Court Opinion

ID: 9449551
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:15:01.1103+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:52.700004
License: Public Domain

RIVES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
With deference I respectfully dissent. Before expressing reasons, it seems appropriate to state my agreement that all of the parties to this litigation and the district court as well are entitled to the complimentary remarks made of them in the majority opinion. I think, too, that the appellants now before the Court should not be faulted in seeking additional relief because of their willingness, for a period of two years, to permit the Atlanta plan to be tested out without appealing to this Court for any faster relief.
It is apparent from the record that the district court, working patiently with the plaintiffs and with the Atlanta School Board, sought to devise a method by which the first breach in the race barriers might be made. However, it is no criticism of the good faith of the parties involved for me to point out now, as did the Supreme Court in its opinion in Watson, et al. v. City of Memphis, et al., 373 U.S. 526, 83 S.Ct. 1314, 10 L.Ed. 529, that:
“It is now more than nine years since this Court held in the first Brown decision, Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873, that racial segregation in state public schools violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
Largely on the basis of what the Court there said, and also because this Court has expressly required other Boards of Education in litigation in this Circuit, see Augustus v. Board of Public Instruction, 5 Cir., 306 F.2d 862, and Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board, 5 Cir., 308. F.2d 491, to take steps towards desegregation of the schools that go considerably further than was required by the district court in this case, I cannot agree that we should affirm this, judgment. For us to do so amounts to a backward step rather than a step consistent with what I consider to be the clear teaching of the Supreme Court’s unanimous opinion written by Mr. Justice Goldberg in the Watson case:
“Given the extended time which has elapsed, it is far from clear that the mandate of the second Brown decision requiring that desegregation proceed with ‘all deliberate speed’ would today be fully satisfied by types of plans or programs for desegregation of public educational facilities which eight years ago might have been deemed sufficient. Brown never contemplated that the concept of ‘deliberate speed’ would countenance indefinite delay in elimination of racial barriers in schools. * * * ”
The essential fact, as disclosed by the record before us, is that the schools of the City of Atlanta do not have a single grade, in either the grammar or high schools, in which Negro children are permitted to become students on the same basis as are white children. In other words, whatever may have produced this result, it is not disputed that it is impossible for a Negro student in the top three grades, which have, under the Atlanta plan, been “desegregated,” to enter such desegregated school without being subjected to requirements that do not apply to any white student in the grade. This comes about by reason of the fact that, while the basis for first considering applications of a Negro student for a transfer to a white school is the test normally conducted during the school year for all students, both white and Negro alike, the Negro student seeking to transfer is required to meet standards based upon an analysis of his testiTand also based upon a “personality inter*313view,” which do not apply to the white ¡students who are already enrolled in the school, or who come into the grade from .a lower grade by reason of having been in a “feeder” system as to which all white students are in white schools and all Negro students are in Negro schools.1
As is pointed out by the majority opinion:
“The standard used was that the transferee (the Negro student) had to score a grade at least equal to the average of the class in the school to which transfer was requested.”
And, as also pointed out in the majority •opinion:
“Each student [transferee] was also given a personality interview by school officials to determine probable success or failure in the new school.”
On the face of it, of course, this means that if a Negro student seeks a transfer from Booker T. Washington High School (Negro) into the twelfth or eleventh grade at Northside High School, a white school, the Negro student has to demonstrate from his record at Booker T. Washington that his grade was “at least equal to the average of the class” in Northside, whereas every passing student entering that grade from the lower grade in Northside High School would automatically be admitted in such grade. Of course, it would be ridiculous to suggest that before students passing from eleventh grade Northside to twelfth grade Northside could be admitted to the twelfth grade their prior record must “have equaled the average of the class in the eleventh grade. It takes no professional testimony to indicate the absurdity of such a requirement. Yet this is precisely the requirement which is imposed on every Negro transfer student. Moreover, so long as an eleventh grade student attains the passing standard required by the school at Northside, he passes into the twelfth grade without being subjected to a “personality interview” by school officials to determine probable success or failure in the twelfth grade.
Even though the appellants did not appeal from the original decision of the trial court approving the transfer plan in the Atlanta Schools, this did not foreclose the right of appellants to complain that, when the plan was actually put into operation, it was operated in a manner that clearly discriminated against the Negro students. Nor is this a criticism of the good faith of the School Board, which may have considered that it had adequate reasons for wishing to impose these higher standards on the first Negro students who were to be admitted into the white schools. This, however, was not within the contemplation of the district court’s original order, which expressly provided that the plan was not to be based on consideration of race. It seems to me that the majority opinion justifies the continued approval of the present plan on the assumption that it is “not based on consideration of race,” because the opinion states:
“ * * * it can also be said that there is an option under the Atlanta plan just as there is under the New Orleans and Houston plans, assuming the plan is applied to transfers as well as assignments of all new students [which, of course, it is not] in desegregated grades, and is not based on consideration of race [which it plainly is].” (Emphasis added.)
Since the assumption on which the opinion rests is demonstrably not correct, the opinion cannot be logically supported.
The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Green v. School Board of City of Roanoke, 4 Cir., 1962, 304 F.2d *314118, 123, has expressly met and answered this point; that is, whether the requirement of a higher standard of performance of Negro students, based on tests uniformly taken by all students, meets even the initial requirement for desegregating a single grade:
