Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education

300 F. Supp. 1358, 1969 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12599
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. North Carolina
DecidedApril 23, 1969
DocketCiv. A. 1974
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 300 F. Supp. 1358 (Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. North Carolina primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 300 F. Supp. 1358, 1969 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12599 (W.D.N.C. 1969).

Opinion

OPINION AND ORDER REGARDING DESEGREGATION OF SCHOOLS OF CHARLOTTE AND MECKLENBURG COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA

MeMILLAN, District Judge.

PRELIMINARY SUMMARY

The case, originally filed in 1965, is now before the court under the “MOTION FOR FURTHER RELIEF” filed by the plaintiffs on September 6, 1968. The motion seeks greater speed in desegregation of the Charlotte-Meeklenburg schools, and requests elimination of certain other alleged racial inequalities. Evidence was taken at length on March 10, 11, 12, 13, 17 and 26, 1969. The file and the exhibits are about two and one-half feet thick, and have required, considerable study. In brief, the results of that study are as follows:

The Charlotte-Meeklenburg schools are not yet desegregated. Approximately 14,000 of the 24,000 Negro students still attend schools that are all black, or very nearly all black, and most of the 24,000 have no white teachers. As a group Negro students score quite low on school achievement tests (the most objective method now in use for measuring educational progress); and the results are not improving under present conditions. The system of assigning pupils by “neighborhoods,” with “freedom of choice” for both pupils and faculty, superimposed on an urban population pattern where Negro residents have become concentrated almost entirely in one quadrant of a city of 270,000, is racially discriminatory. This discrimination discourages initiative and makes quality education impossible. The quality of public education should not depend on the economic or racial accident of the neighborhood in which a child’s parents have chosen to live — or find they must live — nor on the color of his skin. The neighborhood school concept never prevented statutory racial segregation; it may not now be validly used to perpetuate segregation.

Since this case was last before this court in 1965, the law (or at least the understanding of the law) has changed. School boards are now clearly charged with the affirmative duty to desegregate schools “now" by positive measures. The Board is directed to submit by May 15, 1969 a positive plan for faculty desegregation effective in the fall of 1969, and a plan for effective desegregation of pupil population, to be predominantly effective in the fall of 1969 and to be completed by the fall of 1970. Such plan should try to avoid any re-zoning which tends to-perpetuate segregated pupil assignment. The Board is free to consider all known ways of desegregation, including bussing (the economics of which might pleasantly surprise the taxpayers); pairing of grades or of schools; enlargement and re-alignment of existing zones; freedom of transfer coupled with free transportation for those who elect to abandon de facto segregated schools; and any other methods calculated to establish education as a public program operated according to its own independent standards, and unhampered and uncontrolled by the race of the faculty or pupils or the temporary housing patterns of the community.

THE LAW WHICH GOVERNS

This case vitally affects 83,000 school children of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County — and their families. That' means virtually all of us. The School Board and this court are bound by the Constitution as the Supreme Court interprets it. In order that we think in terms of law and human rights instead of in terms of personal likes and preferences, we ought to read what the Supreme Court has said.

Before 1954, public education in North Carolina was segregated by law. “Sep *1361 arate but equal” education was acceptable. This de jure segregation was outlawed by the two decisions of th'e Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873, 38 A.L.R.2d 1180 (1954) and 349 U.S. 294, 75 S.Ct. 753, 99 L.Ed. 1083 (1955). .

The first Brown opinion held that racial segregation of schools by law was unconstitutional because racial segregation, even though the physical facilities and other tangible factors might be equal, deprives Negro children of equal educational opportunities. The Court recalled prior decisions that segregation of graduate students was unlawful because it restricted the student’s “ability to study, to engage in discussions and exchange views with other students, and, in general, to learn his profession.” The Court said:

“Such considerations apply with added force to children in grade and high schools. To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.”

Quoting a lower court opinion, the Supreme Court continued:

“ ‘Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law; for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the Negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental deyelopment of Negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial [ly] integrated school system.’
“We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educátional facilities are inherently unequal. * *

The second Brown case, decided May 31, 1955, directed school boards to do whatever was necessary to carry out the Court’s directive as to the pending cases “with all deliberate speed” (349 U.S. 301, 75 S.Ct. 753).

