Appendix — Holloway v. Valley
Supreme Court brief1983
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: | JUL BB 198°
R Q i 1 2 ALEXANDER L. STEVAS.
In the Supreme Court of the United Stertes—
OcTOBER TERM, 1983 =
Nos.
RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL BOARD, ET AL., PETITIONERS
uv.
VirRGIE LEE VALLEY, ET AL.
CLypE HoLLoway, ET AL., PETITIONERS
u
ViIRGIE LEE VALLEY, ET AL.
APPENDIX TO PETITIONS FOR WRITS OF
CERTIORARI
JOHN F. Warp, JR.
Rospert L. HAMMONDS
1111 South Foster Drive, Suite C
Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70896
Counsel for Petitioners
Rapides Parish School Board, et al.
PauL R. BAIER
Paul M. Hebert Law Center
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803
CHRISTOPHER J. Roy
711 Washington Street
Alexandria, Louisiana 71309
Counsel for Petitioners
Clyde Holloway, et al.
In the Supreme Court of the United States
OCTOBER TERM, 1983
Nos.
RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL BOARD, ET AL., PETITIONERS
ul.
VirGigE LEE VALLEY, ET AL.
CLYDE HoLLoway, ET AL., PETITIONERS
u
VirGie LEE VALLEY, ET AL.
APPENDIX TO PETITIONS FOR WRITS OF
CERTIORARI
JOHN F. Warp, JR.
Rospert L. HAMMONDS
1111 South Foster Drive, Suite C
Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70896
Counsel for Petitioners
Rapides Parish School Board, et al.
PauL R. BAIER
Paul M. Hebert Law Center
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803
CHRISTOPHER J. Roy
711 Washington Street
Alexandria, Louisiana 71309
Counsel for Petitioners
Clyde Holloway, et al.
il
INDEX
Page
APPENDIX A
C.A.5, March 30, 1983 2.0.0... cee es la
APPENDIX B
Judgment, C.A.5, March 30, 1983 ............... 22a
APPENDIX C
Rehearing En Banc denied, C.A.5, April 29, 1983. 24a
APPENDIX D
Rehearing En Banc denied, C.A.5, May 26, 1983.. 26a
APPENDIX E
W.D. La., July 22, 1981 2... eee eee 27a
APPENDIX F
Judgment, W.D. La., July 22, 1981 .............. 4la
APPENDIX G
C.A.5, May 18, 1981.0... . cee cee ee eee eee 42a
APPENDIX H
Judgment, C.A.5, May 18, 1981..............00. 76a
APPENDIX I
Judgment, C.A.5, May 18, 1981 ..............00. 78a
APPENDIX J
eles MN. BE, TOBE oc ecerccccccscccscvccdes 80a
APPENDIX K
ee ei, A. ©, TODD... cee ccrvcccnvecesevvavne 82a
APPENDIX L
EM URE, BOO cc vcscccicccccccscceseens 95a
APPENDIX M
Judgment, W.D. La., June 6, 1980............... 99a
iii
INDEX - Continued
Page
APPENDIX N
Response of the Rapides Parish School Board to
District Court's Proposed Plan of Desegregation for
Rapides Parish (July 28, 1980] ...............04. 100a
APPENDIX O
Individual Response of School Board Member
eee eet aG sy fadd eee béscev sobs os 102a
APPENDIX P
Individual Response of School Board Member
a 104a
APPENDIX Q
Rapides Senior High School Consolidated Taxing
District 61, and Local School Taxing Districts..... 108a
APPENDIX R
Bus Routes, 1979-80, Forest Hill, Lecompte,
ECG UEEN es GUs a RAsen es Ch nee ssa ceaees 109a
APPENDIX S
Forest Hill Exhibit 13, Student Pick-Ups, 1979-80 110a
APPENDIX T
Forest Hill School, Opening Day, 1981-1982
Se a llla
la
APPENDIX A
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS,
FIFTH CIRCUIT
MARCH 30, 1983
No. 81-3462
VIRGIE LEE VALLEY, ET AL.,
PLAINTIFFS-APPELLEES,
U.
RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL BOARD,
ET AL., DEFENDANTS-APPELLANTS,
AND
CLypE HOLLOWAY, ET AL.,
INTERVENORS-APPELLANTS.
Appeals trom the United States District Court for the West-
ern District of Louisiana.
