Opinion ID: 594417
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Staff Assignments

Text: 14 The NAACP argues that the Board violated the CSA by failing to achieve compliance with court orders dating back to 1969 which require the Board to achieve a racial balance of 70% white staff and 30% black staff in each school. 9 See Mims v. Duval County School Bd., 329 F.Supp. 123, 128 (M.D.Fla.), aff'd, 447 F.2d 1330 (5th Cir.1971); cf. Singleton v. Jackson Mun. Separate School Dist., 419 F.2d 1211, 1218 (5th Cir.1969) (en banc ), rev'd in part on other grounds, 396 U.S. 290, 90 S.Ct. 608, 24 L.Ed.2d 530 (1970). These court orders were incorporated by reference in CSA p 26, and by the district court in adopting the agreement. The district court held that the NAACP's motion and memorandum failed to include evidentiary support for the staff assignment allegation. However, the NAACP submitted a statistical analysis of the expected racial composition of the Board's staff assignments for the 1991-92 school year with its memorandum in support of its motion. According to these figures, apparently compiled by the Board itself, the Board did not expect to achieve full compliance with the court order on staff assignments by that time. Despite some improvement in staff ratios over the twenty years the Board has had to comply with this seemingly simple mandate, the figures indicate that 56 Duval County schools were not expected to be in compliance with the orders by the 1991-92 school year. 10 15 The Board's failure to achieve a racial balance in its staff assignments even once in the more than twenty years it has been under court orders to achieve such a balance is of special concern to this Court. We have cited the Board's failure to comply with the court orders on staff assignments as one of the major barriers to the Board's achievement of unitary status. See NAACP I, 883 F.2d at 952-53. However, the NAACP has brought this action under the CSA, and the Board's duties for the purposes of this action must be found within the four corners of that agreement. See Armour, 402 U.S. at 682, 91 S.Ct. at 1757. The CSA provides: 16 The district shall report to plaintiff by March 1, 1991 the expected racial composition of the staff for each school for the 1991-92 school year and the parties then shall determine what, if any, additional steps the district shall undertake to comply with the existing court orders governing staff assignment. 17 CSA, p 26. 18 This provision makes clear that for whatever reason, the parties contemplated that negotiation between the parties would precede any attempt to enforce the provisions requiring racial balance in the assignment of staff for the 1991-92 school year. The NAACP has not alleged that it ever attempted the course of action clearly mandated by the CSA--further negotiation. Therefore, the district court was correct in denying the NAACP equitable relief on its staff assignment claim at this time. See Securities and Exchange Comm'n v. Chenery Corp., 318 U.S. 80, 88, 63 S.Ct. 454, 459, 87 L.Ed. 626 (1943) (lower court must be affirmed if it reached the correct result). On remand, the NAACP must pursue its negotiation remedy before seeking enforcement of these provisions. Although this negotiation remedy must be exhausted, the Board should also be cautioned that the provisions in the prior court orders relating to racial balance in the staff are clearly carried forward in the CSA and are subject to court enforcement after exhaustion of the negotiation requirement.