Court Opinion

ID: 9460234
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:45:23.269285+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:32.336035
License: Public Domain

EDWARDS, Circuit Judge.
Plaintiffs, Akron Board of Education and its Superintendent, Conrad C. Ott, appeal from an order dismissing their complaint. The complaint filed before the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio sought an injunction against the Ohio State Board of Education (and its members as individuals) restraining the transferring of an area (Sackett Hills) of the previous jurisdiction of the Akron Board of Education to an adjoining school district. Plaintiff’s complaint is founded upon 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1970), 28 U.S.C. § 1343 (1970), and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It seeks both a declaratory judgment and injunctive relief.
The complaint alleged:
In the ease of the proposed transfer of Sackett Hills,, * * * unlawful policies and procedures have resulted in approval of a transfer by the defendant State Board of Education, effect of which will or may be to compel plaintiffs to take action in violation of constitutionally and statutorially [sic] protected rights of children in the Akron City School District.
12. Under the proposed transfer of Sackett Hills, children attending public schools will be permitted to attend elementary, junior high, and senior high schools which are all-white in composition instead of attending North Senior High School which is approximately 24% black, Jennings Junior High School which is approximately 31% black, Findley Elementary School which is approximately 63% black, and Harris Elementary School, in the case of some students, which is approximately 7% black.
13. Defendants State Board of Education, their defendant members, and the defendant Essex have exercised the authority otherwise given them by law in an unlawful, discriminatory, and arbitrary manner in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Title 42, United States Code, Sec. 1983, in that:
A. By reason of the practices and policies of said defendants, the plaintiff Akron School Board has purportedly been required to forfeit the Sackett Hills area from the Akron School District, although there has been no failure to meet requirements of state law respecting transportation and education of school age children therein and notwithstanding the absence of any legal basis to impose such a forfeiture even if there had been a failure to meet any such requirements. Such action by said defendants has been taken on the ground that the plaintiff Board has failed to match the standard of transportation offered to children within-such area which a suburban school district can allegedly maintain;
B. The policies and practices of said defendants impose a standard of transportation for urban school districts which impose the higher costs upon them than obtain on a per capita basis in suburban school districts notwithstanding the fact that the State of Ohio does not com*1288pensate for such difference and that state law does not provide or purport to provide legal authority for the defendant State Board of Education to require the same standard of transportation service;
C. The policies and practices of the Defendant State Board of Education permit the use of a standard of comparative convenience in transportation of children to nonpublic schools as required under the provisions of Revised Code Section 3327.01 to be the basis whereby patrons desiring to send their children to all-white public schools outside an urban district in preference to racially mixed public schools within such a district may do so;
D. The policies and practices of said defendants by failing to adopt lawful standards has resulted in the case of the proposed Sackett Hills transfer from the Akron City School District an official state action to cause children from an all-white area to attend public schools on a basis other than the proximity of their residence thereto for reasons not equally applicable to all.
14. Plaintiffs will suffer immediate and irreparable harm in the event that the defendant class members or their attorney, the defendant Mc-Clenathen, file and maintain any action in the state courts seeking to compel the plaintiffs to give effect to the unlawful approval of their detachment petition by the defendant State Board of Education of Ohio. The effect of any such action by said defendants would be to give an eviden-tiary basis for suit by other patrons from the Akron City School District that children otherwise within the district are assigned to attend public schools by reason of race. Such a suit would require great expense and effort on the part of the plaintiffs to defend and would or might result in an order causing a complete alteration of attendance areas historically established without regard to race. Any such alteration of attendance areas would result in great and incalculable expense and would deprive children in the Akron City School District of educational programs necessarily eliminated or curtailed on account thereof or result in an increase in tax levies for Akron taxpayers, or both.
This is a small case in everything except the legal principles involved. The area, Sackett Hills, which the defendant State Board of Education has approved transferring from the Akron School District to an adjacent suburban school district is small. The number of students involved is only 29 (of whom 6 were attending Akron Public Schools).
The facts alleged by the Akron Board are that without any lawful educational justification, white students are being moved by the transfer from desegregated schools in Akron to all white suburban schools, thereby decreasing the tax money available to the Akron School Board and tending to deprive Akron school students of their constitutional right to attend nonsegregated schools. Obviously one such transfer has a very limited influence upon the rights of students to attend nonsegregated schools. Obviously, also, many such transfers based upon such a precedent could have a disastrous effect.