Before CLARK, Chief Judge, POLITZ and RANDALL,
Circuit Judges.
POLITZ, Circuit Judge:
For the sixth time we review an aspect of the litigation,
initiated in 1965, involving the desegregation of the public
schools in Rapides Parish, Louisiana. In Valley v. Rapides
Parish School Board, 646 F.2d 925 (Sth Cir. 1981), cert. denied,
455 U.S. 939, 102 S.Ct. 1430, 71 L.Ed.2d 650 (1982) (Rapides
1), we affirmed the finding and conclusion by the district court!
that the vestiges of a state-imposed dual school system had not
been fully eradicated, sanctioning most components of the
remedial program fashioned by the district court. We reversed
' 499 F.Supp. 490 (W.D. La. 1980), aff'd in part, rev'd in part and remand-
ed, 646 F.2d 925 (5th Cir. 1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 939, 102 S.Ct. 1480, 71
L.Ed.2d 650 (1982).
2a
in part and remanded in order that the district court might
reconsider and, if re-imposed, explain in greater detail that
portion of its order directing the closure of Lincoln Williams, a
predominantly black K-8 school in Cheneyville, and the closure
of the predominantly white K-8 school in Forest Hill, coupled
with the transfer of students from these two schools to an
elementary and middle school in Lecompte, a community lo-
cated midway between Cheneyville and Forest Hill.
Following a post-remand evidentiary hearing, the district
court reviewed and rejected various alternatives proposed by
the parties and readopted its original plan. On appeal, the
school board and Forest Hill intervenors” focus their attack on
the court's refusal to reopen the Forest Hill Elementary
School. Concluding that the remedy imposed was commensu-
rate with the constitutional violation, we affirm.
BACKGROUND FACTS
A detailed exposition of the factual and procedural history of
this protracted litigation is set forth in our earlier opinion,
reported at 646 F.2d 945. Our review today focuses on the
legality of the district court's solution to the thorny problem
presented by the continued existence of Lincoln Williams as a
virtually all-black school (92.9%). In its earlier assessment, the
district court found no white students available in the
Cheneyville area to desegregate Lincoln Williams, and elected
to close the school and reassign its pupils to Lecompte
Elementary (K-3) and Carter Raymond Junior High (4-8), both
in Lecompte. 499 F.Supp. 490. At the same time the court
determined to reassign the student population of Forest Hill,
with a minority enrollment of 8.3%, to the two Lecompte
schools. Aside from Lecompte’s central location, the district
? We earlier affirmed the district court’s denial of the Forest Hill resi-
dents’ motion to intervene. 646 F.2d at 941-42. On remand, the district court
reconsidered the reasons underlying its initial ruling and granted the Forest
Hill residents leave to intervene. The intervenors participated in the hearing
on remand and in briefing and oral argument before this court.
3a
court cited no supportive reasons for the transfer of Forest Hill
students to Lecompte and concomitant closure of that educa-
tional facility.”
In directing the district court to consider the various
alternatives to the dismantling of Lincoln Williams and Forest
Hill, and, in the event the court adhered to its 1980 decision, to
explain the bases for rejecting such alternatives, we stated:
We cannot lend our sanction so easily, however, to
those portions of the plan involving pupils and facilities in
Wards 3 and 4. Here, as we have described, the district
court elected to close a predominantly white rural school,
Forest Hill, and a predominantly black school, Lincoln
Williams, equidistant in different directions from the
town of Lecompte, and to transfer their pupils to Le-
compte schools. As far as we can determine, the only
justification for closing Lincoln Williams was its predomi-
nance of black pupils. The court admitted that Forest Hill
is more modern than Lecompte Elementary, but de-
scribed the latter as having “much better location for
purposes of integration,” in terms of distance for busing of
reassigned pupils. Alternatives are only sparingly men-
tioned,
These findings are an insufficient factual basis on which
to approve the closing of Forest Hill and Lincoln Wil-
liams. Equally effective alternatives may exist which
would avoid the closing of a modern facility and the inter-
community transfer of kindergarten pupils. These should
be explored on remand and, if the district court adheres to
its present plan, specific reasons for their rejection should
be given. We cannot ignore the district court’s disregard
of neighborhood considerations for rural schools in this
context... . Specific desegregation measures in south-
eastern Rapides Parish should be re-examined in light of
the full range of mitigating equitable considerations.
