Opinion ID: 277053
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Briggs v. Elliott Dictum

Text: 48 The defendants persist in their view that it is constitutionally permissible for parents to make a choice and assign their children; that courts have no role to play where segregation is not actively enforced. They say that Brown only proscribes enforced segregation, and does not command action to undo existing consequences of earlier enforced segregation, repeating the facile formula of Briggs v. Elliott. 20 49 The court's opinion recognizes that it is the duty of the school boards to eliminate the discrimination which inheres in a system of segregated schools where the initial assignments are both involuntary and dictated by racial criteria, but seems to think the system under consideration today a very different thing. I fail to perceive any basis for a distinction. Certainly the two counties with which we are here concerned, like the rest of Virginia, historically had de jure segregation of public education, so that by the court's own definition, the boards are under a duty to eliminate the discrimination which inheres in such a system. Whether or not the schools now permit freedom of choice, the segregated conditions initially created by law are still perpetuated by relying primarily on Negro pupils to extricate themselves from the segregation which has long been firmly established and resolutely maintained   . 21 [T]hose who operate the schools formerly segregated by law, and not those who attend, are responsible for school desegregation. 22 50 It is worth recalling the circumstances that gave birth to the Briggs v. Elliott dictum — it is no more than dictum. A three-judge district court over which Judge Parker presided had denied relief to South Carolina Negro pupils and when this decision came before the Supreme Court as part of the group of cases reviewed in Brown v. Bd. of Educ., the Court overruled the three-judge court and issued its mandate to admit the complaining pupils to public schools on a racially nondiscriminatory basis with all deliberate speed. Reassembling the three-judge panel, Judge Parker undertook to put his gloss upon the Supreme Court's decision and coined the famous saying. 23 This catchy apothegm immediately became the refuge of defenders of the segregation system, and it has been quoted uncritically to eviscerate the Supreme Court's mandate. 24 51 Having a deep respect for Judge Parker's capacity to discern the lessons of experience and his high fidelity to duty and judicial discipline, it is unnecessary for me to speculate how long he would have adhered to his view, or when he would have abandoned the dictum as unworkable and inherently contradictory. 25 In any event, the dictum cannot withstand the authority of the Supreme Court or survive its exposition of the spirit of the Brown holding, as elaborated in Bradley v. School Bd., 382 U.S. 103, 86 S.Ct. 224, 15 L.Ed.2d 187 (1965); Goss v. Bd. of Educ., 373 U.S. 683, 83 S.Ct. 1405, 10 L.Ed.2d 632 (1963); Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1, 78 S.Ct. 1401, 3 L. Ed.2d 5, 19 (1958). 52 Anything that some courts may have said in discussing the obligation of school officials to overcome the effects of de facto residential segregation, caused by private acts and not imposed by law, is certainly not applicable here. Ours is the only circuit dealing with school segregation resulting from past legal compulsion that still adheres to the Briggs dictum. 53 The Fourth is apparently the only circuit of the three that continues to cling to the doctrine of Briggs v. Elliott and embraces freedom of choice as a final answer to school desegregation in the absence of intimidation and harassment. 26 54 We should move out from under the incubus of the Briggs v. Elliott dictum and take our stand beside the Fifth and the Eighth Circuits. Notes:  This special concurrence is directed not only to Bowman v. County School Bd. of Charles City County, but also Green v. County School Bd. of New Kent County, 4 Cir., 382 F.2d 338, decided this day 1 As this circuit has elsewhere said, Such a last minute change of heart is suspect, to say the least. Cypress v. The Newport News General & Nonsectarian Hospital Ass'n, 375 F.2d 648, 658 (4th Cir. Mar. 9, 1967). See also Lankford v. Gelston, 364 F.2d 197, 203 (4th Cir. 1966). Of course, in the present case, the District Court has noted that the plan was adopted in order to comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-1 (1964), and thus ensure the flow of federal funds 2 These data are culled from answers to plaintiffs' interrogatories. Neither side has furnished us or the District Court with more recent