Court Opinion

ID: 9430678
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:30:19.904206+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:25.647236
License: Public Domain

Justice Brennan,
with whom Justice Marshall, Justice Blackmun, and Justice Stevens join, dissenting in part.
I
The Court rejects the private petitioners’ claim that the Extension Service had a duty under the Fourteenth Amendment and the regulations promulgated under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to desegregate the 4-H and Extension Homemaker Clubs in North Carolina. The Court concludes that the “Constitution . . . required no] more than what the District Court and the Court of Appeals found the Extension Service has done in this case to disestablish segregation in its 4-H and Extension Homemaker Clubs,” ante, at 387-388, although the Court does not identify precisely what it is that has been done. The Court of Appeals determined that respondents’ constitutional duty has been satisfied if a plaintiff cannot point to a minority individual who has been discriminated against with respect to membership in a 4-H or Extension Homemaker Club. In upholding the Court of Appeals in this respect, the Court joins the Extension Service in winking at the Constitution’s requirement that States end their history of segregative practices, and callously thwarts an effort to eliminate “the last vestiges of an unfortunate and ignominious page in this country’s history.” Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U. S. 405, 418 (1975). Justice White’s terse opinion offers only feeble excuses for *410this departure from the Court’s historic commitment to the eradication of segregation in this country. I dissent.
The 4-H and Youth Program in North Carolina is one of the major educational programs of the Extension Service. The Extension Service also operates an extension home economics program in each of the 100 counties of North Carolina, a program which also renders important assistance to the citizens of the State. Through these programs the Extension Service organizes and services 4-H and Extension Homemaker Clubs throughout the State. At trial, the Director of the Extension Service, Thomas Blalock, testified that 4-H agents recruit, train, and utilize volunteers to establish 4-H' Clubs and Extension Homemaker Clubs; and that extension agents provide educational materials and training to the 4-H Clubs. Tr. 4196, 4199, 4217. Similarly, agents regularly meet with the Extension Homemaker Clubs, give lessons to them, and train individual club members to give home economics lessons to their members. App. to Pet. for Cert, in No. 85-93, p. 16a (hereinafter Pet. App.). See also Tr. of Oral Arg. 42. Federal law restricts the use of the name “4-H Club” to clubs affiliated with state extension services and certain other organizations. 7 CFR §§8.1-8.10 (1985).
The District Court found that prior to the early 1960’s “[4-H] clubs were organized in the public schools and county 4-H agents would meet with the clubs during school hours and present educational programs to them. Thereafter, the clubs were moved out of the schools and were organized on a community basis with adult volunteers serving as leaders of the clubs.” Pet. App. 19a. It is not disputed that prior to the merger of the black and white branches of the Extension Service separate Clubs were operated for blacks and whites. Tr. of Oral Arg. 37. Evidence introduced at trial demonstrated that in 1965, when the clubs were segregated, there were 1,474 all-white 4-H Clubs, out of a total of 2,687 (54.9%), GX 32, CA App. 1806; in 1980, 1,348 clubs out of a total of 3,448 (39.1%) remained all white. GX 11. In 1980, in *411racially mixed communities, there were 580 all-white clubs, 296 all-black clubs, and 4 clubs of American Indians, for a total of 880 single-race clubs, ibid.; this, as compared to 892 in 1972, represented a decline of only 1.3% in the number of single-race clubs in eight years, GX 33, CA App. 1807.1 With respect to Extension Homemaker Clubs, in 1972 — the last year for which the Extension Service kept statistics — 98.8% of all the Extension Homemaker Clubs were either all white or all black. App. 103.
hH I — I
The private petitioners and the United States took the position at trial that respondents are under an affirmative obligation to eliminate the effects of de jure segregation within the Extension Homemaker and 4-H Clubs. The United States based its argument on Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the regulations promulgated thereunder. Proposed Conclusions of Law of Plaintiff-Intervenor *412United States in Civ. Action No. 2879 (EDNC), pp. 3,19-20. The private petitioners based their claim on both the Constitution and Title VI. Complaint 23.
