Mapp ex rel. Mapp v. Board of Education

274 F. Supp. 455
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Tennessee
DecidedAugust 11, 1967
DocketCiv. A. No. 3564
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 274 F. Supp. 455 (Mapp ex rel. Mapp v. Board of Education) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Tennessee primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mapp ex rel. Mapp v. Board of Education, 274 F. Supp. 455 (E.D. Tenn. 1967).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM

FRANK W. WILSON, District Judge.

This case is now before the Court upon remand from the Court of Appeals upon the single issue of faculty and supervisory personnel assignment within the defendant school system. Mapp v. Board of Education (Decided February 27, 1967), 6 Cir., 373 F.2d 75. All other matters heretofore ruled on by this Court have been affirmed upon appeal. See 295 F.2d 617 (1961) and 319 F.2d 571 (1963). At the time of the remand there was one other matter pending before the Court. The plaintiffs had filed objections to the last annual report filed herein by the defendant in accordance with the previous orders of the Court. By agreement of the parties, however, these objections were withdrawn from consideration by the Court. Following remand of the case a conference was held upon April 6, 1967, for the purpose of establishing the procedure for hearing and deciding the issue on remand. At this conference it developed that there was a variance of opinion on the part of counsel as to the status of the case upon remand and the issue or issues subject to resolution upon remand. Accordingly, the Court directed the parties to file briefs setting forth their respective positions in this regard and these briefs have now been filed.

It is the position of the plaintiffs that no issue exists with respect to the right of the plaintiffs to attend public schools free of any racial consideration in the assignment of teaching and supervisory personnel and that no issue exists but that the defendants do follow a policy of assigning teachers and supervisory personnel upon the basis of race. The plaintiffs accordingly seek an order by the Court requiring the defendants to submit a plan for immediate disestablishment of racial segregation in the assignment of teaching and supervisory personnel and that the ease proceed to a hearing and order thereon.

It is the position of the defendants that upon the present record in this case no issue has ever been joined with respect to the plaintiffs’ allegations regarding faculty assignments and that the Court should either order or permit the case to be repled with respect to this issue. It is the plaintiffs’ position that the case should then proceed to trial in the usual manner upon all issues [457]*457relating to faculty assignment, including the issue of any constitutional right on the part of the plaintiffs to complain of faculty assignment on the basis of race.

With respect to pleading on the issue of faculty assignment, the present status of the case is as follows:

In their original complaint filed April 26, 1960, the plaintiffs included the following allegations:

“The plaintiffs, and members of their class, are injured by the policy of assigning teachers, principals and other school personnel on the basis of the race and color of the person to be assigned. Assignment of school personnel on the basis of race and color is also predicated on the theory that Negro teachers, Negro principals, and other Negro school personnel are inferior to white teachers, white principals and other white school personnel and, therefore, may not teach white children.”

Included among the prayers of the original complaint was the prayer that the Court “enter a decree enjoining the defendants, their agents, employees and successors from assigning teachers, principals and other school personnel to the schools of the City of Chattanooga on the basis of race and color of the person to be assigned and on the basis of the race and color of the children attending the school to which the personnel is to be assigned.”

On motion of the defendant, these allegations were stricken from the complaint by the Senior Judge of this court by order entered May 5, 1960, on the ground that the plaintiff did not have standing to raise the issue of faculty desegregation. The defendant then filed an answer to the remaining allegations in the complaint. On this state of the pleadings the plaintiff was granted a summary judgment and the defendants were ordered to file a plan of desegregation. The case proceeded to judgment. On appeal the desegregation plan ordered by this Court was approved, but the Court of Appeals restored the plaintiff’s stricken allegations “insofar as they relate to the assignment of teachers and principals”. In restoring the stricken allegations to the complaint, the Court of Appeals stated:

“Within his discretion the District Judge may determine when, if at all, it becomes necessary to give consideration to the question under discussion.”

Thereupon this Court directed the parties to submit briefs upon the issue of teacher and principal assignments and after considering the same entered an order upon December 31, 1963, wherein the Court concluded that “There is not cause at this time for modification of previous orders, nor the conducting of further hearings, nor the entry of further orders” upon the issue of teacher and principal assignment.

The matter of teacher and principal assignments was next asserted in connection with a petition filed March 27, 1965, seeking acceleration of the desegregation plan. No responsive pleading was filed to the petition, but a hearing was held upon the petition and an order was entered upon August 11, 1965, accelerating the plan of pupil desegregation but granting additional time for accomplishment of faculty and principal desegregation. Upon appeal this order of the Court was affirmed with respect to all issues other than faculty and principal assignments, and the case was remanded for further proceedings, on this issue. Mapp v. Board of Education, 6 Cir., 373 F.2d 75.

Upon this state of the record the defendants contend that the issue of faculty and principal assignment has not been properly pled as yet, that the motion for summary judgment heretofore granted did not go to this issue, and that both issues of fact and law exist as to whether the plaintiffs have any constitutional right to the relief requested.

The defendants contend that the plaintiff must prove that discrimination upon the basis of race in the assignment of faculty and staff is harmful to the class represented by plaintiff before such [458]*458practice may be declared unconstitutional. In so contending the defendants rely primarily upon the language of two opinions of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, one rendered in the instant case. In its opinion in this case of July 8, 1963, 319 F.2d 571 at p. 576, the Court of Appeals for this Circuit said the following:

“We agree that the teachers, principals and others are not within the class represented by plaintiffs and that plaintiffs cannot assert or ask protection of some constitutional rights of the teachers and others, not parties to the cause. We, however, read the attack upon the assignment of teachers by race not as seeking to protect rights of such teachers, but as a claim that continued assigning of teaching personnel on a racial basis impairs the students’ rights to an education free from any consideration of race. Neither by the first Brown decision, nor by its later decisions has the Supreme Court ruled upon the question of law presented. None of the Circuits have ruled upon the question * * * ” (Emphasis added)

Later in the case of Northcross v. Board of Education of City of Memphis, (C.A.

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Related

Mapp v. Board of Education
329 F. Supp. 1374 (E.D. Tennessee, 1971)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
274 F. Supp. 455, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mapp-ex-rel-mapp-v-board-of-education-tned-1967.