noting that courts cannot expect to find a "smoking gun" in discrimination cases
How later courts described this case
- noting that courts cannot expect to find a "smoking gun" in discrimination cases
- town required to submit a plan for the court's approval detailing proposed cures for the "long history of discrimination which the record reveals."
- discriminatory provision of municipal services based on race
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
*1177 JOHN R. BROWN, Chief Judge
(concurring and concurring in part and dissenting in part to Judge WISDOM’S opinion) :
I concur in the opinion of the Court and Judge Wisdom’s special concurrence as to parts A, B, D, and E. I think, with deference, he overstates “the ripeness”, “finality” aspects. The Federal Courts are open for § 1983 redress. But it is to redress wrongs of a city, or a county, or a school board, or a state, not wrongs of the city engineer, the county highway supervisor, or the state director of utilities.
(While the State can act only through human functionaries who may bear these titles, still it must be clear that the body having responsibility, in response to specific complaints, has for the legal entity involved, failed or refused to take corrective action. The street light in my block may be inadequate, and unequal to another neighborhood, but until I can seek a § 1983 order from a federal Judge, I must at least allow the city of Houston to turn me downJ This is good sense. It is good federalism. It is good nineteen eighty-threeism.