Court Opinion

ID: 6919878
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-23 22:57:03.544956+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:06:45.970295
License: Public Domain

On Petitions for Rehearing
BIGGS, Chief Judge.
We have imposed a hard task on the State Board of Education of Delaware, on the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, on the other defendants and indeed on the citizens of Delaware for there is a hard task to be done. Adequate education is a duty owed to youth by the community. It is more than this. It is an essential for national survival in the years to come. But the task is not as difficult as the defendants insist. We demonstrated in our opinion of July 19, 1960, that the number of Negro children available for integration in the schools of Delaware is far greater than the number of Negro children who will presently seek integration. In that opinion we pointed to the key fact that only 25 Negro children of approximately the 1,000 available for integration at the first grades, registered for admission at the Fall term 1959. We accentuated the fact that if the same percentage, 2.5%, were applicable to the Negro children seeking integration into all other grades, the number of Negro children seeking integration would be 170, and that even if that number were trebled it would barely exceed 500. See note 2 to that opinion. The petitions for rehearing make no reference whatsoever to this key situation.
The State Board of Education, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction and other defendants persist in their position that to grant the relief sought by the plaintiffs will require the immediate integration of approximately 6813 Negro children into the Delaware school system. This is not the task which is imposed on them under our decision. The primary duty that was placed on the State Board of Education and the *391State Superintendent of Public Instruction was to create a plan by December 1, 1960 whereby those Negro children who seek integration might achieve that end by the commencement of the Fall term, 1961. The number of Negro children who will seek such integration will be a comparatively small one and their integration can be accomplished without great difficulty.
As we said in our July 19 opinion the evidence of many of the proponents of the plan approved by the court below seems fraught with unreality. Though the affidavit of Superintendent Miller of June 10, 1959, stated that the number of Negro children who registered for admission at the Fall term 1959 to the first grades as shown by Exhibit No. 11 was 25, we were not informed as to the number of Negro children who were admitted to the first grades at the Fall term 1959. There is nothing in the record which demonstrates the number of Negro children who registered for admission to the first grades at the commencement of the school year 1960. These facts could have been easily supplied to the court below by affidavit and certified to this court even after the appeals were taken. Neither the State Board of Education, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, nor any of the defendants, insofar as the record shows, have attempted by conducting a registration or by any other means, to bring upon the record the very pertinent fact as to the number of Negro children who actually presently seek integration into grades of the public school system of Delaware. We think that the defendants are reluctant to face the facts, to grasp firmly the nettle that the integration of school systems presents in Delaware and elsewhere. The defendants have evolved the minimum statewide plan and desire to adhere to it. It is indeed a psychologically tempting one but we think that the hazard involved in integrating at the Fall term 1961 all those Negro children who may then seek integration is largely a mental one. It is for these reasons that we will direct the court below to order the State Board of Education and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction to prepare a plan which will provide for the integration at the Fall term 1961 of all Negro school children who then seek integration. Such a plan can be effective, of course, only if it be worked out with the aid of the Local Boards. Such aid must be forthcoming or it will be required by order of court. But as we pointed out in our original opinion in these cases, 1958, 256 F.2d 688, 693, it is the duty of the State Board of Education to maintain a “uniform, equal and effective system of public schools throughout the State * * * ”, 14 Del.C. § 141. It follows that the primary responsibility for the preparation of the plan which will be required by our judgments must rest on the members of the State Board of Public Education and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. This is the reason why that primary duty is imposed on them by our decision.
It is obvious that in the years to come more and more Negro children will seek integration into the public schools of Delaware and that this desire must be implemented in accordance with the decisions of the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 1954, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873, and 1955, 349 U.S. 294, 75 S.Ct. 753, 99 L.Ed. 1083. As time passes and the number of Negro school children seeking integration increases, modifications and enlargements of school facilities will be required. The State Board of Education, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction and the Local Boards can effect such changes and modifications as may be required with the approval of the court below.1 Eventually a wholly integrated school system will be effected for Delaware: “wholly integrated” in the sense that all school children, whether white or Negro, whose attendance at *392school is required by law at public schools, 14 Del.C. Section 2702, will attend public schools without regard for race or color2 The integration to be provided for by the plan to be submitted to the court below for its approval as its first essential element must provide for the integration of all Negro school children who desire integration at the Fall term 1961. As its second essential element the plan to be submitted must contain adequate provision for the integration of the ever increasing number of Negro school children who will seek integration in the school years following 1961. This second element of the plan, if it is to be consummated, will necessitate the making of immediate estimates as to future school facilities. The making of such estimates is not a simple matter. Their creation will require the exercise of energy, skill, patience, and creative adaptability by the public school authorities, and, as we have indicated, funds to be appropriated by the General Assembly of Delaware. The duty imposed on the State Board of Education in this respect is as clear as is the responsibility confided to this court and to the court below to make certain that the mandate of the Supreme Court is carried out. If the school authorities do their part and the corresponding duty placed on the people of Delaware by their civic conscience is not met by action of the General Assembly, the public school authorities will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that they have done their duty as the law requires.