The trial judge rejected the argument. He was persuaded that there had been no violation of either the applicable regulations or the Constitution because no witness had claimed that membership in the clubs was anything but voluntary, “or that he or she had been denied membership in any such club on the basis of race; or that he or she had ever been subjected to discrimination with respect to any services offered by the Extension Service.” Pet. App. 168a. Similarly, the Court of Appeals rejected the challenge relating to the racial composition of the 4-H and Extension Homemaker Clubs in a footnote stating that “[ajbsent proof of alleged racial discrimination, the mere existence of all white and all black 4-H and Extension Homemaker Clubs in some racially mixed communities violates neither Title VI nor the equal protection clause.” 751 F. 2d 662, 687, n. 128 (CA4 1984). The court noted that the record was devoid of proof of discrimination with respect to services provided by the clubs, and that there was insufficient proof of discrimination with respect to membership in any club. Ibid.
The private petitioners here reassert their position. They rely on regulations promulgated by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In particular, they rely on 7 CFR § 15.3(b)(6)(i) (1985), which states:
“In administering a program regarding which the recipient has previously discriminated against persons on the ground of race, color, or national origin, the recipient must take affirmative action to overcome the effects of prior discrimination.”
In addition, they contend that the decision of this Court in Green v. School Board of New Kent County, 391 U. S. 430 (1968), supports the proposition that the fact that membership in the clubs is no longer officially based on race does not *413relieve the Extension Service of its affirmative constitutional duty to dismantle the discriminatory system that it had created.
Ill
Respondents have never attempted to explain — either in the Court of Appeals or in this Court — how they are in compliance with this regulation, although they do not challenge its application to them. See, e. g., Brief for Respondents 50. Inexplicably, the Court of Appeals did not even mention the regulation; and although the District Court mentioned it, that court simply ignored its obvious import. Pet. App. 169a-173a. The United States takes a position here contrary to that which it took at trial.2 It contends that respondents have fully complied with the regulation because they have engaged *414in “affirmative action to ensure that [their] program is open to all on an equal basis and that it avoids subsequent seg-regative conduct.” Reply Brief for Federal Petitioners 18, n. 18. The Court similarly dismisses the regulation in a paragraph asserting that a mere change in policy constitutes affirmative action. I disagree.
It is absurd to contend that the requirement that States take “affirmative action” is satisfied when the Extension Service simply declares a neutral admissions policy and refrains from illegal segregative activities. Moreover, the Court simply ignores the portion of the regulation that plainly requires that affirmative action be taken to “overcome the effects of prior discrimination.” There is no room to doubt, and the Court does not even bother to argue otherwise, that one of the effects of prior discrimination is the legacy of single-race Clubs that still exist in North Carolina.3
H-Í <
It is not surprising that the USD A regulations require affirmative steps to eliminate the vestiges of official discrimination; the Constitution requires no less. In Green we rejected the argument that a “freedom of choice” plan whereby students were able to choose which of two schools in the school district to attend satisfied the affirmative obligation of the School Board to desegregate its schools, because it failed to achieve the racially nondiscriminatory school system mandated by Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U. S. 294 (1955). In Green, we noted that “[i]n the context of the state-imposed segregated pattern of long standing, the fact that in 1965 the Board opened the doors of the former ‘white’ school to Negro children and of the ‘Negro’ school to white children merely *415begins, not ends, our inquiry whether the Board has taken steps adequate to abolish its dual, segregated system.” 391 U. S., at 437.
