Case Name: The BOARD OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION OF MANATEE COUNTY, Florida, for and on Behalf of Special Tax School District Number One of Manatee County, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, and Others, Appellees
Court: Florida Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1954-11-16
Citations: 75 So. 2d 832
Docket Number: 
Parties: The BOARD OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION OF MANATEE COUNTY, Florida, for and on Behalf of Special Tax School District Number One of Manatee County, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, and Others, Appellees.
Judges: ROBERTS, C. J., HOBSON and DREW, JJ., and MURPHREE, Associate Justice, concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 75
Pages: 832–849

Head Matter:
The BOARD OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION OF MANATEE COUNTY, Florida, for and on Behalf of Special Tax School District Number One of Manatee County, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, and Others, Appellees.
Supreme Court of Florida, en Banc.
Nov. 16, 1954.
Daniel & Woodward, Thomas W. Stewart, Bradenton, Weldon G. Starry, Tallahassee, and Caldwell,. Marshall, .Trimble & Mitchell, New York City, for appellant. ■
Mabry, Reaves, Carlton, Fields. & Ward,' Tampa, for appellees.

Opinion:
TERRELL, Justice.
Appellant proffered its petition in the Circuit Court of Manatee County to validate school bonds. Answers and a motion to dismiss were filed by the State of Florida and other intervenors, challenging the val lidity of and the manner of compliance with Chapter 29260, Acts of 1953, insofar as it required a special registration of freeholders prerequisite to the issuance of said bonds and as to requirement for calling the election by the County Commissioners: The answers and motion to dismiss also challenged the qualification of an indeterminate number of participating electors.
Testimony was taken before the Court who .entered a final decree holding that Chapter 29260 was exclusive, under the terms of which only the Board of County Commissioners of Manatee County had power to call an election for the purpose of submitting to the. qualified electors the proposition of issuing the proposed bonds. The.Court further found that the resolution of the Board of County Commissioners of December 7, 1953, approving, ratifying and confirming the action of the Board of Public Instruction in calling said election does not amount to a .legal call by the Board of County Commissioners, that the Board of Public Instruction did not have power to call said election under Chapter 236, Florida Statutes 1951, F.S.A., and that said election was improperly called. The motion to dismiss the petition was granted and validation refused. This appeal is from that decree.
The point for determination is whether or not the special bond election was legally called and held.
It is a fact that Chapter 29260, -Special Acts of 1953, requires that elections to approve the issuance of bonds by special, tax. districts be called by the Board of County Commissioners but it is also true that certain provisions of Chapter 236, particularly Sections 236.36. and 236.37, and others, provide that special tax. school district bond elections be called by the Board of Public Instruction. The resolution of the Board of Public Instruction of Manatee County calling the election involved in this case shows on its face that it was called November 3, 1953, pursuant to Section 236.37, Florida Statutes, for the purppse of issuing, acquiring, building, enlarging, furnishing or otherwise improving buildings or school grounds or for any other exclusive use of public free schools within the s.chool district.
Said resolution also shows that pursuant to Section 230.34, Florida Statutes 1941, as amended by Chapter. 23726, Acts of 1947, F.S.A., all school districts in Manatee County including • other territory in the county, was as of January 1, 1948 consolidated into one school district known as Special Tax School District Number One, the boundaries of which are coextensive with the boundaries of ' the county.' The resolution further shows that prerequisite to the issuance of said bonds the required • surveys were made and a school building program formulated that the " proposed school building program was essential to afford adequate school facilities for the county, that the County Superintendent of Public Instruction made a complete study of the survey, as did representatives of the State Department of Education, and recommended improvements for each white and colored school in the county. 1 All of which, including every other prerequisite for the proposed bond issue, was ! uriani-mously approved by the Board of Public Instruction of 'the county and submitted to the State Superintendent of Public Instruction who on November 20, 1953 approved as required by law.
The record further discloses that on December 2, 1953 the Board of Public Instruction of Manatee County, adopted a resolution ordering the holding.of an election in Special Tax School District Number One, Manatee County, on the question of issuing the proposed bonds and for reregistration of the qualified electors who are freeholders, as provided by ¡Chapter 29260, Acts of 1953. Said resolution designated the places for voting, time for holding the election, the purpose for which it was held, form of the ballot, and gave the required notice of the election and reregistration including the resolution, in fact every essential requirement of the law with reference to advertising such elections, registration of electors, the amount and distribution of the bonds, was followed.
