Moses v. Washington Parish School Board

E.D. Louisiana

Moses v. Washington Parish School Board

302 F. Supp. 362, 1969 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12488

CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Louisiana

DecidedJuly 2, 1969

DocketCiv. A. No. 15973

StatusPublished

Cited by3 cases

This text of 302 F. Supp. 362 (Moses v. Washington Parish School Board) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Louisiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook

Moses v. Washington Parish School Board, 302 F. Supp. 362, 1969 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12488 (E.D. La. 1969).

Pincite

Opinion

OPINION AND ORDER

RUBIN, District Judge.

The Washington Parish School Board has been operating its thirteen schools under a freedom of choice plan of desegregation. Since the plan has proved unsuccessful in desegregating the school system, this Court ordered the defendants to assign Negro students to five of the eight formerly all-white schools for the 1968-69 school year in order to achieve a four to one ratio of white to black students in those schools. Three all-white schools were excluded from this order with consent of the parties because no Negro students resided within the areas served by these schools.¹ The other five schools remained all-Negro.

On January 14, 1969, this Court ordered the defendants to modify their plan to eliminate the five all-Negro schools in the school system for the 1969-70 school year. The school board has now submitted a plan. In accordance with the discussion in Moore v. Tangipahoa Parish School Board, E.D.La.1969, 304 F.Supp. 244, decided this date, the plan will be approved to the extent it complies with constitutional requirements.

In their plan the defendants divided the parish into seven districts, coterminus with the tax districts. All students, [364]*364white and black, residing within each district would attend the schools located within that district except in the Angie District where it is proposed that students have the freedom to choose to attend the Angie School (which has been predominantly white) or Wesley Ray School (which has been all-Negro). The defendants propose to close four of the all-Negro schools. The only all-Negro school that the defendants would not close is the Wesley Ray School located in the Angie District.

Among the schools proposed to be closed are Washington Parish High School and Washington Parish Elementary School. The board proposes to assign students who would have attended those schools to Franklinton High and Franklinton Elementary. This would result in assigning a total of 1,340 students to Franklinton High, although its capacity is only 993, and 1,469 students to Franklinton Elementary, with a capacity of only 910. The board proposes to remedy the overcapacity by leasing and remodeling a metal building at the Fair Grounds at a cost of some $30,000 to $40,000. At best, this would still be an inferior school building. Meanwhile, Washington Parish Elementary and High Schools, which are clearly adequate school plants, would stand vacant. The sole justification for this is that students at the schools proposed to be closed have inferior educational accomplishments and have scored lower than white students in the two Franklinton schools on achievement tests. The Superintendent of the School Board testified that he thought that the proposed plan would provide the best educational opportunity for the coming school year.

It is also proposed to close the Vernon School and the Jones Creek School. Students who would have attended Vernon will attend Mt. Hermon. This school has a rated capacity of 700 students and would be required to house an estimated 745 students. Varnado School would accommodate its own student body and those who relocated from the Jones Creek School, a total of 539 in a building with a capacity of 511. Neither the Center nor the school board thinks that these relatively small overassignments will be difficult to accommodate.

If schools must be closed and students assigned to new schools, this must not be done solely on the basis of their race. Similarly, the faculty and staff of the schools must be located without discrimination because of race.

Subsequent to the date of the hearing, the school board filed an ex parte affidavit proposing to accommodate the extra students at the Franklinton schools in temporary buildings rather than in the Fair Grounds structure. Counsel for the defendants also argued that the plan complied with the Court’s prior order of January.14, 1969. The proposal with respect to the schools in the Franklinton District may involve constitutional and not merely administrative issues. Therefore, in order to afford the defendants an opportunity to adduce any additional evidence they want with regard to the proposal for the Franklinton District, and to afford the same opportunity to the plaintiffs, a hearing will be held by Judge Frederick J. R. Heebe on August 5, 1969, at 2:00 p. m., only on the question of the plan for educating students who reside in the Franklinton District.

There is no serious problem of overcapacity as a result of the proposed closing of the Negro schools in the Varnado and Mt. Hermon Districts. The Jones Creek Elementary School is in an inferior school building. While the defendants might well continue to use the other Negro school they propose to close, Vernon School, the result of closing it is not per se discriminatory when the plan is considered as a whole with the changes required by the Court. Whether or not this single school should be closed then becomes a matter of administrative judgment for the school board, not a constitutional issue for the Court so long as the reassignment of students and faculty is made in such a manner as to promote the accomplishment of a unitary system.

[365]*365There are 620 students residing within the Angie District — 129 white students and 491 black students. Each student in the district would be free to choose either the formerly predominantly white Angie School or the all-Negro Wesley Ray School. No white child has yet chosen to attend an all-Negro school in Washington Parish under freedom of choice; hence, it is hardly likely that any white child in Angie District would choose to attend Wesley Ray School. Moreover, in view of the few number of Negro children that have freely chosen to attend formerly all-white schools in Washington Parish, we cannot expect many Negro students to choose to attend Angie School. The Angie District, then, would still contain an all-Negro school and a formerly all-white school with but a relatively few number of Negro students in attendance.

The school board plan is based on two considerations. It is argued that total desegregation of both schools would leave only a small number of white students in each school, that the white students would therefore flee the school system, and that the result would be two virtually all-black schools rather than one. The board further contends that, even if all the present white students remain, schools with a heavy Negro majority and relatively few whites are educationally unsound.² However, while this opinion was being written, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals announced its decision in United States v. Jefferson County Board of Education, (Docket No. 27445, 5th Cir., June 26, 1969), and in that opinion said that the fact that white students would not attend formerly all-Negro schools “is not a legal argument,” and the court ordered plans proposed without regard to this consideration. A number of higher court decisions tell us without reservation or equivocation that the Constitution requires a fully desegregated unitary school system in September 1969. Hall v. St. Helena Parish School Board, (Docket No. 26450, 5th Cir., May 28, 1969); Henry v. Clarksdale Municipal Separate School District, 409 F.2d 682 (5th Cir., 1969); Adams v. Mathews, 403 F.2d 181 (5th Cir. 1968); United States v. Jefferson County Board of Education, supra,.

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