data. In oral argument, the defendant replied obscurely and unspecifically to inquiries from the bench as to what progress the county had made 3 The Eighth Circuit has recently held that the operation of two school buses, one for Negro children and one for white, along the same route, is impermissible. While we have no authority to strike down transportation systems because they are costly and inefficient, we must strike them down if their operation serves to discourage the desegregation of the school systems. Kelley v. Altheimer, Arkansas Public School District, 378 F.2d 483 (8th Cir. Apr. 12, 1967) 4 The Board seems to go to an extreme of inefficiency and expense in order to maintain the segregated character of its schools, indulging in the luxury of three separate high school departments to serve a total of approximately 600 pupils, 437 of whom are in one school, and three separate and overlapping bus services 5 Three of the Board's eight teachers in the 175 pupil Indian school are white, the other five are Indian The Board asserts that it is earnestly seeking white teachers for the nine existing vacancies in the Negro schools, but so far its efforts have not met with success. This is not surprising, considering that the Board has formally declared that it does not propose to advertise vacancies in papers as this would likely cause people of both races to apply who are not qualified to teach. 6 A recent article in the Virginia Law Review declares the Fifth Circuit to be at once the most prolific and the most progressive court in the nation on the subject of school desegregation. Dunn, Title VI, the Guidelines and School Desegregation in the South, 53 VA.L.REV. 42, 73 (1967) 7 United States v. Jefferson County Bd. of Educ., 372 F.2d 836 (5th Cir. 1966), aff'd on rehearing en banc, 380 F.2d 385 (5th Cir., Mar. 29, 1967) 8 United States v. Jefferson County Bd. of Educ., 380 F.2d 385, 391 (5th Cir., Mar. 29, 1967) (en banc). (Emphasis supplied.) 9 380 F.2d at 389 (en banc). (Emphasis supplied.) 10 [S]trong policy considerations support our holding that the standards of court-supervised desegregation should not be lower than the standards of HEW-supervised desegregation. The Guidelines, of course, cannot bind the courts; we are not abdicating any judicial responsibilities. [Footnote omitted.] But we hold that HEW's standards are substantially the same as this Court's standards. They are required by the Constitution and, as we construe them, are within the scope of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In evaluating desegregation plans, district courts should make few exceptions to the Guidelines and should carefully tailor those so as not to defeat the policies of HEW or the holding of this Court. United States v. Jefferson County Bd. of Educ., 372 F.2d 836, 848 (5th Cir., Dec. 29, 1966), adopted en banc, 380 F.2d 385 (5th Cir., Mar. 29, 1967). Cf. Cypress v. Newport News Gen. Hosp., 375 F.2d 648, n. 15 (4th Cir., Mar. 9, 1967). 11 380 F.2d at 390 (Emphasis supplied.) The HEW Guidelines provide: (1) if 8 or 9 percent of the Negro students in a school district transferred from segregated schools during the first year of the plan, the total transfers the following year must be on the order of at least twice that percentage; (2) if only 4 or 5 percent transferred, a substantial increase in the transfers will be expected the following year — bringing the total to at least triple the percentage of the previous year; (3) if less than 4 percent transferred the previous year, then the rate of increase in total transfers for the following year must be proportionately greater than that under (2); and (4) if no students transferred under a free choice plan, then unless a very substantial start is made in the following year, the school authorities will be required to adopt a different type of plan. HEW Reg. A., 45 C.F.R. § 181.54 (Supp.1966). In both New Kent County and Charles City County, at least some grades have operated under a freedom of choice plan for two years. In Charles City County, only 0.6% of the Negro students transferred to the white school for the 1964-65 session. Under the standards subscribed to by the Fifth Circuit, therefore, a minimum of 6% of the Negro pupils in that county should have transferred to the white school the following year. Less than this percentage would indicate that the free choice plan was ineffective, longer on promises than performance, and that the school officials should try other tools — e. g., geographic zoning or pairing of grades. In New Kent County, no Negro students transferred during the first year of the plan. Thus, unless the requisite substantial start was made the following year, school officials must adopt a different plan — one that will work. 12 Judge Wisdom, in Singleton v. Jackson Munic. Separate School Dist., 355 F. 2d 865, 871 (5th Cir. 1966), referred to freedom of choice plans as a haphazard basis for the administration of schools 13 See Section IX of the decree issued in United States v. Jefferson County Bd. of Educ., 380 F.2d 385, 395 (5th Cir. Mar. 29. 