Cook v. Hudson

429 U.S. 165, 97 S. Ct. 543, 50 L. Ed. 2d 373, 1976 U.S. LEXIS 180, 12 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 11,246

Opinions

Per Curiam.

Certiorari was granted to consider the question presented: whether, consistently with the First and Fourteenth Amendments, a Mississippi public school board may terminate the employment of teachers sending their children not to public schools, but to a private racially segregated school. However, since the grant of certiorari, Runyon v. McCrary, 427 U. S. 160 (1976), held that 42 U. S. C. § 1981 prohibits private, commercially operated, nonseetarian schools from denying admission to prospective students because they are Negroes. Moreover, a Mississippi statute, Miss. Code Ann. § 37-9-59 (Supp., 1976), enacted in 1974 after the school board action here complained of, prohibits school boards “from denying employment or reemployment to any person . . . for the single reason that any eligible child of such person does not attend the school system in which such [person] is employed.” Though § 37-9-59 was cited in the record at the time of granting the writ, examination of the merits on oral argument in light of Runyon v. McCrary and § 37-9-59 satisfies us that the grant was improvident. Accordingly, the writ of certiorari is dismissed as improvidently granted. Cf. Rice v. Sioux City Cemetery, 349 U. S. 70 (1955).