Opinion ID: 562080
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: educational programming

Text: 56 (1.) Associate Degree 57 The court's 1981 order required defendants to continue parity of community college opportunities and to offer a systematic and coherent course package which, when successfully completed, culminates in the receipt of an Associate's Degree. 510 F.Supp. at 1021. The court found that a systematic and coherent associate degree course plan was not in effect for female inmates. The same courses were repeated and the course offerings did not lead to a degree. The court's findings are supported by clear and convincing evidence, and the finding of contempt as to associate degree programming was not an abuse of discretion. 58 (2.) Baccalaureate Degree 59 The district court's 1981 order imposed no specific obligation upon the defendants to provide a four-year baccalaureate program at Huron Valley. Instead, the court ordered defendants to: 60 assist and cooperate in the establishment and operation ... of a baccalaureate program which any four-year college desires to offer women inmates; and in no way shall that assistance be less than that provided to colleges providing baccalaureate programs at mens' prisons. 61 Id. (emphasis added). 62 It is the emphasized second portion of its order that the court has found the defendants violated. The court determined that contrary to its order that in no way shall defendants' assistance and cooperation in establishing and operating a baccalaureate program any four-year college wishes to offer to women inmates be less than that provided to colleges providing baccalaureate programs at mens' prisons, considerably less assistance and cooperation was provided and, in fact, until 1986, virtually none at all. Id. 63 The district court found that since 1981, Spring Arbor College has provided a four-year baccalaureate program for male inmates and has awarded at least forty baccalaureate degrees. On the other hand: 64 The Department admits that no four-year degree programming was offered at [Huron Valley] in 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1984, in the fall of 1985 or the spring of 1986. ... Eastern Michigan University, ... which provided programming in 1983 and in the spring of 1985, was not adequately paid for its services. As a result EMU declined to provide further services to the Department. 65 721 F.Supp. at 817-18. 66 The court also found that it was not until 1986, following contempt hearings, that the Department arranged for Spring Arbor to provide baccalaureate programming at [Huron Valley] but that [t]here are still no three- and four-year courses at Crane or Crane Annex. Id. at 818, 835. The district court also found that defendants' support of the baccalaureate program for men was so substantial that beginning in 1984, the Legislature included a line item in the Department of Education budget to fund the baccalaureate program for men at the State Prison of Southern Michigan. 67 Defendants' response to the court's conclusion that they have failed to comply with the terms of the 1981 order concerning the provision of support and assistance for baccalaureate programs for female inmates is the rather disingenuous argument that neither Spring Arbor College nor any other institution has found it to be financially attractive to offer a baccalaureate program for female inmates either at Huron Valley or at Crane and, therefore, there is no baccalaureate program for female inmates to be supported and assisted. Defendants also argue that it is the Legislature, not the Department of Corrections and the individual defendants, which appropriated the funds for the line item budget support for the baccalaureate program for men at the State Prison of Southern Michigan. 68 The reality, of course, is that provider institutions were unwilling to provide baccalaureate programming for female prisoners at the locations and in the circumstances in which female prisoners were confined for several years following the 1981 order. The record is entirely devoid of any evidence that defendants proposed any program or took any affirmative action whatever to make it financially attractive to provider institutions to establish a four-year program for female inmates in the Michigan correctional system. The defendants are providing lights, heat, classroom space, manpower, and allied educational support to the baccalaureate program for men and, save for the aborted Eastern Michigan University experience, at least until 1986, provided nothing whatever to support a baccalaureate program for female inmates. It was defendants' duty to exhaust all reasonable efforts to design a program for offering baccalaureate studies to female inmates at times, in places, and under circumstances which were likely to attract the interest of one or more of Michigan's many degree-granting institutions. 69 Moreover, it is no answer to argue that it was the Legislature and not the defendants who provided the line item appropriation to fund the baccalaureate program for men. The funding was provided with the encouragement, assistance, and cooperation of defendants, in order to induce Spring Arbor College to continue to offer a baccalaureate program for men. There is no evidence that defendants undertook any effort whatsoever, prior to 1986, to secure comparable funding for a baccalaureate program for female inmates. It is relevant, of course, that it was five years after the court's order here in question, and only after contempt hearings were conducted, that defendants arranged for Spring Arbor College to offer a baccalaureate program at Huron Valley. 70 The assistance and support, both direct and indirect, defendants have provided for the baccalaureate programs being offered male inmates is ongoing and substantial. Until 1986, with the exception of two short periods of less than one year, defendants provided no comparable assistance to support any baccalaureate degree program for female inmates. 71 We conclude that there is very substantial evidence in the record to support the court's conclusion that defendants knowingly violated the court's 1981 order concerning baccalaureate degrees, and we find no abuse of discretion in the court's judgment that defendants are in contempt for disobedience of the order. 72