The legal principle involved is the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States which prohibits any state from denying any citizen the equal protection of the laws.
Thus far the defendants have filed no answer to this complaint. They moved to dismiss it on the grounds that the complaint stated no claim upon which relief could be granted and that the District Court had no jurisdiction over the action. The District Judge (without, of course, ever reaching the merits of the action) granted the motion to dismiss, holding that the federal court had no jurisdiction because neither of the plaintiffs had standing to sue.
*1289We hold that under the facts alleged and stipulated the plaintiffs have standing to bring this action, that the District Court has jurisdiction to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment, that the defendants, members of the State Board of Education, are not immune from suit, and that in the present posture of this case abstention is neither required nor appropriate.
We note, of course, that the State Board has contended, and presumably will do so before the District Court, that its transfer decision was made on grounds of convenience of transportation and had no racial motivation at all. This may be so, but thus far the State Board has not even filed an answer to allege these contentions and, of course, there has been no federal adjudication of the conflicts of fact.
Standing to sue “is only a rule of practice” (Barrows v. Jackson, 346 U.S. 249, 257, 73 S.Ct. 1031, 1035, 97 L.Ed. 1586 (1953)) designed to enforce the constitutional rule that the United States Courts have jurisdiction only of “Cases” or “Controversies.” U.S.Const, art. III, § 2, cl. 1. In its most general form the rule may be stated as holding that no one who is not a member of the class claimed to be offended may bring an action to protect the constitutional rights of such a class. See Barrows v. Jackson, 346 U.S. 249, 255, 73 S.Ct. 1031, 97 L.Ed. 1586 (1953); Coleman v. Miller, 307 U.S. 433, 464-467, 59 S.Ct. 972, 83 L.Ed. 1385 (1939) (Frankfurter, J., separate opinion); Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U.S. 288, 346, 56 S.Ct. 466, 80 L.Ed. 688 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring). The general rule seeks to guarantee that every suit will truly be an adversary proceeding. Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83, 101, 88 S.Ct. 1942, 20 L.Ed.2d 947 (1968).
Where, however, there is a close relationship between the plaintiffs who seek to bring an action and the class of persons whose constitutional rights are claimed to be violated, standing to sue has frequently been found. NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 83 S.Ct. 328, 9 L.Ed.2d 405 (1963); Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 45 S.Ct. 571, 69 L.Ed. 1070 (1925); Whitley v. Wilson City Board of Education, 427 F.2d 179 (4th Cir. 1970); Board of Education v. York, 429 F.2d 66 (10th Cir. 1970); Brewer v. Hoxie School District No. 46, 238 F.2d 91 (8th Cir. 1956). Cf. Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 92 S.Ct. 1361, 31 L.Ed.2d 636 (1972).
In the Society of Sisters case, supra, a private parochial school brought action to enjoin the enforcement of a state law which required all parents to send their children to public schools. The Supreme Court held the challenged act unconstitutional thereby recognizing the right of the plaintiff school to protect the constitutional rights of the pupils of the school and their parents. It is, of course, clear that the impact of the state action there protested was greater upon the school itself than is the state action protested in our instant suit. But in our instant case, not only are children transferred, but tax dollars otherwise due the Akron School Board are transferred too. The difference between the Society of Sisters case and this case as to standing seems to be a matter of degree rather than of legal principle.
In NAACP v. Button, supra, the Supreme Court recognized the right of an organization to defend the constitutional rights of its members. NAACP v. Button, supra 371 U.S. at 428, 83 S.Ct. 328, 9 L.Ed.2d 405.
We recognize, of course, that there is force to the argument of the District Judge that parents of school children whose rights are alleged to be abridged would be wholly proper plaintiffs as to whom the standing argument could not be raised. But it should be noted that the small area concerned and its minimal present impact would be much less likely to come to the attention of said parents or arouse their concern than it would to come to the attention of and arouse the concern of the School Board, which is the immediate object of the order al*1290leged to be unconstitutional. Thus if jurisdiction is refused in a precedent-setting case because the potential litigants, alert to the possible constitutional abuse, are denied standing, quite a bit of the unconstitutional camel may be in the tent before the tent’s less alert occupants are awakened.