We are aware that strong courts have held in substance that a grade-by-grade integration of the kind approved by the court below has met the criteria laid down by the Supreme Court in its decisions in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, supra. Such a ruling, as some of the petitioners point out, is contained in the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Kelley v. Board of Education of City of Nashville, 1959, 270 F.2d 209, certiorari denied 1959, 361 U.S. 924, 80 S.Ct. 293, 4 L.Ed.2d 240.3 But the all-important issues of integration “with all deliberate speed” and what constitutes a “reasonable start towards full compliance” with the ruling of the Supreme Court as required by its Brown decision of May 17, 1954, supra, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686 can be decided properly only on due consideration of all the pertinent factors and circumstances. The first of the circumstances militating against our sanctioning of the plan approved by the court below is, as we have reiterated, that of the 6813 Negro school children shown as available for integration by Exhibit No. 11, only 25, as demonstrated by the record, registered for admission to the first grades for the Fall term 1959. We point out that assuming that an equal number of Negro school children registered for admission to the first grades for the Fall term 1960, it would follow that less than 1% of the Negro school children available for integration will have been integrated by the Fall term 1960. The fact that the conclusion made by us in our opinion of July 19 as to the number of Negro school children who presently desire integration has not been seriously contravened by those who are in the best position to do so is very significant. The number of Negro school children, who will be admitted to the Delaware public school sys*393tem by the Fall term 19614 under the plan approved by the court below is minuscule. Indeed the number of Negro school children integrated at the end of five years might be as large as 125 or 1.8% of 6813 Negro school children shown as available by Exhibit No. 11. Second, if our conclusion as to the limited number of Negro school children who will seek integration at all grades at the Fall term 1961 is correct and that number will not substantially exceed 500, such full integration could be accomplished without too great difficulty. Third, as we have stated, the plan as approved by the court below will completely deprive the infant plaintiffs, and all those in like position, of any chance whatever of integrated education, their constitutional right. Fourth, the plan approved by the court below goes no further than a grade-by-grade integration beginning at the first grades and can provide integration only for Negro children presently of very tender years, excluding all others. Fifth, the circumstances of Kelley v. Board of Education of Nashville, supra, are not analogous to those at bar. The number of Negro children involved in the Nashville schools was substantially larger than the number with which we are concerned in the cases at bar. Nashville is a city of approximately 173,000 persons, of whom more than 28 % are classified as Negroes. Many of the School Districts and High School areas of Delaware with which we are concerned are in rural or semi-rural areas and the number of presently segregated Negro school children involved in the whole of Delaware is much less than the number involved at Nashville.' Integration problems are more difficult of solution in heavily populated urban areas. Moreover the City of Nashville lies in the deep South, a part of our Nation where emotional reactions concerning school, integration are more intense than in our own State of Delaware. We think that the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit had this fact in mind when it formulated its decision in the Nashville case. Several United States courts also in the South have ordered grade-by-grade integration of the sort approved by the court below where Boards of Education have taken either no steps toward integration or have made but small advances in that direction.5
In short, integration in the State of Delaware, which already has integrated many of its schools, particularly in the Wilmington metropolitan area, should not be viewed, gauged or judged by the more restrictive standards reasonably applicable to communities which have not advanced as far upon the road toward full integration as has Delaware. To apply such standards to the Delaware school system is not permissible in the light of the Supreme Court’s mandate that state school systems shall proceed to full integration with all deliberate speed and that each state school system shall make a reasonable start toward full compliance. In Brown v. School Board of Topeka, supra, 349 U.S. at page 300, 75 S.Ct. at page 756, Mr. Chief Justice Warren stated: “At stake is the personal interest of the plaintiffs [Negro school children] in admission to public schools as soon as practicable on a nondiseriminatory basis.” (Emphasis added.) The court below and the defendants have overlooked this sentence and the effect which must be attributed to it. We reiterate our opinion that the plan approved by the court below does not meet the standards laid down by the Supreme-Court and that the tests of all deliberate-speed and a reasonable start toward full: *394compliance, require on consideration of all the circumstances at bar, the formulation of a plan which will provide for the admission to integrated schools at the Fall term 1961 of all Negro school children who seek integration at that time. Such a result in our opinion is the “practicable” one.
