Court Opinion

ID: 9700166
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:14:52.007576+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:05.231955
License: Public Domain

EDWIN F. HUNTER, District Judge (concurring):
The threshold question is whether this proceeding is for a three-judge court under 28 U.S.C.A. § 2281. The Supreme Court of the United States recently reiterated and stressed its earlier holding that the three-judge court legislation is not a measure of broad social policy to be construed with liberality, but is rather an enactment technical in the strictest sense of the word to be applied as such. Mitchell v. Donovan, 398 U.S. 427, 90 S.Ct. 1763, 26 L.Ed.2d 378 (1970). As this case comes to us, it concerns not a statewide matter but rather a situation unique to Louisiana Tech at Ruston, Louisiana. The purpose of § 2281 is to prevent a single federal judge from being able to paralyze an entire policy on a statewide basis by issuing a broad injunctive order. The relief here sought, if justified, could in my opinion be granted without holding the State Board of Education’s Resolution unconstitutional. See Moody v. Flowers, 387 U.S. 97, 87 S.Ct. 1544, 18 L.Ed.2d 643; Dusch, et al v. Davis, et al, 387 U.S. 112, 87 S.Ct. 1554, 18 L.Ed.2d 656. I would dissolve the three-judge court and leave the question of whether plaintiffs are entitled to the relief sought for consideration and disposition by a single judge of the district court.
However, on the merits I agree with the result reached by Judge Dawkins, and accordingly concur in the result.