Respondents agree with the courts below that in the absence of any evidence of specific instances of discrimination, the State cannot be compelled to act to eliminate the effects of the prior de jure segregation. They cite no support for this proposition. This analysis is plainly wrong. It ignores the history of the Extension Service’s administration of a segregated system of clubs. Our cases clearly demonstrate that prior de jure segregation gives rise to an affirmative duty to desegregate which cannot be met simply by a demonstration that no black person has been turned away from an all-white club. See Gilmore v. City of Montgomery, 417 U. S. 556, 566-567 (1974) (“The city was under an affirmative constitutional duty to eliminate every custom, practice, policy or usage reflecting an impermissible obeisance to the now thoroughly discredited doctrine of separate but equal. . . . This obviously meant that discriminatory practices in Montgomery parks and recreational facilities were to be eliminated root and branch”) (internal quotation marks omitted); Keyes v. School District No. 1, Denver, Colorado, 413 U. S. 189, 213 (1973) (“If the District. Court determines that the Denver school system is a dual school system, respondent School Board has the affirmative duty to desegregate the entire system ‘root and branch’”); Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U. S. 1, 15 (1971) (“The objective today remains to eliminate from the public schools all vestiges of state-imposed segregation”); id., at 32 (discussing “affirmative duty to desegregate”); Green, 391 U. S., at 437 (“School boards such as the respondent then operating state-compelled dual systems were nevertheless clearly charged with the affirmative duty to take whatever steps might be necessary to convert to a unitary system in which racial discrimination would be eliminated root and branch”). Indeed, before today the rule was that a “court *416has not merely the power but the duty to render a decree that will so far as possible eliminate the discriminatory effects of the past as well as bar like discrimination in the future.” Louisiana v. United States, 380 U. S. 145, 154 (1965) (voting rights context) (emphasis added). See also Carter v. Jury Comm’n of Greene County, 396 U. S. 320, 340 (1970) (jury selection context).
The United States agrees that Green v. School Board of New Kent County, supra, “held that a public entity which has engaged in de jure racial segregation has an affirmative duty to desegregate . . . .” Reply Brief for Federal Petitioners 16. However, as it does with respect to the applicable regulations, the United States argues that this duty is fulfilled where admissions are normally determined by voluntary choice, so long as the State simply establishes a genuinely race-neutral admission system and refrains from segregative conduct. Id., at 16-18.
The United States contends that the nature of the Clubs somehow renders the State’s affirmative duty one that can be fulfilled by taking ineffective actions that border on inaction-declaring a neutral admissions policy and refraining from segregative activities. It submits that the school context is distinguishable from the present context because public officials did not assign youths to clubs.4 The flaw in this *417argument is that public officials did, in effect, assign youths to clubs during the period of de jure segregation. Prior to the early 1960’s, the 4-H Clubs were organized in the public schools, Pet. App. 19a, which were at that time, of course, still segregated. Tr. 4203-4204. Thus, those who wanted to join 4-H were, in effect, “assigned” to join the Club in their segregated school.5 It is the racial segregation resulting from this practice that the State is under a duty to eradicate.
As a result, this case is in fact indistinguishable from Green, in which the State had operated a school system that assigned youths to schools according to race, and argued that a plan whereby students could choose which school to attend satisfied the State’s obligation under the Fourteenth Amendment. The United States’ argument here is identical to the argument of the School Board in Green: that “freedom of choice” serves to relieve the State of its affirmative duty to desegregate. Green squarely rejected that argument. Rather, we emphasized in Green:
“‘Freedom of Choice’ is not a talisman; it is only a means of a constitutionally required end — the abolition of the system of segregation and its effects. If the means prove effective, it is acceptable, but if it fails to undo segregation, other means must be used to achieve this end.” 391 U. S., at 440 (quoting Bowman v. County School Board, 382 F. 2d 326, 333 (CA4 1967) (Sobeloff, J., concurring) (emphasis added)).
*418Justice White asserts that Green “has no application to the voluntary associations supported by the Extension Service,” because “[e]ven if the Service in effect assigned blacks and whites to separate clubs prior to 1965, it did not do so after that time.” Ante, at 408. In addition, Justice White asserts that this case is somehow distinguishable from Green because “while school boards customarily have the power to create school attendance areas and otherwise designate the school that particular students may attend, there is no statutory or regulatory authority to deny a young person the right to join any Club he or she wishes to join.” Ante, at 408. These observations do not advance the Court’s position, however; they simply demonstrate why Green is on all fours with this case.
