Morton v. Charles County Board of Education

520 F.2d 871, 11 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 677
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
DecidedJuly 24, 1975
DocketNos. 74-1817, 74-1818
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 520 F.2d 871 (Morton v. Charles County Board of Education) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Morton v. Charles County Board of Education, 520 F.2d 871, 11 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 677 (4th Cir. 1975).

Opinions

FIELD, Circuit Judge:

This action was instituted in January of 1971 by eight black individuals alleging discriminatory conduct in the operation of the public school system of Charles County, Maryland. Six of the plaintiffs were adults who charged that they and the class of individuals which they purported to represent had been refused employment or promotion, or had been demoted or discharged by the defendants on grounds of race. The other two plaintiffs were infants who were students in the Charles County School System and alleged that they sued on behalf of themselves and as representa-, tives of a class consisting of all black students in the school system who were being deprived of their civil rights because the defendants had maintained racially identifiable faculties. The parties engaged in broad and exhaustive discovery procedures and on November 9, 1973, the court determined that the prerequisites to a class action had not been met by either the adult or infant plaintiffs. Thereafter, nine additional adults moved to intervene as plaintiffs, alleging that they had been the victims of racial discrimination on the part of the defendants.

The district court conducted a twelve-day trial and filed an opinion in which it engaged in a meticulous review of the evidence and made detailed findings of fact. The claims of discrimination of the fourteen adult plaintiffs 1 were carefully examined and with the exception of one claim were found to be without merit. In the case of Mrs. Elnora Pinkney the court found that the failure to appoint her as principal of an elementary school in 1969 was the result of racial discrimination. With respect to the claims of the student plaintiffs relative to the racial composition of faculties, the court found that the School Board had attained an appropriate faculty ratio as required by Nesbit v. Statesville City Board of Education, 418 F.2d 1040 (4 Cir. 1969), in all but five of its twenty-six schools.2 The court noted that in three of these five schools the shifting of one teacher would bring the school into conformance with the test suggested by the plaintiffs and that in all other schools the shifting of only two teachers would be necessary. The only school falling substantially below this test was the Vocational Educational Center which included a number of specialized faculty positions.

Based upon the findings in its opinion the court entered an order which (1) granted judgment in favor of the defendants with respect to the claims of all of the adult plaintiffs with the exception of Mrs. Pinkney; (2) declared that the ratio of black and white faculty members in each school should be not less than 75 per cent nor more than 125 per cent of the ratio of black teachers throughout the system;3 (3) granted judgment in favor of Mrs. Pinkney in the amount of $15,796, being the differ[873]*873ence between the salary actually paid to her and the salary she would have received as principal of an elementary school for the years 1969 to 1974;4 and (4) awarded attorneys’ fees of $12,000 payable to counsel for Mrs. Pinkney and the infant plaintiffs.

Upon their appeal, the plaintiffs request that we reverse the judgment of the district court and direct that it take the following remedial measures. First, grant declaratory and injunctive relief prohibiting continuance of the hiring, promotion and demotion practices which plaintiffs allege have caused continued attrition in the percentage of black faculty members in the school system. Second, issue an injunction requiring the institution of affirmative hiring, promotion and demotion policies designed to restore the ratio of black principals and teachers to that which existed in the school system at the time desegregation was undertaken. Third, set aside the adverse findings made by the district court against the thirteen adult plaintiffs, and reconsider their claims by applying a presumption of racial discrimination and placing upon the defendants the burden of proving that discriminatory policies played no part in the rejection, non-promotion or demotion of each individual plaintiff. Fourth, award compensatory and other relief to all members of the class of unsuccessful black applicants for promotion and hiring in the Charles County School system since 1968.5

Primarily the plaintiffs contend that the district court failed to give the appropriate presumptive weight to the statistical evidence of racial discrimination in the Board’s employment practices. They point to the fact that whereas in 1966 — 67, the year prior to complete desegregation, 44.2 per cent of the teachers were black, the proportion of black teachers had declined to 30.4 per cent in 1969 — 70, and that in the same years the percentage of black principals had dropped from 37.5 per cent to 30.7 per cent. These statistics, the plaintiffs argue, call for the invocation of the principle set forth in Chambers v. Hendersonville City Board of Education, 364 F.2d 189, 192 (4 Cir. 1966), that “in the face of the long history of racial discrimination * * * the sudden disproportionate decimation in the ranks of Negro teachers raise[s] an inference of discrimination which thrust[s] upon the School Board the burden of justifying its conduct by clear and convincing evidence.” The district judge rejected this contention of the plaintiffs, and we agree with him that this is not a Chambers case. First of all, unlike Chambers where the school system resisted “the mandate of Brown until forced to do so by litigation,” Id. at 192, the Charles County Board had taken affirmative steps to desegregate its schools in the light of the evolving law and it is conceded that complete desegregation in the county had been voluntarily accomplished in 1967. Also, unlike Chambers, in the present case there was no sudden disproportionate decimation in the ranks of Negro teachers incident to the complete integration of the school system. On the contrary the district judge found that “there is no claim or evidence that any teacher or principal was discharged because of his or her race.” Common to Chambers and its progeny in this [874]*874circuit6 was the fact that in each case a substantial number of black teachers had. been discharged when the schools were integrated, and the significance of this factor was recognized by the Court in Keyes v. School District No. 1, Denver, Colo., 413 U.S. 189, 209, 93 S.Ct. 2686, 2698, 37 L.Ed.2d 548 (1973), where the Court stated:

“Again, in a school system with a history of segregation, the discharge of a disproportionately large number of Negro teachers incident to desegregation ‘thrust[s] upon the School Board the burden of justifying its conduct by clear and convincing evidence.’ ” (Emphasis added).

In addition to the foregoing, the record clearly demonstrates that the statistical changes upon which the plaintiffs rely so heavily were not the result of any discriminatory hiring policies of the Board, but rather were the result of dramatic demographic changes which occurred in Charles County in the 1960— 1970 decade.

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Bluebook (online)
520 F.2d 871, 11 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 677, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/morton-v-charles-county-board-of-education-ca4-1975.