On January 27, 1954 the Board of Public Instruction again met in regular session and adopted a resolution wherein it recited the fact of calling and holding said election, the question that was voted on and the duty of the Board of Public Instruction to canvass the returns and declare the results thereof. The resolution further declared that the Board of Public Instruction "has made and completed said canvass of said election returns, and has determined that the result thereof shows that 3820 votes were cast in said election, that 2186 votes were cast in favor of the issuance of said bonds and that 1634 votes were cast against the issuance of said bonds, and that the total vote for and against the issuance of said bonds constitutes a majority of the qualified electors who are registered as freeholders of said county as of the date of said election and qualified to vote therein."
On February 1, 1954, five days after the Board of Public Instruction met and canvassed the' returns of said election, the Board of County Commissioners of Manatee County met and 'recognized the call of the said elections, the purpose for which it was called and that it was its duty to canvass the returns and declare the result thereof. The Board of County Commissioners then proceeded to canvass the returns with the identical results and findings as those announced in tire preceding paragraph by the Board of Public Instruction. On December 7, 1953 in regular session the Board of County Commissioners of Manatee County adopted a resolution wherein it concurred with the Board of Public Instruction in calling the election to approve the issuance of said bonds and resolved that the "action of the Board of Public Instruction of the County of Manatee, Florida, in calling said special election in Special Tax School District No. One of the County of Manatee, Florida, on the question of the issuance of $1,750,000.00 school bonds of said district, as provided in the resolution adopted by said Board of Public Instruction on the 2nd day of December 1953, be and the same is hereby in all respects "approved, ratified and confirmed."
In adopting the latter resolution and the one for canvassing the returns of said bond election the Board of County Commissioners was evidently proceeding on the theory that since Chapter 29260 required them to call the election, the approval of the action of the Board of Public Instruction in calling it would be equivalent to a call by the Board of County Commissioners. They may have been correct, their resolution certainly approved in every respect the action of the Board of Public Instruction with reference to calling and holding said bond election. As a matter of law we do not think we are required to decide this point since in our opinion the Board of Public Instruction was authorized under Section 236.37, Florida Statutes, F.S.A., to issue said bonds and that in calling the election to approve their issuance and in all other respects the requirements of said statute were complied with.
Chapter 29260 did not deal with anything but the qualification and re-registration of electors to vote in special tax school district bond elections in Manatee County. True, a provision was thrown into the body of the act requiring the County Commissioners to call such elections on resolution of the Board of Public Instruction. As to validity of this and other phases of said act we express no opinion, the chancellor refused to do so and we find no occasion for doing so. Both the Board of Public Instruction and the Board of County Commissioners canvassed the election returns and found that the "total vote for and against the issuance of said bonds constitutes a majority of the qualified electors who are registered as freeholders of said county as of the date of said election and qualified to vote therein." Since a majority of the qualified freeholder electors went to the polls and voted and no qualified elector freeholder is here complaining, and other requirements of the law are shown to have been met,, we think said bond election was legally called and held.
Appellees urge several additional questions relative to the reasonableness of Chapter 29260, as to requirements for reregistration, whether Article 12, Section 17 or Article 9, Section 6 of the Florida Constitution, F.S.A., control, whether the electors were expected to take the oath required by Section 3, Article 6, Florida Constitution, when they re-registered, but the Court disposed of the case on the question above explored, expressly overruled all other grounds of the motion to dismiss and no cross-assignments were noted or brought here so we decline to rule on any of them.
Since the appeal was perfected a motion to dismiss was lodged in this Court predicated on the suggestion that the validity of said bonds is now moot because they were approved for the purpose of building and equipping white and Negro schools but subsequent to their approval the Supreme Court of the United States in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 688, hereinafter referred to as the Brown case, has abolished segregation in the public schools and being so it will now be necessary for the Board of Public Instruction to revise its school construction program to meet the requirements of a nonsegregated school system.