646 F.2d at 940-41,
3 Since 1966, all high school students in this southeast portion of Rapides
Parish have voluntarily attended the desegregated Rapides High School in
Lecompte.
da
On remand, the district court received additional evidence
from the Forest Hill intervenors, reviewed the various propos-
als submitted, and reinstated the student assignments for the
Poland, Cheneyville, Lecompte and Forest Hill communities.*
The trial judge reiterated his conviction that the dismantling of
Lincoln Williams and the assimilation of its pupils into the
Lecompte schools was the only reasonable alternative to per-
petuation of Lincoln Williams as a racially identifiable school.
Determined to effect an equitable distribution of the burden of
desegregation, the district court remained convinced that
Forest Hill's students should also be assigned to the Lecompte
schools.
Having previously decided in Rapides 7 that the constitu-
tionally mandated goal of educational unitization has not been
* In Rapides I we described the relevant features of the district court's
original plan for desegregating several Rapides Parish schools, and the
conditions the plan was designed to ameliorate:
Before promulgation of the plan the Ward 3 town of Lecompte con-
tained three schools, Lecompte Elementary, Carter Raymond, and
Rapides High School. Lecompte Elementary and Carter Raymond
each served pupils in grades K-8 under earlier orders. Each school had
a majority of black pupils in the range of approximately 60 per cent.
The Lincoln Williams School in Cheneyville, some 10 miles to the
southeast of Lecompte, served all area pupils in grades K-8. The school
was... approximately 93% black, and is the “spur” for additional
relief in this area of the parish. About the same distance to the west of
Lecompte is the community of Forest Hill, which contained a K-8
school with a black attendance percentage of only 8.3. High school
students from both communities went on to Rapides High School in
Lecompte. Northeast of Lecompte in Ward 2 is the community of
Poland, which had a K-12 school with 9.6 percent black pupils in
attendance.
The plan provided for Lecompte Elementary to become a K-3 facil-
ity, and for Carter Raymond to serve grades 4-8, Lincoln Williams was
closed, and its K-8 pupils were transferred to the Lecompte schools,
Forest Hill was also closed, with its pupils transferred to Lecompte
Elementary and Carter Raymond. Pupils from the Poland School in
grades 9-12 were shifted to Rapides High School.
646 F.2d at 933. All major provisions of this plan, together with certain minor
amendments, were incorporated in the framework of the court’s 1981 reme-
dy.
5a
achieved in Rapides Parish,” we need only address the appro-
priateness of the remedy ordered.
GUIDONS [sic]
Failure on the part of school authorities to implement a
constitutionally prescribed unitary school system brings into
play the full panoply of the trial court's remedial power. Swann
v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1, 91
S.Ct. 1267, 28 L. Ed.2d 554 (1971); Rapides I. To discharge this
weighty responsibility, the court is obliged to expunge from
the public schools all vestiges of unlawful segregation. Swann;
Lee v. Macon County Board of Education, 616 F.2d 805 (Sth
Cir.1980); United States v. DeSoto Parish School Board, 574
F.2d 804 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 982, 99 S.Ct. 571, 58
L.Ed.2d 653 (1978).
When reviewing a trial court's desegregation remedy, we
are limited to ascertaining whether the court abused its discre-
tion. See Milliken v. Bradley, 433 U.S. 267, 97 S.Ct. 2749, 53
L.Ed.2d 745 (1977); Swann. We are mindful that “the scope of
a district court's equitable power to remedy past wrongs is
broad, for breadth and flexibility are inherent in equitable
remedies.” Swann, 402 U.S. at 15, 91S.Ct. at 1276. See United
States v. DeSoto Parish School Board. Although “free to re-
assess the district court's conclusions of law, its findings of fact
must be accepted unless they are clearly erroneous.” Ross v.
Houston Independent School Dist., 699 F.2d 218, 226 (5th
Cir.1983), (citing Pullman-Standard v. Swint, —— U.S.
—_., 102 S.Ct. 1781, 72 L.Ed.2d 66 (1982)).
A trial judge’s insight into local conditions is to be accorded
substantial deference. While the remedy fashioned by the
° That this action remains in the remedial phase distinguishes it from
Pasadena City Board of Education v. Spangler, 427 U.S. 424, 96 S.Ct. 2697,
49 L.Ed.2d 599 (1976), where a unitary system had been achieved, and
subsequent racial imbalances were precipitated by demographic changes
rather than the acts or omissions of the school board. See United States v.