1967) (en banc) providing for detailed reports to the district courts 14 Various factors, some subtle and some not so subtle, operate effectively to maintain the status quo and keep Negro children in their schools. Some of these factors are listed in the recent report issued by the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights: Freedom of choice plans accepted by the Office of Education have not disestablished the dual and racially segregated school systems involved, for the following reasons: a. Negro and white schools have tended to retain their racial identity; b. White students rarely elect to attend Negro schools; c. Some Negro students are reluctant to sever normal school ties, made stronger by the racial identification of their schools; d. Many Negro children and parents in Southern States, having lived for decades in positions of subservience, are reluctant to assert their rights; e. Negro children and parents in Southern States frequently will not choose a formerly all-white school because they fear retaliation and hostility from the white community; f. In some school districts in the South, school officials have failed to prevent or punish harassment by white children who have elected to attend white schools; g. In some areas in the South where Negroes have elected to attend formerly all-white schools, the Negro community has been subjected to retaliatory violence, evictions, loss of jobs, and other forms of intimidation. U. S. COMM'N ON CIVIL RIGHTS, SURVEY OF SCHOOL DESEGREGATION IN THE SOUTHERN AND BORDER STATES — 1965-66, at 51 (1966). In addition to the above enumeration, a report of the Office of Education has pointed out that Negro children in the high school grades refrain from choosing to transfer because of reluctance to assume additional risks close to graduation. Coleman & Campbell, Equality of Educational Opportunity (U.S. Office of Education, 1966). See also Hearings Before the Special Subcommittee on Civil Rights of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., ser. 23 (1966). 15 HEW Reg. A, 45 C.F.R. § 181.17(c) (Supp.1966) 16 380 F.2d at 393 (en banc). (Emphasis supplied.) 17 The rule has become: the later the start the shorter the time allowed for transition. Lockett v. Bd. of Educ. of Muscogee County, 342 F.2d 225, 228 (5th Cir. 1965). See Rogers v. Paul, 382 U.S. 198, 199, 86 S.Ct. 358, 15 L.Ed.2d 265 (1965); Bradley v. School Bd. of Educ. of City of Richmond, 382 U.S. 103, 86 S.Ct. 224 (1965); Griffin v. County School Bd., 377 U.S. 218, 229, 84 S.Ct. 1226, 12 L.Ed.2d 256 (1964); Watson v. City of Memphis, 373 U.S. 526, 530, 83 S.Ct. 1314, 10 L.Ed.2d 529 (1963) 18 372 F.2d at 895 19 United States v. Jefferson County Bd. of Educ., 372 F.2d 836, 892 (5th Cir. 1966), adopted en banc, 380 F.2d 385 (5th Cir. Mar. 29, 1967) This thought has been similarly expressed in Bradley v. School Bd. of Educ. of City of Richmond, 345 F.2d 310, 323 (4th Cir. 1965) (concurring opinion): It is now 1965 and high time for the court to insist that good faith compliance requires administrators of schools to proceed actively with their nontransferable duty to undo the segregation which both by action and inaction has been persistently perpetuated. (Emphasis in the original.) 20 Nothing in the Constitution or in the decision of the Supreme Court takes away from the people freedom to choose the schools they attend. The Constitution, in other words, does not require integration. It merely forbids discrimination. 132 F.Supp. 776, 777 (E.D.S.C. 1955) 21 Bradley v. School Bd. of City of Richmond, 345 F.2d 310, 322 (4th Cir. 1965) (concurring opinion) 22 Dunn, Title VI, the Guidelines and School Desegregation in the South, 53 VA.L.REV. 42, 45 (1967) See Dowell v. School Bd. of Oklahoma City, 244 F.Supp. 971, 975, 981 (W.D. Okl.1965), aff'd 375 F.2d 158 (10th Cir. Jan. 23, 1967), cert. denied, 387 U.S. 931, 87 S.Ct. 2054, 18 L.Ed.2d 993 (U.S. May 29, 1967): The Board maintains that it has no affirmative duty to adopt policies that would increase the percentage of pupils who are obtaining a desegregated education. But a school system does not remain static, and the failure to adopt an affirmative policy is itself a policy, adherence to which, at least in this case, has slowed up — in some cases — reversed the desegregation process.