Robinson v. Shelby County Board of Education

330 F. Supp. 837, 1971 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12742
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Tennessee
DecidedJune 23, 1971
DocketCiv. No. 4916
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 330 F. Supp. 837 (Robinson v. Shelby County Board of Education) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Tennessee primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Robinson v. Shelby County Board of Education, 330 F. Supp. 837, 1971 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12742 (W.D. Tenn. 1971).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER

BAILEY BROWN, Chief Judge.

The last opinion of this Court in this case was filed on April 6, 1970 and is reported in 311 F.Supp. at 97. As is reflected by that opinion, this Court concluded that the Board’s tendered plan met the test of constitutionality and therefore we approved such plan. As is also reflected in that opinion, the Title IV Center of the University of Tennessee largely agreed with the Board’s plan, though it suggested several changes, and the original plaintiffs and the Department of Justice largely agreed with the plan as it would be amended by the suggestions of the Title IV Center.

In an opinion filed on May 10, 1971, 442 F.2d 255, our Court of Appeals remanded this case for reconsideration in the light of the most recent decisions by the Supreme Court. Judges Weick and Miller, in concurring in the remand, did not state whether or not they thought that the desegregation plan approved by this Court meets the requirements of those decisions. However, the principal opinion, by Judge McCree, does make it clear that, in his view, the plan does not meet those requirements, and in his opinion Judge McCree pointed out that additional integration could be accomplished by following the suggestions of the Title IV Center.

It therefore appeared to this Court that a revision of the plan as had been suggested by the Title IV Center, and as had largely been concurred in by the original plaintiffs and the Department of Justice, would be all that the law requires and would satisfy all concerned. Moreover, we were desirous of holding the necessary hearing and making the decision as soon as possible because school begins on August 15, 1971. Accordingly, on May 13, 1971, we ordered the parties to confer with each other to determine what their differences were, ordered a pre-trial conference to follow on May 28, and ordered that the hearing would be held and the decision would be made by June 23, 1971.

At the pre-trial conference on May 28, we entered an order that was substantially in the form tendered by original plaintiffs and which ordered the Board [840]*840to file its plan within two weeks, and on June 10 we set the hearing for June 21.

The Board timely filed its plan, which encompassed some, but not all, of the suggestions that had been made by the Title IV Center, and the Title IV Center promptly filed its comments and suggestions. The original plaintiffs promptly filed objections to most of what the Board and the Title IV Center proposed, and on their representation that they desired to file an alternative plan, we ordered the Board to furnish them all available information. In the meantime, counsel for the Board became involved in a trial in state court but we were able to get him excused for the morning of the hearing in this court. At the beginning of the present hearing on June 21, the Department of Justice also filed objections to most of what the Board and the Title IV Center proposed.

As indicated by their objections filed and as also indicated by their questioning of the Board and the Title IV Center witnesses at the hearing, the original plaintiffs and the Department of Justice are in almost total disagreement with the plan tendered by the Board, even as it would be amended by suggestions of the Title IV Center. Thus the original plaintiffs and the Department of Justice have escalated their demands since our 1970 ruling. Their position seems to be that the Charlotte-Mecklenburg decision [Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education], 402 U.S. 1, 91 S.Ct. 1267, 28 L.Ed.2d 554 (1971), justifies and indeed requires such escalation, though there clearly is nothing in that decision that these parties did not contend to be the law when they addressed this court at the 1970 hearing.

It therefore has become obvious to the Court that we cannot, as we had contemplated, dispose of this remand simply on the basis of the plan tendered by the Board, as it would be amended by the suggestions of the Title IV Center, plus some limited amendments suggested by the original plaintiffs and the Department of Justice, because the demands of the latter two parties would require wholly new plans. We have therefore abandoned our intention to make a ruling by June 23 and are requiring the original plaintiffs and the Department of Justice each to file wholly new and entire plans and to include in such plans provisions with respect to future building and the cost thereof and provisions with respect to additional transportation and the cost thereof. The Board will cooperate with such parties in making available to them all the information it has that will aid them in preparing such plans. The original plaintiffs, however, need not include such cost projections unless they choose, since they represent that they do not have the financial resources to obtain such projections. These plans must be filed no later than July 15, 1971. We will set a date for response by the Board and for comments by the Title IV Center after such plans are filed.

Since the beginning of school will be so imminent when the plans of the original plaintiffs and the Department of Justice are filed and since thereafter time must be allowed for responses and for a hearing, the Board may, in planning for the coming school year, assume, until this Court orders to the contrary, that it may follow the plan as tendered by it, except for projected building, as such plan would be amended by the suggestions of the Title IV Center.

In Charlotte-Mecklenburg, the Supreme Court said 402 U.S. p. 15, 91 S.Ct. p. 1275): “The objective today remains to eliminate from the public schools all vestiges of state-imposed segregation.” We require original plaintiffs and the Department of Justice to file with their plans a brief on the question whether all situations in which Negroes are in the majority are conclusively to be presumed to have resulted from state-imposed school segregation or whether a factual investigation is necessary to determine whether, and to what extent, such situations are attributable to state-imposed school segregation.

It is so ordered.

[841]*841SUPPLEMENTAL OPINION

The last full opinion this Court filed in this case, which involves the desegregation of the Shelby County, Tennessee school system, is reported in 311 F.Supp. at 97 (W.D.Tenn.1970). Upon appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit remanded in an opinion reported in 442 F.2d at 255 (6th Cir. 1971) for reconsideration in the light of Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg, 402 U.S. 1, 91 S.Ct. 1267, 28 L.Ed.2d 554 (1971).

In the hope of making an early determination upon the remand, we held a hearing on June 21,1971, but it developed at that hearing that both the original plaintiff, the NAACP1, and the intervening plaintiff, the Attorney General, objected in large measure to the most recent plan submitted by the defendant Board even as such plan would be amended by the suggestions of the experts of the Title IV Center of the University of Tennessee. We therefore terminated that hearing and filed a memorandum and interim order on June 23, 1971 requiring the NAACP and the Department of Justice to submit alternative plans.

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330 F. Supp. 837, 1971 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12742, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/robinson-v-shelby-county-board-of-education-tnwd-1971.