The second asserted basis for the Court’s holding is that “[w]hile schoolchildren must go to school, there is no compulsion to join 4-H or Homemaker Clubs . . . .” Ante, at 408. It may also be true that, while children learn mathematics at school, they do not do so in 4-H or Homemaker Clubs. But that distinction is about as relevant as the Court’s to the issue before us. Nothing in our earlier cases suggests that the State’s obligation to desegregate is confined only to those activities in which members of the public are compelled to participate. On the contrary, it is clear that the State’s obligation to desegregate formerly segregated entities extends beyond those programs where participation is compulsory to voluntary public amenities such as parks and recreational facilities. See, e. g., Gilmore v. City of Montgomery, 417 U. S. 556 (1974); Watson v. Memphis, 373 U. S. 526 (1963); Dawson v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 220 F. 2d 386, aff’d, 350 U. S. 877 (1955); Muir v. Louisville Park Theatrical Assn., 347 U. S. 971 (1954).
Rather than attempt to justify the result it reaches with any reasoning or support from precedent, the Court adopts the reasoning of Justice White, who simply states a conclusion that “however sound Green may have been in the con*419text of public schools, it has no application to this wholly different milieu.” Ante, at 408. We are left to wonder why this is so. While I agree that the remedy ultimately provided might properly vary in different contexts, I can see no justification in logic or precedent for relieving the State of the overall obligation to desegregate in one context while imposing that obligation in another. Yet this is precisely what the Court does by blindly ignoring the perpetuation of state-sponsored racial discrimination in the clubs run by the Extension Service.
The Court may be under the same misapprehension as was the District Court. That court characterized the problem facing it and the Extension Service in grave terms:
“The simple truth is that in the matter of these one-race clubs the Extension Service has been faced with a dilemma which admits of no easy, readily available solution. On the one hand it has been under constant pressure from the government to eliminate racially segregated clubs or terminate services to them. On the other hand there is the stark reality that in North Carolina as well as all other states integration of the races more frequently than not meets with strong resistance.
“The choice thus posed is whether it is better that the Extension Service continue to provide its much needed services to well over 100,000 North Carolina members while striving to achieve full integration of the clubs or that it withdraw such services altogether as the government would have it do. The Extension Service has opted for the former, and in so doing this court does not perceive that it has violated the rights of anyone under any law.” Pet. App. 182a-185a.
Justice White states that Green was the “effective predicate for imposing busing and pupil assignment programs to end dual school systems . . . .” Ante, at 408.
The District Court, however, was certainly not limited in crafting a remedy requiring the Extension Service to cut off *420funds and services to one-race Clubs. Nor, as the Court seems to suggest, was the District Court required to initiate busing or club member assignment. Rather, in the exercise of its equitable powers, a court may require any of a broad variety of measures, provided they prove to be effective in desegregating the Clubs. See 391 U. S., at 439-441. The delineation of the precise measures to be taken by the Extension Service on this record is a task that should be left to the District Court in the first instance. Id., at 439. It is true that Green supports the proposition that where the vestiges of the de jure system have all but disappeared, the limited measures proposed by the United States in this case may fulfill that duty. Thus, in Green, we said that, “[although the general experience under ‘freedom of choice’ to date has been such as to indicate its ineffectiveness as a tool of desegregation, there may well be instances in which it can serve as an effective device.” Id., at 440. On this record, however, it hardly appears to have been an effective device.
I would hold simply that the Government’s position that the Extension Service’s affirmative duty can be fulfilled on the facts of this case through passive means is erroneous, as is respondents’ view that the State can be conclusively determined to have fulfilled its duty as long as no black can point to a blatant discriminatory act. To the extent that the Court reads Green and the Constitution to require anything less, it is wrong.