“The requirement that a Negro seeking transfer must be well above the median of the white class he seeks to enter is plainly discriminatory. The board’s explanation that this special requirement is imposed on Negroes to assure against any ‘who would be failures’ is no answer. The record discloses that no similar solicitude is bestowed upon white pupils. * * *
“The federal courts have uniformly held that such unequal application of transfer criteria2 is a violation of the Negro pupils’ rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.”
Green v. School Board of City of Roanoke, 304 F.2d 118, 123, citing Jones v. School Board of City of Alexandria, 4 Cir., 1960, 278 F.2d 72, 77; Dodson v. School Board of City of Charlottesville, Va., 4 Cir., 1961, 289 F.2d 439, 443; and this Court’s opinion in Mannings v. Board of Public Instruction, 5 Cir., 1960, 277 F.2d 370, 374-375.
The opinion in the Green case also answers the contention made by appellees and accepted by the majority that an attack on the discriminatory manner of handling the plan must be by each individual student. See 304 F.2d 118, 124. The discriminatory application of the plan can be challenged for the class as can the unconstitutionality of segregated schools.
Counsel for the School Board make the point, which seems somewhat persuasive to the majority, that in all “regular transfers” 3 the transferring student was subjected to the same requirement that he meet the standard equal to the average of the school to which transfer was sought, and that he be subject to a personality interview. This, of course, does not meet the problem at all, because every white student would remain in a white school without having himself subjected to these testing or interview criteria by reason of the fact that every student in the Atlanta schools below the “desegregated” grades goes to school under a dual system,4 where white children *315go to white schools and Negro children go -to Negro schools.5 There was only one instance of a formal application of a white girl seeking a transfer from one white school, which was about to be desegregated, to another white school, which thus far had not admitted any Negro students. This, the Board, the district court and this Court held to be an application made clearly outside the purview of the transfer plan, since it stated on the face of the application that the girl sought to transfer from a school which was about to be desegregated, by reason of the fact of such desegregation. Thus it is that no good faith application for transfer within- the regular period has been made by any white student and none need be made in light of the freedom of transfer by the informal method and by reason of the fact that the “feeder” system from white lower grades automatically guarantees the passage of each student to a white upper grade.
Moreover, entirely beyond the question of whether the present Atlanta plan truly desegregates any grade of school, which I think the record belies, there is the matter of timing which has heretofore come to this Court’s attention in the Escambia County case and the Orleans Parish case already mentioned. In the case of Escambia County, the principal city of which is Pensacola, Florida, the Board had proposed a plan at the Court’s direction, which the trial court had approved, providing for applications for transfers in all grades of school, such transfers to be applied to Negro and white students alike upon tests uniformly applied. We concluded that until a start was made in abolishing a dual system of schools, whereby all white children went initially to white schools and all Negro students went initially to Negro schools, no plan of selective transfer from formerly Negro to formerly white schools would satisfy the requirements of deliberate speed under the Brown decision. In 306 F.2d 862, at page 869, this Court said less than a year ago:
“There cannot be full compliance with the Supreme Court’s requirements to desegregate until all dual school districts based on race are eliminated. It is probably too late, without undue confusion, to require the elimination as to any grade of such dual districts in time for the 1962 fall term. The plan should, however, provide for the elimination of all'dual school districts on racial lines at the earliest practicable time. If it appears too late for such elimination as to any grade in time for the 1962 fall term, then the plan should provide for such elimination as to the first two grades for the 1963 fall term, and thereafter for such elimination as to at least one *316successive additional grade each school year.” Augustus v. Board of Public Instruction, 5 Cir., 1962, 306 F.2d 862, 869.
In Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board, upon its last appearance here, 308 F.2d 491, the district court, 205 F.Supp. 893, had already required the Board of Education of Orleans Parish to modify its plan of permitting transfers under the State Pupil Assignment Law, which by that time had applied to two grades of school, by requiring the complete desegregation of the first grade of school beginning September 1962. The order required the abolition of the dual system of schools as to that grade. In an opinion that carefully considered the constitutional and administrative problems involved, this Court added further requirements to the effect that in September, 1964, the dual system shall be abolished for the first five grades, and that each year thereafter, as each succeeding higher grade is desegregated, the dual system shall be abolished contemporaneously therewith.
It is clear to me, as ,it must be to any who read and understand these two decisions by this Court, that if we accept the decision represented by the majority opinion in this case, the Court will have stepped backward from the position it has previously taken after long and mature deliberation, and that this Court will have deliberately required a prompter compliance with the Supreme Court’s decision in New Orleans and Pensacola than is being required in Atlanta, a community in which all the evidence and the opinions of the district court and of the majority clearly indicate accommodation to the requirements of the Constitution can be expected to be made with a minimum of difficulty.
Enjoined as we are to give fresh consideration to the element of timing in these school cases by the Supreme Court’s latest pronouncement on the subject in the Watson case, supra, and, following the Watson decision, in Goss, et al. v. Board of Education of City of Knoxville,. Tenn., et al., 373 U.S. 683, 83 S.Ct. 1405,6 10 L.Ed.2d 632, I cannot concur in a decision of this Court that takes a backward rather than a current, much less-forward, step.
I would require the moderate rate of increase prayed for by appellants to the-extent of desegregating the classes to-include the eighth and ninth grades in. 1963, and the fifth, sixth and seventh grades in 1964. This is roughly parallel., to what we required in Bush.

