,vTJOFLAT, and HILL, Circuit Judges.

Opinion:
JAMES C. HILL, Circuit Judge:
Appellant-defendant Dade Christian Schools, Inc. (Dade Christian) appeals from the judgment of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida awarding damages to plaintiffs and enjoining defendant school from barring Valerie and Jacquelin Brown from enrolling in the school because of their race.
The plaintiffs in this case, Mr. and Mrs. Johnny Brown, Jr. and their two children, named above, are members of the black race. The defendant, Dade Christian, is a sectarian school, located on the property of and receiving subsidies from the New Testament Baptist Church. Its students are not limited to those in families of church members and it advertises in the "yellow pages" section of the telephone directory.
On July 25, 1973, Mrs. Brown with her children applied to Dade Christian for enrollment of her children. Upon arrival, Mrs. Brown was handed a printed card reading:
"DADE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS 6601 N.W. 167th Street Hialeah, Florida 33015
We are sorry . . . But the policy of the school is one of non-integration and we would request that you respect this policy.
School Administration"
Mrs. Brown and her children left the premises, allegedly embarrassed and humiliated, and this suit followed.
It is stipulated that race was the sole reason for the refusal of appellant to enroll the Brown children.
A nonjury trial was conducted and evidence taken consisting of depositions and documents. The first issue was whether or not 42 U.S.C.A. § 1981 applied to discrimination by a private school. If it were found that 42 U.S.C.A. § 1981 did apply the court was confronted with the question as to whether or not the conduct of the defendant constituted the exercise of religious belief protected by the Free Exercise of Religion Clause. The defendant asserted that its members sincerely held a religious belief that socialization of the races would lead to racial intermarriage, and that this belief, sanctioned by the Free Exercise Clause, should prevail against private interests created by Congress.
The trial judge held that Section 1981 reached and forbade private discriminatory conduct of the school. The trial court then conducted a full trial and, based upon evidence received, found as a fact that defendant's discriminatory policy was based upon a social policy or philosophy and was not a part of the exercise of religion. Therefore, any question of balancing interests embod ied in § 1981 with those expressed in the Free Exercise Clause was not reached.
Judgment was entered for the plaintiffs. Dade Christian appeals, contending that Section 1981 does not reach private discrimination and, further that the findings of fact by the District Court were clearly erroneous.
When this appeal came to us, the Supreme Court had before it for decision the issue of the applicability of Section 1981 to private schools. We ordered that this case be heard en banc rather than by a panel of this Court:
On June 25, 1976, the Supreme Court in the case of Runyon v. McCrary, 427 U.S. 160, 96 S.Ct. 2586, 49 L.Ed.2d 415, held that 42 U.S.C.A. 1981, like 42 U.S.C.A. § 1982, reaches private conduct and prohibits private, commercially operated, non-sectarian schools from denying admission to prospective students because they are black. Therefore, while this issue was raised in the appeal it is no longer an issue for us to decide. Judge Eaton's decision on it preceded the Runyon case. He resolved it correctly. Runyon v. McCrary, supra.
The Supreme Court noted that the Runyon case did not call for the resolution of any potential tension between litigants seeking to enforce Congressionally created civil rights and those relying on the Free Exercise of Religion Clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution.
Although the defendant would have us resolve this issue left open in Runyon, we are, also, not called upon to balance these potentially conflicting interests. The trial judge, after careful consideration of all the evidence, concluded that the defendant's policy of segregation was not the exercise of religion. Our review of the evidence convinces us that the findings of the trial judge were supported by substantial evidence. The printed card handed to Mrs. Brown at the school expressly stated the racial exclusion to be based on policy. The application for admission to the school contains a list of nine tenets entitled "[w]e believe." While these tenets may constitute religious beliefs, none of them includes anything relating to segregation of schools. Indeed, they do not refer to commingling or separation of the races at all.
We do not hold that a belief must be permanently recorded in written form to be religious in nature. However, the absence of references to school segregation in written literature stating the church's beliefs, distributed to members of the church and the public by leaders of the church and administrators of the school, is strong evidence that school segregation is not the exercise of religion.
Five days prior to the filing of this suit, the minutes of the church disclosed the following:
Dr. Janey explained to the congregation the decisions that had been made by the church in previous years in regard to integration. He also explained that he would follow the previous dictates of the church in this area unless instructed otherwise by the membership, (emphasis added).
We agree with the trial judge that the indication that the contested belief would be subject to change upon the direction of the congregation comports with the social or political nature of the exclusionary policy.
The principal of the school, Mr. Kreft, was asked for the basis for forbidding commingling of whites and blacks. He answer ed, "Just by general references. Now, I don't know of a specific position, other than policy directives."
Mr. Kalapp, an incorporating officer, of defendant school, when asked how the policy of exclusion was adopted, responded as follows: "I don't think it was adopted at a specific time as I recall it. I think it was something that evolved as a philosophy and a policy over a period of a number of meetings."
Mr. Kreft further stated that "[b]asically it would be more or less the Board of Directors of the School who would direct me regarding the policy of enrollment."
Mr. Ackerman, held the position of secretary-treasurer for the first five years of the school's existence, 1961-66. He stated that, at the time he left the school, he was not aware of any policy concerning the enrollment of blacks and the reason for this was because "[t]he issues in the first five years were not very strong issues in those days, because even in our public schools, the integration was just very token, and just beginning at that time."