In so concluding we point out again that we believe that the defendants have acted in good faith but good faith alone cannot solve their problem or our own. True the defendants must act in good faith to comply with the mandate of the Supreme Court, but they must do more than this. They must proceed to integration with all deliberate speed. Certainly in the plan approved by the court below the accent is on deliberation rather than speed. The defendants must also make a reasonable start toward full compliance. In the cases at bar the step toward full compliance about to be compelled is but a small one. It follows that the plan approved by the court below is not in accord with the legal principles enunciated by the Supreme Court. Mixed questions of fact and law are presented and we are free to review them. We conclude that the defendants, acting in their administrative capacities, have failed to exercise properly the discretion confided to them by the law. We are of the view, however, that the abuse of their discretion by the school authorities does not result from bad faith on their part but has come to pass because they have approached this hard problem unrealistically and with too great a degree of caution.
It is obvious from the petitions for rehearing that some, at least, of the petitioning-appellees have not grasped the precise nature of our decision. In our opinion of July 19 we did not summarily order full integration of the Delaware School System at the Fall term 1961. We said that we would direct the entry of an order by the court below requiring the State Board of Education and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction to submit to the court below for its approval on or before December 1, 1960, “a modified plan which will provide for full integration of all grades of the public schools of Delaware commencing with the Fall term 1961”. We did not state that we would direct the court below to order the interested Local School Boards to cooperate in the formulation of an integration plan. We assumed and we still assume that the court below will dispatch notices to the interested Local Boards calling them into a hearing on the merits of the modified plan when it is submitted. This is what the court below did following the receipt of our mandate based on our opinion handed down in 1958. The modified plan when submitted may or may not meet with the approval of the court below. It may appear that our conclusion as to the comparatively small number of Negro school children who will seek integration in the various respective grades of the school system of Delaware at the Fall term 1961, is erroneous even though we are presently strongly of the contrary opinion. Such integration, viz., of all Negro school children who seek integration, as indicated would constitute integration at all grades of the public school system of Delaware at the Fall term 1961. But the plan submitted to the court below must go further. It must provide also, if it is to meet with our approval, for a wholly integrated educational system of the kind we have indicated whereby, as the number of Negro school children who seek integrated education increases,6 the integration of these Negro school children can be effected. We do not and cannot state detailed provisions of the plan. We reiterate that the primary duty to create the plan rests on the State Board of Education and on the State Superintendent of Public Instruction.
*395A further point is raised by one of the petitions for rehearing7 which also requires clarification. We stated that we would direct the court below to order the individual defendants who are members of the Boards of Trustees or of the Boards of Education in the School Districts, named in the respective titles of these causes, to integrate into the public school system of Delaware, commencing with the Fall term of 1960, the individual infant plaintiffs who shall then actively seek integration. The defendants have construed the words referred to with complete literality. It was not our intention, nor is it our intention now, to exempt the respective individual infant plaintiffs who may presently actively seek integration from the usual processing of the school system relating to their capabilities, scholastic attainments and geographical locations, provided always that that processing is conducted on a racially non-discriminatory basis. Such processing must, of course, be applied to all children in a well regulated public school system.
Another point raised by the same petition for rehearing is not entirely clear to us. The language used seems to suggest that in stating that we desire a plan which will provide for the integration of all grades of the public schools of Delaware we act without authority because in addition to the members of the State Board of Education and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction we have before us as parties defendant on this record only the members of the Local Boards of Trustees or of the Local Boards of Education named in the titles of these cases. It is true that there are many members of Local Boards presently governing segregated or partially segregated schools who are not parties to the instant record but we are not directing the court below to make any order respecting these individuals. But as we have just stated we do have as parties defendant on the present record the members of the State Board of Education and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction and we will, as we have indicated, direct the court below to require these members to prepare a plan of the kind we have indicated. We think that our authority to do this is plain. The problem of integration in Delaware is not one which can be solved piecemeal. It requires thorough far-seeing over-all treatment by the central school authorities acting with the cooperation of the Local Boards. If a satisfactory modified plan be formulated and submitted to the court below and meets with approval, should the members of the Local Boards involved, not parties to the present record, fail to cooperate in the consummation of the plan, other steps must be taken. We will not assume, however, that there will be a failure of cooperation unless it be made manifest.8
In view of the fact that more than a month has elapsed since the handing down of our opinion of July 19 the time for the submission of the plan to the court below is extended to December 31, 1960. The petitions' for rehearing will be denied.