. I use the term “white and Negro schools” in a practical sense. Considerable attention is paid by the trial court •and the majority to the fact that the words “Negro” and “White” no longer appear in the literature of the Board of Education. That there are still Negro and white schools, however, is conceded by the appellees. See footnotes 3 and 4, infra.

. Throughout the discussion in the trial court and throughout the opinion of the majority, emphasis is placed on the fact that the same tests are given to white and Negro children, and that they are all subject to the same grading system. The significant point is not the tests, but the use that is made of them. Thus, it is a question of the application of criteria to the Negro student’s grades that are not ápplied to the grades of the white student.

. The record shows that the only Negro applications for transfer to white schools that were considerd were those submitted between May 1 and May 15 of each year. In addition to these there were many transfers made “informally” during the school year by white students among white schools, or by Negro students among Negro schools. The criteria above discussed were not applied to these informal transfers.

. While the trial court stated, “neither does the evidence show that defendants are maintaining a ‘dual system of school attendance area lines,’ ” and the majority opinion says, “even if it may be said that there is a dual system in Atlanta, and the evidence does not so disclose” (emphasis added), both statements are incorrect. The Superintendent of Schools, who was the only witness, testified as follows on page 90 of the Record:
“Q. And by whom are these administrative lines drawn?
“A. By the area superintendent in cooperation with the school officials, local school officials.
“Q. And these lines serve to delineate the area for particular elementary schools?
“A. Yes, to the degree that it is necessary to balance one school’s attendance.
“Q. Now, in the areas where the housing is mixed racially, that is, the areas where Negroes and whites live in the same area, these lines would overlap, so to speak, wouldn’t they?
“A. Well, formerly they were drawn separately for white and Negro schools.
“Q. And how are they drawn now?
“A. They are drawn on the basis of the Pupil Placement Law under which *315we are operating. There has been no change in the elementary situation.
“Q. Now, you say the lines are drawn now pursuant to the Pupil Placement (Laws. Is that a state law or is that the plan?
“A. That is the plan.
“Q. And you say the lines are drawn pursuant to that?
“A. The same lines that were in existence in 1960 are in existence at the present time.
“Q. I see.
“A. With variations that have been made. There have been no specific change in those lines.
“Q. And you still have separate lines which relate to the Negro schools and separate lines which would relate to the white elementary schools; is that right?
“A. Roughly, yes.”

. The Superintendent testified at page 92 of the Record:
“Q. You have sort of a feeder system where certain elementary schools would feed into certain high schools?
“A. Yes.
“Q. And, of course, the Negro elementary schools would feed into one of these six Negro high schools?
“A. Yes.
“Q. And the white elementary schools would feed into one of these eighteen white or formerly white high schools?
“A. Right.
“Q. Is that the way these high school students are now assigned to the schools?
“A. The same way, except they are subject to transfer upon request.”

. In construing language of a transfer plan for the schools of Knoxville, Tennessee, and of Davidson County, Tennessee, the Court said:
“Now, however, eight years after his decree was rendered and over nine years after the first Brown decision, the context in which we must interpret and apply this language to plans for desegregation has been significantly altered. Compare Watson v. City of Memphis, supra.”