Board of Education of Valdosta, Georgia, 576 F.2d 37 (5th Cir.), cert.
denied, 439 U.S. 1007, 99 S.Ct. 622, 58 L.Ed.2d 684 (1978).
6a
court “may be administratively awkward, inconvenient, and
even bizarre” in some cases, “and may impose burdens on some
... all awkwardness and inconvenience cannot be avoided in
the interim period when remedial adjustments are being made
to eliminate the dual school systems.” Swann, 402 U.S. at 28,
91 S.Ct. 15 1282.
Appellate review of the district court's exercise of its broad
discretion in formulating a desegregation plan is guided by the
tripartite analysis set forth in Milliken. Consistent with .Wi/-
liken’'s teachings, a remedial order must be carefully tailored
to correct the constitutionally infirm condition, restore the
victims of segregation to the positions they would have en-
joyed absent the proscribed conduct, and, where congruent
with constitutional precepts, accommodate the interest of
school officials in administering their affairs without judicial
interference.
LINCOLN WILLIAMS
It is axiomatic that the existence of a few racially
homogeneous schools within a school system is not per se
offensive to the Constitution. Dayton Board of Education v.
Brinkman, 433 U.S. 406, 97 S.Ct. 2766, 53 L. Ed.2d 851 (1977):
United States v. DeSoto Parish School Board; United States v.
Seminole County School District, 553 F.2d 992 (5th Cir. 1977).
The retention of all-black or virtually all-black schools within a
dual system is nonetheless unacceptable where reasonable
alternatives may be implemented. L’nited States v. DeSoto
Parish School Board; Lemon v. Bossier Parish School Ba.,
566 F.2d 985 (5th Cir.1978). See Price v. Denison Indept.
School Dist., 694 F.2d 334 (5th Cir. 1982).
Various plans approved by the district court over the long
history of this litigation did not realize one of their primary
goals: desegregation of the Cheneyville schools. The court's
attempt in 1975 to accomplish this objective by closing the
majority white Cheneyville High School (K-12), and assigning
all children residing in Cheneyville to Lincoln Williams proved
unsuccessful because of an exodus of white pupils. On original
hearing, and again on remand, the district court concluded that
ia
this constitutionally impermissible condition could not be rem-
edied by pairing or clustering with the school in Poland, the
only accessible “white” school.® Absent a pool of available
white students, the court opted to reassign students living east
of Cheneyville to Poland, which was reduced to a K-6 facility,
and to transfer Poland’s seventh and eighth grade students to
Jones Street School. These assignments increased Poland's
black student population from 9.6% to 36.8%. The district
court was obviously persuaded, both before and after remand,
that the only viable alternative to a segregated education for
the remaining K-6 students in Cheneyville was to reassign
them to the schools in Lecompte.
Nothing in the record attests to the presence of geographic
or demographic barriers, insuperable distances, excessive
travel times, or other factors which might militate against the
court’s resort to busing, a “normal and accepted tool of educa-
§ In arriving at this conclusion in 1980, the court took into consideration
the likely recurrence of the “white flight” phenomenon if Lincoln Williams
and Poland were clustered or paired. This rationale was reaffirmed in the
court’s post-remand decision. No objection has been interposed to the court’s
finding in this regard.
Generally speaking, community opposition to desegregation which takes
the form of white flight will not justify a district court’s failure to compel the
total elimination of a non-unitary school system. United States v. Scotland
Neck City Board of Education, 407 U.S. 484, 92 S.Ct. 2214, 33 L.Ed.2d 75
(1972). We have nonetheless held that the trial judge, in choosing among
permissible plans, may select one calculated to minimize white boycotts.
Stout v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 537 F.2d 800 (5th Cir. 1976).
Accord, Ross v. Houston Independent School Dist. (in seeking reduction in
the number of one-race schools, the district court could not ignore diminished
white enrollment attributable to “white flight”); United States v. DeSoto
Parish School Board (a court need not ignore a likely danger of an exodus of
white children from a school system). See Parents Assn. of Andrew Jackson
High School v. Ambach, 598 F.2d 705 (2d Cir.1979); Higgins v. Board of
Education of the City of Grand Rapids, 508 F.2d 779 (6th Cir.1974). Cogni-
zant as we are of the deference to which the trial court’s on-the-spot knowl-
edge of this complex situation is entitled, Swann, we cannot gainsay its
judgment that pairing or clustering with Poland would “in practice produce
not more but less desegregation.” Stout, 5387 F.2d at 802.