The gist of the holding in the Brown case was that the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place in the field of public education and that segregation of children in the public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other tangible factors may be equal, deprives those of the minority group of equal opportunities in contravention of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court realized the gravi ty of that holding and because of its "wide applicability", the "great variety of local conditions" and the complexity of the problems presented in' formulating decrees in the cases, the Court restored them to the docket and requested further argument by the Attorney General of the United States and the attorneys general of the affected states by October 1, 1954 in order that it have the advantage of their assistance in formulating proper' decrees to finally dispose of the questions.
From this holding it follows that the main reason for restoring the cases to the docket and calling for argument was to determine what soft of a decree should be entered with reference to the time and conditions under which segregation should be effectuated. In this determination many more problems are implicit than appear on the surface. A Mosaic recently published by a leading periodical (U. S. News and World Report) reveals an extensive study of the segregation question and among other things points out that four states approve segregation in the public schools by local option, eleven states have no specific laws on segregation, sixteen states prohibit segregation in the public schools and seventeen states, including the District of Columbia, enforce public school segregation.
The states in the first, second and third groups, thirty-one in all, should experience little difficulty adjusting their school program to the Court's order. The latter seventeen states including the District of Columbia will feel the impact of the Court's decision in the Brown case very materially. These states are all in the southeastern part of the country, extending from Delaware to Texas, south of the Ohio River and nofth to Missouri. From its inception the public school system and the system of higher education in these states has been planned and projected on the segregation pattern. Religious educational institutions, hospitals and churches for the two races have been constructed and administered on a like plan. Many millions of dollars have gone into the construction and equipment of plants and preparation of teachers- and administrators to staff these institutions. The bulk of the funds to provide and support them was contributed in taxes and donations by local people. While the doctrine of "separate but equal" is said not to have been attained in all respects, it has always been the objective; it was approved in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 16 S.Ct. 1138, 41 L.Ed. 256, which was a transportation case but it has been several times considered in cases involving educational questions. Berea College v. Commonwealth of Kentucky, 211 U.S. 45, 29 S.Ct. 33, 53 L.Ed. 81. It has been relied on for many years and was not rejected until the opinion in the Brown case was handed down.
There is another facet which renders the problem of shifting from segregated to non-segregated schools difficult. In states where large numbers of both white and Negro citizens have settled, the pattern of settlement has generally followed segregation lines, the mixed settlement being the exception. Public schools have been established to accommodate this pattern of settlement. White schools were set up convenient to white populations and Negro schools convenient to Negro populations. In other words, there was a voluntary zoning which made school district zoning by the Board of Public Instruction easy. To effectuate non-segregation in states where the school system has been set up from its inception on a segregation plan would in many instances render present physical plants useless and in other instances would require the expenditure of many millions of dollars for enlargement or the construction of new facilities to provide an adequate public school system. Centralization.and the school bus have virtually erased the "little red school house" or rural school from the picture but geography and the racial aspect have controlled the location of the school plant. In the states of Kentucky and Oklahoma the difficulty pointed out in this paragraph would be softened because of the wide margin between white and Negro school population, the latter being little above -six percent of the whole in these two. states.
"Separate but equal" school facilities has so long been the law and practice in Florida and the other states where segregation 'is the vo'gue that it is a fixed philosophy, it is not the product of prejudice nor is it á reflex from the will to discriminate. The people are committed to it for what they were led to believe were sound reasons, it is one of their fundamental beliefs, for-tified by generations of practice and legislative policy and repeatedly approved by state courts of last resort. It has also been approved1 for many years by the Supreme Court of the United States and only recently rejected by it. The recent finding of the Court that segregation of white and1 Negro children in the public schools has a detrimental effect on the Negro children, certainly had no part' in formulating what may be termed a sectional view of the matter.
In setting the case for argument in October we must assume from the tone of the Supreme Court's order that it is in search of assistance on which to predicate a w.ise and proper decree. The foregoing and many other considerations may be submitted for consideration at that time. Every state will have peculiar barriers to overcome. It is only from consideration of these and other factors that the Court will be able to determine whether non-segregation should begin at the graduate school level, the college level, the high school or the elementary school level or at all levels. The Brown case comprehends all levels.