We believe here that in terms of loss of territory and tax dollars and in terms of identity of interest with the asserted rights of the pupils and their parents, the Akron Board of Education and its Superintendent are true adversary parties and that their complaint states a “Case” or “Controversy” to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment within the intendment of Article III of the U. S. Constitution.
Over and above these considerations there is still a third basis for standing for these plaintiffs. Where plaintiffs’ complaint has as yet not been heard on granted motion to dismiss, we assume its well-pleaded allegations to be true. Under this assumption the Akron Board and its Superintendent have been commanded by action of the state board to participate in conduct leading in the direction of segregation of its school system. Such conduct would place the Board and its members and its Superintendent in the position of violating the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It would subject plaintiffs to being defendants in a suit to restrain conduct which they appear to abhor and which they avow to be unconstitutional. At least theoretically it might subject individual members of the Board and the Superintendent to suits for damages under the Civil Rights Act. 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1970).
In Brewer v. Hoxie School District No. 46, 238 F.2d 91 (8th Cir. 1956), the Eighth Circuit recognized the right of a school board to resist in the federal courts pressures upon it to prevent its performance of its duties in accord with the Constitution of the United States:
Turning first to the question of federal jurisdiction, it is the position of the appellees that federal jurisdiction of the case exists under the general provision of the federal law, in that the complaint presents a civil action arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States wherein the amount in controversy exceeds $3,000, 28 U.S.C.A. § 1331, and it arises under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution implementing the Fourteenth Amendment, and the corollary or related constitutional provision imposing an oath or affirmation upon state officers to support the Constitution.
Appellees contend that as they are under a constitutional duty to support and obey the Fourteenth Amendment and to accord equal protection of the law in their operation of schools, they have a federal right to be free from wrongful interference with the performance of that duty. They say they rest their claim of a federal constitutional right squarely on the fundamental and pervasive provisions of the Constitution and statutes, and declare that the nubbin of their case against defendants in the federal court is the jurisdiction which stems from the Fourteenth Amendment in conjunction with the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution and the cause of action under section 1331 to which they give rise. That the right of the members of the school board to be free from interference with their performance of a duty which the Constitution itself imposes on them derives directly from the Supremacy Clause and the related constitutional provision imposing upon the state officers an oath or affirmation to support the constitution and it is a federal right. The school board is attempting to obey and apply the federal law laid down by the Supreme Court in the Brown case and the defendants attempt and threaten to subvert and prevent it.
Both of the learned and experienced district judges who rendered decision in the case reached the conclusion that the complaint disclosed that federal *1291jurisdiction existed under the provisions of the general law relied on as above stated, and we are in accord with that conclusion.
Although the defendants contended below and reassert here that the acts complained of against them were acts upon which a suit could have been predicated in the state court and that the acts were of state and not federal cognizance, the complaint was not so drawn. The conspiracy it alleges is a conspiracy to violate a federal right, and recourse to the federal court for its vindication will not be denied merely because a cause of action might likewise exist in the state court. United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 23 L.Ed. 588; United States v. Waddell, 112 U.S. 76, 5 S.Ct. 35, 28 L.Ed. 673; Romero v. Weakley, 9 Cir., 226 F.2d 399; Dyer v. Kazuhisa Abe, D.C. Hawaii, 138 F.Supp. 220. Brewer v. Hoxie School District No. 46, 238 F.2d 91, 95 (8th Cir. 1956). (Footnotes omitted.)
The . legal conclusions concerning standing, set forth above in the Hoxie School case, are directly applicable to the standing issue in our instant case and we adopt the Eighth Circuit’s reasoning in this regard.1
In a still more authoritative statement on this score (albeit in a footnote), the United States Supreme Court held that a local school board in New York State had standing to bring an action in federal court to test the validity of a New York State Statute requiring school boards to lend textbooks to private (including parochial) schools.
Appellees do not challenge the standing of appellants to press their claim in this Court. Appellants have taken an oath to support the United States Constitution. Believing § 701 to be unconstitutional, they are in the position of having to choose between violating their oath and taking a step —refusal to comply with § 701 — that would be likely to bring their expulsion from office and also a reduction in state funds for their school districts. There can be no doubt that appellants thus have a “personal stake in the outcome” of this litigation. Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 204, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962).
Board of Education v. Allen, 392 U.S. 236, 241 n. 5, 88 S.Ct. 1923, 1925, 20 L.Ed.2d 1060 (1968).
