Court Opinion

ID: 9460618
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:55:56.18541+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:42.495472
License: Public Domain

GOLDBERG, Circuit Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part):
I concur in everything in my Brother Bell’s opinion up to and including his determination that, in light of the nature of the wrong, the scope of the district court’s injunction should be narrowed. I cannot give my unqualified endorsement to the majority opinion, however, because the majority has merely substituted one unsatisfactory remedy for another.
The district court found that defendants had failed to show any rational basis for the disparity between the treatment of students under age 23 and those 23 and over. I agree with my Brothers that the record before us sustains that finding. In order to correct that disparity the district court enjoined and prohibited defendants “from requiring twenty-one year old and older students at Southeastern Louisiana University to *1288live on campus.” As the panel majority-notes, this injunction did not eliminate the distinction based on an arbitrary age level, but merely shifted the distinction to another age level, which the evidence might or might not prove to be arbitrary. Moreover, the injunction fails to consider the possibility that the University might prefer simply to discontinue its practice of exempting students age 23 and older from the on-campus living requirement — a preference which, if it can be shown to be substantially related to the educational process, has been specifically sanctioned by the three-judge court decision in Pratz v. Louisiana Polytechnic Institute, W.D.La.1970, 316 F.Supp. 872, aff’d mem., 1971, 401 U.S. 1004, 91 S.Ct. 1252, 28 L.Ed.2d 541.
In my view this Court could have eradicated the errors in the district court’s order simply by modifying it to provide that for so long as defendants continue to exempt students age 23 and older from the on-campus living requirement, they may not enforce the requirement as to students under the age of 23. This would give the University the options (assuming substantial relationship to the educational process) of simply rescinding the present unwritten exemption, of granting relief to students under age 23, or of proposing a new pattern of exemptions and priorities with a more rational basis than the present one.
The solution proposed by the panel majority — which, as I understand it, instructs the University to stop granting exemptions to students age 23 and older on the basis of age — is unsatisfactory for several reasons. Neither side in this litigation sought to require students age 23 and older to live on campus, and neither side is likely to be pleased with this resolution of the issue. Students under age 23 who felt that their freedom and privacy were being unduly limited by the on-campus living requirement are not apt to derive much comfort from the knowledge that their elder classmates must now suffer the same restriction. Defendants may be equally dissatisfied because of the housing shortage they are likely to face, in view of the district court’s finding that “the reason for class selection of dormitory residence is here directly related to the number of dormitory vacancies or potential students rather than to any particular academic or ‘living and learning’ status.” (Appendix, pp. 75-76). Of course, those most certain to take exception to the remedy substituted by the majority are the students age 23 and older who until today have enjoyed what many of them must consider to be a substantial benefit. The panel has stripped them of that privilege in a proceeding in which they were not even represented.
I recognize that the law sometimes requires that issues be resolved in ways not entirely satisfactory to any of the litigants. This, however, is not such a case. Here we have a class of plaintiffs who assert that they are being required to live on campus for reasons not “substantially related to the educational process” and who, as support for their contention, show that the University has imposed arbitrary age classifications. The panel majority would answer their claim by saying, in effect, that once the older students are denied permission to live off campus, the requirement that students under age 23 live on campus will automatically be vested with substantial educational merit. I cannot accept that reasoning.
A blanket requirement that all students live on campus, with only the narrow exemptions written- into Schedule 44 (see footnote 1 of Judge Bell’s opinion), might be justifiable in 1974 at Southeastern Louisiana University as it was in 1970 at Louisiana Polytechnic Institute;1 and the University should be *1289given every opportunity to demonstrate that it is justifiable, if that is the course the University wishes to pursue. In my opinion, however, this Court should neither instruct the University that it must pursue that particular course nor assume, on the basis of a record developed without consideration of that alternative, that such a course would pass constitutional muster.
The only wrong thus far demonstrated in this case lies with the drawing of an arbitrary and unjustified distinction at age 23. I would enjoin the defendants from continuing to make that distinction, and leave it to the various elements of the University community to work together to achieve a reasonable and equitable alternative. I therefore dissent from the remedy proposed in the majority opinion.

. In upholding the application of Schedule 44 at Louisiana Polytechnic Institute, the three-judge court majority in Pratz, supra, emphasized the proven dedication of Polytechnic to the living and learning center concept, the availability of adequate and suitable on-campus housing, and the broad adherence in educational circles at that time to the view that “the living and learning center concept is a very valuable educational tool.” *1289The record before us in the. present case provides no basis on which to judge whether that concept continues to enjoy such extensive approval among prominent educators. The district court’s findings, however, cast serious doubt upon the availability of adequate housing at Southeastern as well as upon the dedication of Southeastern officials to the living and learning center concept. Cf. Mollere v. Southeastern Louisiana College, E.D.La.1969, 304 F.Supp. 826.