In 1980 only 1,442, or 42% of the clubs were integrated — that is, contained one or more members of a minority group. GX 11. The number of integrated clubs in mixed communities, meanwhile, had grown from 586 in 1972 to 1,142 in 1977, so that in 1972, 39.6% of the units in mixed communities were integrated and in 1977, 56% of the clubs were so. App. 134.
The United States’ proposed findings of fact with respect to both the 4-H Clubs and the Extension Homemaker Clubs pointed to testimony by several witnesses that they were aware of no mixed clubs in their respective counties even though many of these clubs were in racially mixed communities. Post Trial Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Proposed Decree of Plaintiff-Intervenors in Civ. Action No. 2879 (EDNC), ¶¶245, 255. In an apparent attempt to detract from the accuracy of respondents’ statistics, and thus show that there had been even less progress than the statistics indicated, the United States pointed out that the data offered were prepared entirely by the defendants, and were based solely on reports made by county 4-H agents, who were aware of the stated policy of the Extension Service to encourage integration of clubs. The United States also claimed no effort was made to monitor the accuracy of these reports. Id., ¶¶ 250-254. Because of the legal theory adopted by the courts below, no findings of fact were ever made with respect to the significance or accuracy of these data.

 At the conclusion of trial in 1982 the United States sought inclusion of the following paragraphs in a decree to be entered by the District Court:
“20. The Defendants shall take the following affirmative steps with regard to extension services in order to eliminate the effects of the past and in order to assure an equal opportunity for participation in [Extension Service] services in the future.
“21. The Defendants shall within 90 days of this Order identify and define communities within counties according to the regulations and guidelines set forth by the U. S. Department of Agriculture and serve supporting documentation upon attorneys for the Plaintiffs and Plaintiff-Intervenors. . . .
“22. Consistent with the above paragraph Defendants are ordered to implement the “All Reasonable Efforts” provisions of U. S. Department of Agriculture regulations and implementing guidelines as they relate to the desegregation of 4-H and Extension Homemaker clubs in integrated communities.
“23. Defendants shall make every effort to ensure that all community 4-H and Extension Homemaker clubs shall be fully desegregated.
“24. One year from the date of this Order, Defendants shall cease all contact with clubs which are still operated on a segregated basis, and have not shown that they have taken all reasonable efforts desegrated [sic] as required by para. 22 above.” Proposed Decree of Plaintiff-Intervenors United States et al. in Civ. Action No. 2879 (EDNC), p. 9.
The United States did not appeal this issue to the Court of Appeals.

 Indeed, guidelines promulgated by the USDA, also relied on by the United States, support the view that something more than passive non-obstructionism was required of the Extension Service here. With respect to the Extension Service Clubs, those guidelines provided, for example, that the Extension Service “take steps to assure that membership of such clubs is interracial in composition.” CA App. 1933, 1949.

 The United States argues:
“Where public officials do not assign persons to a particular program, there is no state-controlled attendance pattern, discriminatory or otherwise, to undo or redraw. Thus, unlike elementary and secondary education, affirmative action to assure a genuine and complete termination of all discrimination in activities affecting admissions will not leave in place any discriminatory conditions caused by previous state-imposed segregation. Such a genuinely race-neutral policy will, absent any subsequent conduct that contributes to segregation, fully dismantle the dual admission system because it will restore to the victims of discriminatory conduct (and provide to others) the system mandated by the Constitution, i. e., one in which each person has an equal opportunity to participate in government aetivi*417ties free from discrimination and racial separation attributable to state action.” Brief for Federal Petitioners 42-43.

 It is not clear whether the Extension Homemaker Clubs were also organized in the segregated schools, but that matters little, given that it is not disputed that these clubs too were operated on a segregated basis. Thus, as with the 4-H Clubs, although the Extension Service did not “assign” people to Homemaker Clubs, those who did join were in effect “assigned” to join a club of a particular race.