U.S. Supreme Court U.S. v. MONTGOMERY BD. OF EDUC., 395 U.S. 225 (1969) 395 U.S. 225

UNITED STATES v. MONTGOMERY COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION ET AL. CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT. No. 798. Argued April 28, 1969. Decided June 2, 1969.*

This action was commenced in May 1964 to obtain integration in the Montgomery County, Alabama, public schools. The District Judge issued his initial order in 1964 requiring integration of certain grades and followed this by yearly proceedings, with reports by the school board and hearings, opinions, and court orders. The 1968 court order dealt, among other things, with faculty and staff desegregation and provided that the school board must move toward a goal whereby "in each school the ratio of white to Negro faculty members is substantially the same as it is throughout the system." A panel of the Court of Appeals modified the order. A petition for rehearing en banc was denied by an equally divided Court of Appeals. Held: The District Judge's order is approved as written by him. Pp. 231-237.

400 F.2d 1, reversed and remanded.

[Footnote *] Together with No. 997, Carr et al. v. Montgomery County Board of Education et al., also on certiorari to the same court.

[Page 395 U.S. 225, 226]

of the faculty and the staff of the local county school system. 289 F. Supp. 647 (1968). Dissatisfied with the District Court's order, the board appealed. A panel of the Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's order but, by a two-to-one vote, modified it in part, 400 F.2d 1 (1968).[Footnote 1] A petition for rehearing en banc was denied by an evenly divided court, six to six, thereby leaving standing the modifications in the District Court's order made by the panel.[Footnote 2] On petitions of the United States as intervenor below in No. 798, and the individual plaintiffs in No. 997, we granted certiorari. 393 U.S. 1116 (1969).

[Page 395 U.S. 225, 227]

and we noted that in some of these States "substantial steps to eliminate racial discrimination in public schools have already been taken . . . ." Id., at 299. Many other States had for many years maintained a completely separate system of schools for whites and nonwhites, and the laws of these States, both civil and criminal, had been written to keep this segregated system of schools inviolate. The practices, habits, and customs had for generations made this segregated school system a fixed part of the daily life and expectations of the people. Recognizing these indisputable facts, we neither expected nor ordered that a complete abandonment of the old and adoption of a new system be accomplished overnight. The changes were to be made "at the earliest practicable date" and with "all deliberate speed." Id., at 300, 301. We were not content, however, to leave this task in the unsupervised hands of local school authorities, trained as most would be under the old laws and practices, with loyalties to the system of separate white and Negro schools. As we stressed then, "[I]t should go without saying that the vitality of these constitutional principles cannot be allowed to yield simply because of disagreement with them." Id., at 300. The problem of delays by local school authorities during the transition period was therefore to be the responsibility of courts, local courts so far as practicable, those courts to be guided by traditional equitable flexibility to shape remedies in order to adjust and reconcile public and private needs. These courts were charged in our Brown II opinion, id., at 300, with a duty to:

"require that the defendants [local school authorities] make a prompt and reasonable start toward full compliance with our May 17, 1954, ruling. Once such a start has been made, the courts may find that additional time is necessary to carry out the ruling in an effective manner. The burden rests

[Page 395 U.S. 225, 228]

upon the defendants to establish that such time is necessary in the public interest and is consistent with good faith compliance at the earliest practicable date."

The record shows that neither Montgomery County nor any other area in Alabama voluntarily took any effective steps to integrate the public schools for about 10 years after our Brown I opinion. In fact the record makes clear that the state government and its school officials attempted in every way possible to continue the dual system of racially segregated schools in defiance of our repeated unanimous holdings that such a system violated the United States Constitution.[Footnote 3]

[Page 395 U.S. 225, 230]

whose transfer applications had been rejected by the school officials.

The 1964 initial order of Judge Johnson was followed by yearly proceedings, opinions, and orders by him.[Footnote 4] Hearings, preceding these additional orders, followed the filing each year under the judge's direction of a report of the school board's plans for proceeding with desegregation. These annual reports and orders, together with transcripts of the discussions at the hearings, seem to reveal a growing recognition on the part of the school board of its responsibility to achieve integration as rapidly as practicable. The record, however, also reveals that in some areas the board was not moving as rapidly as it could to fulfill this duty, and the record shows a constant effort by the judge to expedite the process of moving as rapidly as practical toward the goal of a wholly unitary system of schools, not divided by race as to either students or faculty. During these years of what turned out to be an exchange of ideas between judge and school board officials, the judge, from time to time, found it possible to compliment the board on its cooperation with him in trying to bring about a fully integrated school system. Some of these complimentary remarks are set out in the opinion of the Court of Appeals modifying the judge's decree. 400 F.2d, at 3, n. 3. On the other hand the board did not see eye to eye with Judge Johnson on the speed with which segregation should be wiped out "root and branch" as we have held it must be done. Green v. County School Board, 391 U.S. 430 , 438 (1968). The school board, having to face the "complexities arising from the transition to a system of public education freed of racial discrimination," Brown II, 349 U.S., at 299, was constantly sparring for

[Page 395 U.S. 225, 233]

have at least two full-time teachers whose race was different from the race of the majority of the faculty at that school, and in schools with 12 or more teachers, the race of at least one out of every six faculty and staff members was required to be different from the race of the majority of the faculty and staff members at that school. The goals to be required for future years were not specified but were reserved for later decision. About a week later Judge Johnson amended part of the original order by providing that in the 1968-1969 term schools with less than 12 teachers would be required to have only one full-time teacher of the minority race rather than two, as he had originally required.

It was the part of the District Court's order containing this ratio pattern that prompted the modification of the order by the Court of Appeals. Agreeing that the District Court had properly found from "extensive hearings . . . that desegregation of faculties in the Montgomery County school system was lagging and that appellants [the school board] had failed to comply with earlier orders of the court requiring full faculty desegregation," and noting that the testimony of school officials themselves indicated the need for more specific guidelines,[Footnote 5]

[Page 395 U.S. 225, 235]

district had been approved by the Court of Appeals. This was done in order not to inflict any possible injustice on the Montgomery County school system. Indeed the record is filled with statements by Judge Johnson showing his full understanding of the fact that, as this Court also has recognized, in this field the way must always be left open for experimentation.[Footnote 6]

[Page 395 U.S. 225, 238]