North Carolina’s most significant early response to Brown was the Pupil Assignment Act of 1955-56, 1 under which local school boards have the sole power to assign pupils to schools, and children are required to attend the schools to which they are assigned.

It is still to this day the local' School Board, and not the court, which has the duty to assign pupils and operate the schools, subject to the requirements of the Constitution. It is the court’s duty to assess any pupil assignment plan in terms of the Constitutio. , which is still the supreme law of the la. 1.

*1362 Some token desegregation of Charlotte city schools occurred during the late 1950’s. In 1961, upon economic and administrative grounds not connected with questions of segregation, the Charlotte City schools and the Mecklenburg County schools were consolidated into one school administrative unit under one nine-member board known as the Charlotte-Meeklenburg Board of Education. By 1964 a few dozen out of more than 20,000 Negro school children were attending schools with white pupils.

This suit was filed on January 19, 1965, by Negro patrons,- to seek orders expediting desegregation of the schools.

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Related

Belk v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education
269 F.3d 305 (Fourth Circuit, 2001)
Terry Belk Dwayne Collins, on Behalf of Themselves and the Class They Represent, William Capacchione, Individually and on Behalf of Christina Capacchione, a Minor Michael P. Grant Richard Easterling Lawrence Gauvreau Karen Bentley Charles Thompson Scott C. Willard v. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Boardof Education Eric Smith, Superintendent, in His Official Capacity Arthur Griffin, Chairman of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School Board, in His Official Capacity, United States of America North Carolina School Boards Association National School Boards Association, Amici Curiae. William Capacchione, Individually and on Behalf of Christina Capacchione, a Minor Michael P. Grant Richard Easterling Lawrence Gauvreau Karen Bentley Charles Thompson Scott C. Willard, and Terry Belk Dwayne Collins, on Behalf of Themselves and the Class They Represent v. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Boardof Education Eric Smith, Superintendent, in His Official Capacity Arthur Griffin, Chairman of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School Board, in His Official Capacity, United States of America North Carolina School Boards Association National School Boards Association, Amici Curiae. William Capacchione, Individually and on Behalf of Christina Capacchione, a Minor Michael P. Grant Richard Easterling Lawrence Gauvreau Karen Bentley Charles Thompson Scott C. Willard,plaintiffs-Appellees, and Terry Belk Dwayne Collins, on Behalf of Themselves and the Class They Represent v. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Boardof Education Eric Smith, Superintendent, in His Official Capacity Arthur Griffin, Chairman of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School Board, in His Official Capacity, United States of America North Carolina School Boards Association National School Boards Association, Amici Curiae. William Capacchione, Individually and on Behalf of Christina Capacchione, a Minor Michael P. Grant Richard Easterling Lawrence Gauvreau Karen Bentley Charles Thompson Scott C. Willard, and Terry Belk Dwayne Collins, on Behalf of Themselves and the Class They Represent v. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Boardof Education Eric Smith, Superintendent, in His Official Capacity Arthur Griffin, Chairman of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School Board, in His Official Capacity, United States of America North Carolina School Boards Association National School Boards Association, Amici Curiae
269 F.3d 305 (Fourth Circuit, 2001)
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Fourth Circuit, 2001
Capacchione v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools
57 F. Supp. 2d 228 (W.D. North Carolina, 1999)
Vaughns v. Board of Educ. of Prince George's County
574 F. Supp. 1280 (D. Maryland, 1983)
Martin v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education
475 F. Supp. 1318 (W.D. North Carolina, 1979)
Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education
362 F. Supp. 1223 (W.D. North Carolina, 1973)
Virgie Lee Valley v. Rapides Parish School Board
434 F.2d 144 (Fifth Circuit, 1970)
Valley v. Rapides Parish School Board
313 F. Supp. 1193 (W.D. Louisiana, 1970)

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300 F. Supp. 1358, 1969 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12599, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/swann-v-charlotte-mecklenburg-board-of-education-ncwd-1969.