To the same effect is the statement of Mr. Kalapp that the policy "came into being on a very gradual basis, because in the very early days of the school there was no such conversation in regard to integration." Later, in his words, the leaders "decided that a school philosophy needed to be adopted in view of the fact that it had gotten to be such a topic of conversation, . . . because of all the furor in the newspapers and other news media that was being brought about by such things as busing and forced integration in schools."
From the above, and other evidence, the trial judge concluded that, if belief in school segregation was religious in nature, neither the officers of the school nor the congregation of the church were aware of it. He found that as social conditions changed and the issue arose, a policy was formulated by the school leaders. While a religious belief may be of recent vintage or formed instantaneously, the trial judge's conclusion that school segregation was nothing more than a recent policy developed in response to the growing issue of segregation and integration was amply supported by the evidence.
Though difficult, it is clearly the duty of the court to decide, as a matter of fact, whether or not any activity constitutes the exercise of religion. Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 92 S.Ct. 1526, 32 L.Ed.2d 15 (1971); Theriault v. Carlson, 495 F.2d 390 (5th Cir. 1974); Founding Church of Scientology v. United States, 133 U.S.App. D.C. 229, 409 F.2d 1146 (1969); United States v. Kuch, 288 F.Supp. 439 (D.C.D.C. 1968).
Judge Goldberg's special concurrence misses the mark in two ways. First, he assumes that the institutional actors, i. e., the school and the church, do not have independent rights of free exercise of religion which they can assert. The existence or non-existence of institutional rights of free exercise is a perplexing legal question which we need not decide here. Second, and more important, cases such as Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 92 S.Ct. 1526, 32 L.Ed.2d 15 (1972), and Gillette v. U. S., 401 U.S. 437, 91 S.Ct. 828, 28 L.Ed.2d 168 (1971) do not apply to the case at bar. Gillette and Yoder dealt with the actions of individuals; in Gillette a willful failure to report for induction into the armed forces, and in Yoder violation of the compulsory school attendance law. Therefore, it was appropriate to scrutinize the individual religious beliefs of the parties in those cases. Here, however, the refusal by Dade Christian School to admit a black child was an institutional action taken by an institution whose patrons are, according to the evidence, divided in their beliefs on the religious justification for racial segregation. In such a situation the only practical course open to a Court is to examine the corporate beliefs of the institution involved, as adopted or promulgated or carried forward as an institutional concept. To do otherwise would allow the institution to pick and choose which of its members' potentially conflicting beliefs it wished to assert at any given time. Thus, an avowedly secular school should not be permitted to interpose a free exercise defense to a § 1981 action merely because it can find some of its patrons who have a sincere religiously based belief in racial segregation. Conversely, a school or church which holds racial segregation as a religious tenet should not be barred from asserting a free exercise defense to a § 1981 claim merely because some of its patrons or members might individually believe racial segregation is morally wrong.
Our opinion today is not to be taken as requiring or suggesting that religious beliefs be institutionalized in order to be eligible for First Amendment protection. Indeed, they need not be. Yet, congregational churches recognizing no dogma other than the priesthood of the individual do institutionalize many activities sponsored or supported by them. Scout troups, hospitals, colleges and universities are but a few. When the lawfulness of an activity of any such institution is in question, the focus of the inquiry must be upon the basis for the institution's activity. Whether it be the troop's policy for the award of merit badges, the hospital's requirements for staff privileges, or the college's admission principles, the basis is that particular institution's basis. Whether or not it is the exercise of religion or simply a policy of the institution not presenting constitutional issues is a question of fact. We affirm the district court's finding on that question. Judge Goldberg and Judge Roney call attention to some evidence upon which a contrary finding might be made, but its focus is more upon individuals than upon the school, itself, and it is only the admission policy of the school under scrutiny.
It is for this reason that the district judge sought to determine whether or not the sincerely held beliefs of some of the members of the church had been institutionalized as a religious exercise by the school. He found that this private school wished to deny admission to blacks for the same reasons as Bobbe's Private School and FairfaxBrewster School, Inc. had, and not as the exercise of religion. Runyon declares that this cannot be done.
Judge Goldberg refers to the whims of fact-finders. We do not characterize findings of fact in our judicial system as whimsical. No oracle has been identified to which difficult issues may be referred, and we find none. Therefore, we have addressed the issue presented in this case and we affirm the trial court's resolution.
AFFIRMED.
. 42 U.S.C.A. § 1981 provides:
All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.
. U.S.Const. Amend. I provides in part:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. .
. "It is worth noting at the outset some of the questions that these cases do not present. . They do not even present the application of § 1981 to private sectarian schools that practice racial exclusion on religious grounds." 427 U.S. at 167, 96 S.Ct. at 2592.
. As pointed out in the dissenting opinion of Judge Roney, the trial court could have found this the exercise of religion by a congregation-ally organized church wherein every believer is his own priest. This is to say, the finder of fact in this case might have, from the evidence, found the facts to be different from the resolution actually reached. But he did not, and it was his duty to weigh the evidence. Ours is to determine whether or not there was sufficient evidence upon which to base the finding. F.R.Civ.P. Rule 52, 28 U.S.C.A.