School systems are developed on long range planning. Since the Brown case reverses a trend that has been followed for generations certainly there should be a gradual adjustment from the existing segregated system to the non-segregated system. This is the more true in most of the states with segregated school systems because plants and physical facilities have not kept pace with the growth of population, hence they are bursting at the seams from overcrowded conditions.
Reversing social, political or educational trends is difficult business, absent a public demand' for them. It is not questioned that the states with segregated school systems have made distinct educational progress, none of them have asked for or desire a change, and only three of them are parties to this litigation. None of these states advocated the changed policy and- some oí them are said to be antagonistic to it. Local school committees and other-organizations have taken a firm stand against it. ' The other three categories of states will have barriers to overcome but they should not be so difficult. The real purpose of the October argument is to 'evolve a blueprint for the execution of non-segregation, in other words to cast an order to effectuate the Court's decree. Enough has been said to alert any one who thinks the problem through, to the difficulties that will be encountered in doing this. It is a safe prediction that they are' more numerous, more serious and more delicate than any with which the Court has grap'pled for a long time.
The purpose of this line of discussion is to reveal the lack of merit in the motion to- dismiss based on the decision in the Brown case. Exploration of the intangible barriers to desegregation make a stronger case against the motion. They are more compelling than the physical ones. The moral attitude of the white population in the affected states will have infinitely more to do with .correcting the alleged vices of segregation than any court decision. At least one-fourth of the population of the country is involved, and it is utter folly to contend that desegregation or any other new and untried philosophy will take root and grow before a sympathetic feeling for it is established. Intangible barriers dissolve under sympathetic understanding and trained leadership much more readily than they do under court orders.
It is of course true that since the decision in the Brown case the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place in the field of public education. If that is to be the law from here on out it does not erase the fact that this doctrine, so recently discarded, has been the educational policy óf seventeen states since the beginning of their public, school system and that the legislatures of these states have proceeded on that line to establish and strengthen their school systems. • To replace it with an antithetic doctrine will take years of skilful nurture in' a soil that must be made congenial to the change. The ratio of Negro to white population makes the way to change difficult. In' the nation the ratio of Negroes to .whites is 1 to 10. If this ratio was evenly distributed the proposition of integration would be much less complex but in most-of the affected states the ratio is .18 to 82, in some ,35 to 65, and in others ,45 to 55 or thereabout. Such ratios make the .problem more complex.
Differences in population ratios coupled with a background of master-servant relationship, the hatreds engendered by reconstruction, inadequate school systems for the Negroes with the tensions produced from these and other pressures, have resulted in cultural and economic differences that will not be abridged by social or legal fiats. As one eminent educational psychologist put it, the nation's elementary schools •are pursuing a curriculum "prefabricated to fit a theoretical statistical average that in actual practice fits only about 40 percent." The result, says he, is that rigid instruction schedules move too fast for about 30 percent of the students' and too slowly for the other 30 percent. What the common denominator will be if non-segregation is precipitated, no one can tell but certainly the reduction in classroom standards would be embarrassing if not chaotic to both races. The point to the whole matter is that you cannot enforce a philosophy or a system of instruction on a people so long inured to 'freedom of thought and conduct in the field involved so long as they are fundamentally opposed to that which is enforced on them.
On Christian ethical grounds some critics contend that there is no sound reason to controvert the doctrine of the Brown case but it is not amiss to point out that long before that decision the states with segregated schools were moving to correct the alleged inequalities and injustices of segregation. Many Catholic, Protestant and private institutions of learning had thrown open their doors to Negroes. The Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians have institutionally gone on record as approving the decision in the Brown case. Negroes have been admitted to a number of southern tax-supported colleges and professional schools including the law, medical and scientific associations. They have been elected to city councils and school boards, they have been designated as law enforcement officers in many instances and in fact in most scientific ventures all color distinctions have been abolished. During the decade prior to the Brown decision the affected states spent more millions to equalize bi-racial school systems than had been previously spent in their history. In the south a liberal attitude has been exercised in a number of cases where the question of admitting Negroes to institutions of higher learning has been proposed. The fact that integration has been accomplished in the armed forces, account of military discipline and other factors, can have little if any influence on the case at hand.