We hold that in the unique facts of this case the Akron Board of Education has standing to bring this action.
We recognize (in spite of the authority cited above) that the cases argued by the dissent (City of Kenosha v. Bruno, 412 U.S. 507, 93 S.Ct. 2222, 37 L.Ed.2d 109 (1973); Moor v. County of Alameda, 411 U.S. 693, 93 S.Ct. 1785, 36 L.Ed.2d 596 (1973); Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 81 S.Ct. 473, 5 L.Ed.2d 492 (1961); Johnson v. City of Cincinnati, 450 F.2d 796 (6th Cir. 1971)) holding that municipalities are not “persons” for purposes of the Civil Rights Acts might be extended to apply to state agencies like school boards so as to deprive the Akron Board of standing to sue. While this suit is brought in the name of the Akron Board of Education as a body politic, it is also filed in the name of Conrad C. Ott, the School Superintendent. Mr. Ott clearly is a “person” within the meaning of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and 28 U.S.C. § 1343 (1970), as, of course, are the members of the Board of Education who on motion on remand may be permitted to be added as plaintiffs.2
*1292We have no doubt concerning the jurisdiction of the District Court to hear and decide a ease asserting facts which, if true, would represent a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. See 28 U.S.C. § 1343; 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1970).
It is doubtless true that the state as such (and perhaps the State Board of Education as well) are immune from suit, but, of course, injunctive relief may be had to restrain members of a Board of Education (state or local) from violating the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Swann v. Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1, 15, 91 S.Ct. 1267, 28 L.Ed.2d 554 (1971); Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (II), 349 U.S. 294, 75 S.Ct. 753, 99 L.Ed. 1083 (1955); Bradley v. Milliken, 484 F.2d 215 (6th Cir. 1973). In the instant case the defendants include the individual members of the State Board and the State Superintendent.
While these considerations call for reversal of the District Court’s judgment dismissing this cause of action, abstention might be suggested until state avenues of relief have been exhausted. See Reetz v. Bozanich, 397 U.S. 82, 90 S.Ct. 788, 25 L.Ed.2d 68 (1970); Lake Carriers Assn. v. MacMullan, 406 U.S. 498, 92 S.Ct. 1749, 32 L.Ed.2d 257.
The case of State ex rel. Zellner v. Board of Education, 34 Ohio St.2d 199, 297 N.E.2d 528 (1973), decided after our instant appeal was argued, answers this argument. In it the Supreme Court of Ohio held in a fact situation pertaining to Cincinnati which is very similar to our instant case:
Considerations of orderly procedure,comity, ultimate judicial economy, and the desire to avoid a “collision course,” demand that a state court action dealing with federal civil rights be heard first in the federal forum where a similar action had been previously instituted. State ex rel. Zell-ner v. Board of Education, supra, at 199, 297 N.E.2d at 529.
In view of Judge Weick’s dissenting opinion, a summary of the holding of the court (as stated in this opinion and the concurring opinion of Judge Pratt) may be in order:
1) Plaintiffs, Akron Board of Education and Conrad C. Ott, have standing to sue.
2) The District Court has jurisdiction of the ease under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and 28 U.S.C. § 1343 since (at least) plaintiff Conrad Ott is a “person” within the meaning of these sections.
3) The individual defendants (members of the State Board of Education) are not immune from injunctive relief if the facts developed at trial prove a Fourteenth Amendment violation.
I am authorized to state that this summary has the full concurrence of Judge Pratt.
The judgment of the District Court is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

. Plaintiffs have not pled a cause of action under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (1970) (federal question jurisdiction) perhaps because the tax funds involved may not reach the jurisdictional amount required.

. See Moor v. County of Alameda, 411 U.S. 693, 712, 93 S.Ct. 1785, 36 L.Ed.2d 596 (1973) ; Egan v. City of Aurora, 365 U.S. 514, 81 S.Ct. 684, 5 L.Ed.2d 741 (1961) ; Myers v. Anderson, 238 U.S. 368, 35 S.Ct. 932, 59 L.Ed. 1349 (1915) ; Tinker v. Des Moines Community School District, 393 U.S. 503, 89 S.Ct. 733, 21 L.Ed.2d 731 (1969) ; Birnbaum v. Trussell, 347 F.2d 86 (2d Cir. 1965).