Sa
tional policy,” Swann, 402 U.S. at 29, 91S.Ct. at 1282. Indeed,
Cheneyville is approximately nine miles south of Lecompte
and is connected by a major highway, a portion of which is
multi-laned. There is nothing to indicate that transportation of
the former Lincoln Williams students to Lecompte presented
any kind of logistical difficulty. Student busing over substan-
tial distances is commonplace in the southeastern portion of
Rapides Parish, where the population is diffused and some
families live many miles from school facilities. Absent the
desegregation wrinkle, busing has traditionally been warmly
received as a welcome public service, particularly by families
living in rural areas.
The record reflects that the efforts to desegregate Poland
were progressing well. The court’s obvious reluctance to dis-
rupt this part of the total parish plan was eminently reason-
able. See United States v. Stout; United States v. School Dis-
trict of Omaha, 521 F.2d 530 (8th Cir.) cert. denied, 423 U.S.
946, 96 S.Ct. 361, 46 L.Ed.2d 280 (1975). Because Lecompte
Elementary and Carter Raymond were approximately 60%
black, use of pairing or clustering techniques to transfer white
students to Lincoln Williams would have served only to further
skew the percentage of black pupils in these schools. However,
both Lecompte schools could physically absorb the relatively
small number of Lincoln Williams students. All relevant fac-
tors considered, we conclude that the decision to close Lincoln
Williams and to reassign its students to Lecompte was within
the ambit of the district court’s expansive remedial authority. ‘
? Invoking a formidable array of Fifth Circuit precedent, the school board
contends that Lincoln Williams could not be closed for reasons relating to its
racial character. See Arvizu v. Waco Independent School District, 495 F.2d
499 (5th Cir.1974); Ellis v. Board of Public Instruction of Orange County,
Florida, 465 F.2d 878 (5th Cir.1972), cert. denied, 410 U.S. 966, 93 S.Ct.
1438, 35 L.Ed.2d 700 (1973); Lee v. Macon County Board of Education, 448
F.2d 746, 753-54 (5th Cir.1971); Mims v. Duval County School Board, 447
F.2d 1330 (5th Cir.1971); Bell v. West Point Municipal Separate School
District, 446 F.2d 1362, 1363 (5th Cir.1971); Gordon v. Jefferson Davis
Parish School Board, 446 F.2d 266 (5th Cir.1971); Wright v. Board of Public
Instruction of Alachua Co., Fla., 431 F.2d 1200, 1202 (5th Cir. 1970); Robert-
9a
FOREST HILL
Once having confected an antidote for Cheneyville’s seg-
regative ills, the court was confronted with yet another dilem-
ma — the projected increase in minority enrollment in the
Lecompte schools occasioned by the influx of students from
Lincoln Williams. This ineluctably led to the court’s considera-
tion of the predominantly white student body at Forest Hill,
approximately nine miles west of Lecompte. Viewing the
Cheneyville, Forest Hill and Lecompte schools as integral
elements of a single educational network,” the court resolved
to eradicate all traces of unconstitutional segregation by dis-
mantling Forest Hill’s K-8 facility and shifting its students to
Lecompte. The Forest Hill intervenors and the school board
challenge the court’s conclusion that the assignment of all
elementary and middle school pupils within the tri-community
region to Lecompte schools, accompanied by the closing of
Forest Hill, offered the most reasonable prospect of successful
desegregation, contending that the proposals they submitted
son v. Natchitoches Parish School Board, 431 F.2d 1111 (5th Cir.1970);
Hilson v. Ouzts, 431 F.2d 955, 956 (5th Cir.1970); Carr v. Montgomery
County Board of Education, 429 F.2d 382, 385 (5th Cir.1970).
This line of authority prohibits a school board's closure of schools racially
identifiable as “black” for discriminatory purposes, as well as judicial approv-
al thereof, but does not diminish the district court’s traditional authority to
dismantle one-race schools as a palliative for segregation. See e.g., Swann;
Morgan v. McDonough, 689 F.2d 265 (1st Cir.1982); Lemon v. Bossier
Parish School Board. See also Mitchell v. McCunney, 651 F.2d 183 (3d
Cir.1981) (closure of homogeneous black and white schools approved). It
follows that the court’s utilization of school closure as a remedial device,
rather than as a means of perpetuating a dual system, did not, in contradis-
tinction to the argument advanced by counsel for Forest Hills, function to
deprive pupils of either school of their right to equal protection of the law.