In law I think the Brown decision" was a great mistake. Whether or not the doctrine of "separate but equal" has a place in the field of public education is a question of policy determinable by the legislature. It is not a judicial question as I understand the canons of interpretation. Likewise, the question of segregation is for the same reason a1 legislative rather than a judicial question. As' heretofore pointed out, the states so practicing it have voluntarily made great strides in removing the injustices and inequalities of segregation. After all, when these are removed there will be nothing left to quarrel about. The effect of the Brown decision will retard rather than accelerate the removal of these inequalities. , It will in my judgment inject other stresses that will complicate removal, some of which have been enumerated, all of which it would not be possible to list.
' In the Brown case the Court was confronted with four cases, one from Kansas, one from South Carolina, one from Vir ginia and one from Delaware. The plaintiffs in each case were seeking admission to public schools on a non-segregated basis. The Court held that "separate: educational facilities are inherently unequal." What order of enforcement will emerge from the hearing in October will be determined by the showing made 'but it is inconceivable that the Court will undertake to settle the question of segregation in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and other states that were not parties to.the Brown case, each of which has its peculiar, problems with reference to the matter. It is further inconceivable that in dealing with the question the Court will impose a condition on these states that Congress or any of the respective state legislatures have deigned to impose on; them, that none of them have asked for or want, that they are in violent opposition to and have deep and decided convictions against. That it was a legislative question that the states could deal with as they saw fit has been bred in the bone so long that it sticks out in the blood.
Another historical consideration fortifies this contention. When the CiviJ. Rights Act was written into the Constitution in 1868 as the Fourteenth Amendment, Mr. Wilson of Iowa, its sponsor, removed it from any implication of mixed schools in these words: "Do they mean that in all things civil, social, political, all citizens, without distinction of race or color, shall be equal? By no means can they be so construed nor do they mean that their children shall attend the same schools. These are not civil rights or immunities." The Civil Rights Act was incorporated, into the Fourteenth Amendment during reconstruction and its approval by the South was required before their representatives could be seated in Congress. Despite the fact that a majority of southern representatives were Negroes and "carpet baggers," the question of integrated or non-segregated schools was not broached. In other words, enemies of the traditional South, those who dominated and were exploiting it, ordained that white and colored persons shall not be taught in the same but in' separate schools. Two parallel societies were. thus ' established in the -South to work out their salvation in their own way. These two- societies have worked in harmony to do this and the proof is ample' that great progress has been made. Attempts at hasty amalgamation of these societies will produce more stresses, troubles and conflicts' than the good it can 'do will compensate for. •
From these and other observations that might be catalogued, we are convinced that the end of segregation must come by gradual adjustment. Practical approach to the realities can lead to no other conclusion. How long it will require no one can predict. Because of residential segregation there will always be schools predominantly white and those predominantly colored. It will be much more difficult at the public school level • than it will at the graduate-school, the professional school or the university level. To homogenize Topsy, Little Red Riding Hood and Mary who carried her little lamb to school is going to be slow and tedious. There are still parents of children of tender years who are sensitive to any 'innovation or influence that, to them, militates against the cultural well-being of their offspring. It will be a tragedy to attempt to enforce it. If there is anything settled under- our dem- ' ocrátic theory it is- this — that it is a mistake to impose a law on any large segment of the people before they are ready for it or-ask for it. When segregation comes in the democratic way it will be under regulations imposed by local authority who will be fair and just to both' races in view of-the lights before them. If it comes in any other way it' will follow the fate of national prohibition and some other "noble experiments". If there is anything settled in our democratic theory, it is that there must be a popular yearning for laws that invade settled concepts before they will be enforced. The U. S. Supreme Court has recognized this.
We therefore conclude that there is no merit to' the motion to dismiss. Any reasonable pattern for desegregation that maybe imposed will require a long time and the record discloses a pressing necessity for improved school facilities. It is accordingly denied and the decree appealed from is reversed with directions to enter a decree validating the bonds.
Reversed.
ROBERTS, C. J., HOBSON and DREW, JJ., and MURPHREE, Associate Justice, concur.
THOMAS, J., agrees to the conclusion.
MATHEWS, J., dissents.