Court Opinion

ID: 9425764
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:15:47.067146+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:57.396875
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Marshall,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Although I am in general agreement with the views expressed in my Brother White's opinion, I wish to address certain other considerations which I believe should govern appellate review of the order entered by the District Court in this case. That court, which has an unfortunately longstanding and by now intimate familiarity with the problems presented in this case, issued the supplemental relief at issue here in response to a motion by petitioners bringing to its attention the practice of the city of Montgomery of allowing private schools and clubs with racially discriminatory admissions policies or with segregated memberships to use football facilities maintained at city expense. For all that appears in the record, this practice, and the related practice of allowing private segregated schools and clubs to use baseball fields, basketball courts, and athletic equipment maintained and purchased at city expense, were the only problems before the District Court and the only problems intended to be cured by its supplemental order.
Both the Court of Appeals and this Court, rather than limiting their review of the order in conformity with its intended scope, have sought to project the order to a wide variety of problems not before the District Court— including so-called nonexclusive access by private school groups or nonschool organizations to zoos, museums, parks, nature walks, and other similar municipal facilities — and to review the order as so projected.
By rendering an advisory opinion on matters never presented to the District Court, the' Court of Appeals *577and this Court have attempted to solve in the abstract problems which, in my view, should more appropriately be entrusted in large measure to the sound discretion of the District Court Judge who has lived with this case for so many years and who has a much better appreciation both of the extent to which these other matters are actual problems in the city of Montgomery and of the need for injunctive relief to resolve these problems to the extent they exist.
Since I find the District Court’s order a permissible and appropriate remedy for the instances of unconstitutional state action brought to its attention, I would sustain and reinstate its order in its entirety.