Court Opinion

ID: 9457020
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:10:08.071514+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:11.332816
License: Public Domain

COLEMAN, Circuit Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I concur in that part of the opinion which denies back pay and “lost pension benefits”.
I dissent from that part which directs that these teachers be offered reinstatement. As a practical matter, I suppose the point is not too important. By a report filed with the Court we learn that one of the teachers now works for the Department of Justice, one plans to teach next year in Indianola, one at Rosedale, and three in Chicago, while the other two have been teaching in Kansas City and Milwaukee.
I am most reluctant, except in cases where the Constitution clearly requires it, to put the courts in the business of making teacher assignments within the school system, especially where the District Judge has denied relief. I think that is what this opinion does, so I respectfully dissent as to that feature of the case.
*546The United States, in its brief amicus curiae, recommended that the teachers not be given back pay because “the seven teachers not only failed to follow an administrative directive, but also disobeyed the prior instructions given by the District Court”. It seems to me that disobedience of a court order and refusing to teach where assigned are grounds enough for dismissal.
The United States further recommended, however, that since the School Board had failed to follow court orders as to faculty desegregation under the Singleton rule the teachers should be reinstated. In other words, two wrongs make a right, or, else, court orders against one class of litigants will be vindicated, but not against others. This does not comply with my notion of justice, nor does it put the courts in a very effective light before the public.
In any event, I am glad that the United States did make the following general statement in its brief:
“So long as the school board does not engage in unconstitutional discrimination, it may achieve compliance with the faculty ratio in whatever manner it sees fit and, ordinarily, a teacher’s dissatisfaction with a particular assignment will not raise issues of federal law.”
This statement, if adhered to, lends some hope that the courts may some day be able to get out of the school houses and pursue their normal activities at the courthouses — a consummation which, I am sure, most, if not all, Judges hope to live to see.