Court Opinion

ID: 9455417
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:21:13.804655+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:35.273101
License: Public Domain

SOBELOFF and WINTER, Circuit Judges
(dissenting):
In refusing to order the integration of Unity School the majority’s thesis is essentially that, since defendant has achieved substantial realization of a unitary school system, it should be rewarded for its good faith efforts to date by not requiring it now to do that which is presently feasible and presently required to bring it into greater compliance with the decisions of the Supreme Court and of this Court. This reasoning we emphatically reject. We dissent from each link in its chain.
Defendant’s legal obligation to achieve a unitary system arose in 1954 with the decision in Brown I (Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873), and its duty to proceed to that goal arose in 1955 with the advent of Brown II (Brown v. Board of Ed. of Topeka, 349 U.S. 294, 75 S.Ct. 753, 99 L.Ed. 1083). It did not begin to meet this obligation until 1964, when it instituted a freedom of choice plan. The majority concludes that, as a result of its efforts to date, Iredell County’s school system presently has “only one flaw in the unitary system adopted and already implemented.” The facts do not bear this out. Of the total school population of 9,647 students no less than 1,424— the 285 in Unity and 1,139 in Cool Springs, Ebenezer and Wayside — are attending grossly segregated schools. The black pupils are in totally black Unity School and a vastly disproportionate number of whites are in the three schools which the plaintiffs asked the Board to pair with Unity.1 This represents more than one-seventh of the total school population — no inconsiderable flaw, but a major defect. Obviously, the millenium which the majority envisions is not at hand in Iredell County.
The majority frankly recognizes that the Board’s failure to pair Unity with Cool Springs, Ebenezer and Wayside Schools is “more difficult to justify than * * * [its] closing,” yet attempts to justify this failure by advancing the theory that “moving white students of these three schools to Unity, as suggested by appellants, could result in more racial mixing, but not necessarily in proportion to the racial mix in the entire school population.” This is an astounding line of reasoning.
Ebenezer’s ratio of white students to black is approximately 12 to 1, Wayside's is 4 to 1, and Cool Springs’ 5.7 to 1, while the ratio for the entire system is 3 white to 1 black. It seems to us plain enough that moving white students from these schools to Unity, which is being used below its capacity, would achieve a better *619ratio in Unity and in these three schools. Depending upon the number moved to Unity, the racial makeup of the others can be made to conform more closely to the ratio in the total school population and some redress of the intolerable all black enrollment at Unity achieved.
Despite the factors adverse to the retention of Unity as a permanent part of the system, the record shows that it has available, acceptable, unused capacity. Instead of desegregating Unity, as it was constitutionally obligated to do, the Board has taken extreme affirmative steps to avoid assigning white students to Unity, an all black school in a black neighborhood. White students are actually being bussed past the undercapacity Unity School a distance of four miles to the overcrowded Wayside School.2
The Board’s insistence upon retention of Unity as an all black school for this year is prompted by nothing we perceive except reluctance to desegregate,3 and even if the Board’s achievement in other parts of the system met constitutional requirements, it is clearly in default in this respect.
All of this leads us to conclude that the mandate “to eliminate dual school systems at once and to operate now and hereafter unitary schools” (emphasis supplied), announced in Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, 396 U.S. 19, 90 S.Ct. 29, 24 L.Ed.2d 19 (1969), reaffirmed in Carter v. West Feliciana Parish School Board, 396 U.S. 290, 90 S.Ct. 608, 24 L.Ed.2d 477 (1970), and heretofore applied by us in Nesbit v. Statesville City Board of Education, 418 F.2d 1040 (4 Cir. 1969), and Stanley v. Darlington County School District, 424 F.2d 195 (4 Cir. 1970), is being violated. “Now” and “at once” are untempered by consideration of good faith. Those directions make the degree of accomplishment irrelevant. The only issue is what has not been done and what can be done now.4 Our answer would be to order the desegregation of Unity School forthwith by pairing it with Cool Springs, Ebenezer and Wayside, or by any other acceptable method.
Finally, we dissent from the majority’s denial of relief with regard to discrimination in teacher employment. The majority declares that “there is no proof in the record of any discrimination in teacher employment.” On the contrary, although the HEW-approved plan of compliance provided that all employment and assignment of teachers was to be made without consideration of race, there was no faculty desegregation in 1965-66 and 1966-67. Some non-racial assignments were made in the ensuing years. However, the School Superintendent revealed that before the opening of the present school year, HEW determined the Board to be in non-compliance because it “had not adequately desegregated [the] faculty” and directed *620the Board to assign white teachers t.o Unity. Moreover, the testimony of the Assistant Superintendent of Schools charged with the hiring and assignment of teachers makes it clear that black teachers were hired only “to fill * * * Negro vacancies.” The refusal of our Court, in the face of this record, to grant a preventive injunction against discriminatory hiring and administrative practices is without warrant. Cf., North Carolina Teachers Association v. Asheboro City Bd. of Ed., 393 F.2d 736 (4 Cir. 1968); Wall v. Stanly County Board of Education, 378 F.2d 275 (4 Cir. 1967).

. While the relief asked in the present suit focuses upon Unity School, it is important to note the racial imbalance that will persist in the system. In Brawley the Board projects for next year 10 black and 145 white; in Celeste Henkel 70 black and 502 white; in Central 45 black and 400 white; in Ebenezer 14 black and 246 white; in Monticello 50 black and 580 white; in Mt. Mourne 23 black and 227 white; in Sootts 48 black and 282 white; in Sharon 18 black and 193 white; and Union Chrove 26 black and 362 white. These figures eloquently attest the Board’s racial orientation, both past and present.

. We were advised at oral argument that in order to accommodate the Wayside overflow the Board went to the expense of acquiring mobile classrooms, which had recently been put into operation.

. Indeed, Board member Brown testified frankly that, in his opinion, Unity will be closed under the plan for the future because “it’s in a black community.” This bald statement also makes it most difficult to accept the district judge’s conclusion, now blessed by the majority, that the retention of Unity for 1969-70 and its closing thereafter were not racially motivated.

. While the majority pays lip service to Alexander v. Holmes, 396 U.S. 19, 90 S.Ct. 29 (1969), and Carter v. West Feliciana, 396 U.S. 290, 90 S.Ct. 608, 24 L.Ed.2d 477 (1970), and purportedly recognizes its lack of authority to delay implementing a unitary system “regardless of the circumstances,” it nevertheless sanctions the delay until next fall allowed by the district judge last November after the Supreme Court’s decision in Alexander.