. The court below will retain jurisdiction and any plan approved may be modified by its order from time to time.

. We point out that there are now in Delaware a sufficient number of public schools white and Negro to accommodate all the school children of Delaware. Total integration would be possible by using all present schools and employing all present teachers. The reason why such a plan is not presently ordered is because some Negro schools are substantially inferior to corresponding white schools. See the opinion of the Supreme Court of Delaware in Gebhart v. Belton, 1952, 33 Del. 144, 91 A.2d 137. See also Article X of the Constitution of Delaware, Del. C.Ann.

. Denial of certiorari by the Supreme Court does not signify approval or disapproval of the decision of the court below. See the opinion of Mr. Justice Frankfurter in Maryland v. Baltimore Radio Show, Inc., 1950, 338 U.S. 912, 917-919, 70 S.Ct. 252, 94 L.Ed. 562.

. That number, of course, will comprise the Negro school children newly integrated in the first grades at the Fall term 1960 plus those Negro school children, who, integrated at the Fall term 1959, have been promoted to the second grades in 1961.

. See for example Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board, No. 3630, Civil Action, D.C.E.D.La., order of May 16, 1960, and compare 1956, 138 F.Supp. 337, affirmed 5 Cir., 1957, 242 F.2d 156; and Boss v. President of the Board of Trustees of the Houston Independent School District, No. 10,444, Civil Action, decided; without opinion, August 4, 1960.

. As it will increase as educational and sociological, as well as economic eondi-tions improve for the Negroes of Delaware.

. We refer to the petition for rehearing filed by the School Boards of Seaford, Laurel and Milford, and by the Board of Trustees of the Greenwood School.

. We take this .occasion to point out, in connection with the foregoing, that the suits at bar are spurious class suits. See Independence Shares Corp. v. Decker, 8 Cir., 1939, 108 F.2d 51, 55, reversed on other grounds, 1940, 311 U.S. 282, 61 S.Ct. 229, 85 L.Ed. 189, and National Hairdressers’ & C. Ass’n v. Philad Co., D.C.Del.1941, 41 F.Supp. 701, 707-709, affirmed 3 Cir., 1942, 129 F.2d 1020.