Hall v. St. Helena Parish School Board

417 F.2d 801
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedMay 28, 1969
DocketCivil Action No. 1068; Civil Action No. 2921; Civil Action No. 3164; Civil Action No. 3197; Civil Action No. 3208; Civil Action No. 3248; Civil Action No. 3253; Civil Action No. 3257; Civil Action No. 9981; Civil Action No. 10687; Civil Action No. 10902; Civil Action No. 10903; Civil Action No. 10912; Civil Action No. 10946; Civil Action No. 11053; Civil Action No. 11054; Civil Action No. 11055; Civil Action No. 11125; Civil Action No. 11126; Civil Action No. 11130; Civil Action No. 11297; Civil Action No. 11304; Civil Action No. 11314; Civil Action No. 11329; Civil Action No. 11351; Civil Action No. 11577; Civil Action No. 11908; Civil Action No. 12071; Civil Action No. 12169; Civil Action No. 12171; Civil Action No. 12177; Civil Action No. 12265; Civil Action No. 12589; Civil Action No. 12721; Civil Action No. 12722; Civil Action No. 12880; Civil Action No. 12924; Civil Action No. 15556; Nos. 26450, 27303, 27054, 27087, 27106, 27391
StatusPublished
Cited by75 cases

This text of 417 F.2d 801 (Hall v. St. Helena Parish School Board) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hall v. St. Helena Parish School Board, 417 F.2d 801 (5th Cir. 1969).

Opinions

GODBOLD, Circuit Judge:

We have before us appeals from three district court decrees covering thirty-six parish school systems and two city school systems, all in the state of Louisiana. These cases were submitted and argued April 21, 1969, two years after the en banc decision of this court in Jefferson II,1 and eleven months after the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Green v. School Bd. of New Kent County.2

I. Background

Twenty-nine of the districts are ap-pellees in appeals from an en banc decision 3 of the District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, which declined to order modification, requested on the authority of Green in existing desegregation plans.4

Eight parishes are appellees in similar appeals from a decree of the District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.5

The Tangipahoa Parish School Board is appellant in an appeal from another decree of the Eastern District6 directing it to change from a Jefferson-decree freedom of choice plan to one calling for the assignment of students “by the adoption of geographic attendance zones, or pairing of classes, or both.”

We begin with principles both basic and familiar to all who are concerned with the complex problem of ending the dual school system in the South. [807]*807There can be no doubt of the duty of school boards to act affirmatively to abolish all vestiges of state-imposed segregation of the races in the public schools. United States v. Indianola Municipal Separate Sch. Dist., 5 Cir. 1969, 410 F.2d 626 [1969]; Henry v. Clarksdale Municipal Separate Sch. Dist., 5 Cir. 1969, 409 F.2d 682 [1969]; Adams v. Mathews, 403 F.2d 181 (5th Cir. 1968); Jefferson II, supra.

The respective burdens and roles of school boards and district courts are articulated in Green itself:

* * * The burden on a school board today is to come forward with a plan that promises realistically to work, and promises realistically to work now.
The obligation of the district courts, as it always has been, is to assess the effectiveness of a proposed plan in achieving desegregation. There is no universal answer to complex problems of desegregation; there is obviously no one plan that will do the job in every case. The matter must be assessed in light of the circumstances present and the options available in each instance. It is incumbent upon the school board to establish that its proposed plan promises meaningful and immediate progress toward disestablishing state-imposed segregation. It is incumbent upon the district court to weigh that claim in light of the facts at hand and in light of any alternatives which may be shown as feasible and more promising in their effectiveness. Where the court finds the board to be acting in good faith and the proposed plan to have real prospects for dismantling the state-imposed dual system “at the earliest practicable date,” then the plan may be said to provide effective relief. Of course, the availability to the board of other more promising courses of action may indicate a lack of good faith; and at the least it places a heavy burden upon the board to explain its preference for an apparently less effective method. Moreover, whatever plan is adopted will require evaluation in practice, and the court should retain jurisdiction until it is clear that state-imposed segregation has been completely removed.

88 S.Ct. at 1694-1695, 20 L.Ed.2d at 724.

If under an existent plan there are no whites, or only a small percentage of whites, attending formerly all-Negro schools, or only a small percentage of Negroes enrolled in formerly all-white schools, then the plan, as a matter of law, is not working. Henry v. Clarksdale, supra; Adams v. Mathews, supra.

The good faith of a school board in acting to desegregate its schools is a necessary concomitant to the achievement of a unitary school system, but it is not itself the yardstick of effectiveness.7

The majority of the school boards involved in these appeals did not begin any type of desegregation of their schools prior to being ordered to do so for the 1965-1966 school year.8 All have been operating for the 1967-68 and 1968-69 school years under Jefferson-decree freedom of choice plans for pupil assignment, which under numerous decisions of this circuit are required to be uniform.

All now know, judges, lawyers and school boards, that freedom of choice, Jefferson variety or otherwise, is not a constitutional end in itself but only a means to the constitutionally required [808]*808end of the termination of the dual school system. Green, supra; Jefferson II, supra. Since Green this court explicitly has rejected freedom of choice plans that were found to be demonstrably unsuitable for effectuating transition from dual school systems to unitary nondiscriminatory systems. See, e. g., Anthony v. Marshall County Bd. of Educ., 5 Cir. 1969, 409 F.2d 1287 [1969]; United States v. Greenwood Municipal Separate School Dist., 406 F.2d 1086 (5th Cir. 1969). See also Graves v. Walton County Bd. of Educ., 403 F.2d 181, 189 (5th Cir. 1968); Bd. of Public Instruction of Duval County v. Braxton, 402 F.2d 900 (5th Cir. 1968).

II. The Western District Cases

The Western District Court, sitting en banc, found that the operation of Jefferson-type freedom of choice in the school districts before it “has real prospects of dismantling the dual system of schools at the earliest practicable date * * and concluded that the best method available to eradicate the dual system of schools in these districts is freedom of choice.9

Appellants in the Western District cases contend that the statistical record manifestly reveals that the dual system continues and that freedom of choice has failed to produce meaningful results. They urge that the statistical record requires reversal when considered in light of Green and the cases in this circuit following Green.

The appellee school boards insist that Green does not foreclose the continuation of their Jefferson-decree freedom of choice plans. They read the statistics as revealing that progress, though in most instances statistically nominal, has been made toward the elimination of the dual system.

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Bluebook (online)
417 F.2d 801, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hall-v-st-helena-parish-school-board-ca5-1969.