8 We approved the district court’s implementation of a parish-wide reme-
dy in Rapides I], based on evidence that “(t]he entire parish operated as a dual
segregated system in the past, ahd .. . that the vestiges have not been
eradicated ‘root and branch’ as required.” 646 F.2d at 938. Once a constitu-
tional violation of this dimension had been shown, the court was empowered
to embrace Poland, Cheneyville, Lecompte and Forest Hill within a single
remedial plan.
10a
would function more effectively to remedy the discrimination
found to exist.
None of the parties take [s/c] issue with the district court's
unequivocal rejection of the school board's initial suggestion
that Lecompte Elementary be closed and its students trans-
ported to Forest Hill. Among the factors influencing this deci-
sion were the adequacy of Lecompte Elementary’s facilities,
its central location, and the relative ease of busing Forest Hill
students to Lecompte. Given the lack of a feasible alternative
to Lincoln Williams’ closure, the court was impelled to seek
out, within practical limitations, an equitable allocation of the
burden of desegregation by declining to close a second major-
ity black school. Arvizu v. Waco Independent School District,
495 F.2d 499 (5th Cir. 1974); Cisneros v. Corpus Christi Inde-
pendent School District, 467 F.2d 142 (Sth Cir. 1972) (en bane),
cert. denied, 413 U.S. 920, 93 S.Ct. 3053, 37 L.Ed.2d 1041
(1973). See Brice v. Landis, 314 F.Supp. 974 (N.D.Cal. 1969)
(when minority school being closed has adequate facilities and
white students not bused, closing unjustified).
Other suggestions urged on remand were eliminated by the
court for similar reasons. One series of suggestions called for
the selective busing of a specified number of black children
from Lecompte or Woodworth to Forest Hill (Forest Hill plans
1, 2 and 4). Another suggestion advocated maintenance of
Lincoln Williams and Forest Hill as K-8 schools, and Lecompte
Elementary as a K-4 school, with black pupils from Lecompte
grades K-4 bused to Forest Hill, and white pupils from
Lecompte grades 5-8 bused to Lincoln Williams. Under this
suggestion, Lecompte grade 4 would become almost all white,
and Lincoln Williams grades 1-4 all black (School Board plan 1).
Yet another series of suggestions sought the establishment of
specific grade configurations at Forest Hill and Lecompte
through the closure of Lincoln Williams, and the creation of
K-5 schools at Forest Hill and Lecompte, a 6-8 school at Carter
Raymond, and a K-6 school at Poland (School Board plans 2 and
3), anticipating the transportation of 78 and 108 Lecompte
children to Forest Hill, respectively.
lla
None of the plans suggested by the school board or the
Forest Hill intervenors adequately insure a fair reconciliation
of the competing interests involved. Some of the proposals
would have unfairly burdened minority students. Others
would in all probability have precipitated a reversion to the
impermissible status quo — the perpetuation of Lincoln Wil-
liams as an essentially one-race school. None would spread
equally the burden of desegregation.
By way of contrast, the plan developed by the court, with
precious little of the assistance it had a right to expect from the
parties, envisions the equidistant transportation of an equiva-
lent number of white and black students in the same age
bracket. The court's plan anticipates an even-handed distribu-
tion of the travails of desegregation. See United States v.
Texas Education Agency, 467 F.2d 848 (5th Cir.1972) (en
bane). See also Mitchell v. McCunney, 651 F.2d 183, 189 (3d
Cir.1981) (“school board has an obligation to implement a stu-
dent reassignment plan that will not dislocate black students
significantly more than white students”). Plans submitted by
the school board and the intervenors would not achieve the
measure of desegregation realistically attainable. Thus their
rejection by the district court did not constitute error or an
abuse of discretion. See Davis v. Board of School Commission-
ers, 402 U.S. 33, 91 S.Ct. 1289, 28 L.Ed.2d 577 (1971).
Perhaps the most problematic of all proposals evaluated and
rejected by the district court concerns the survival of both
Lincoln Williams and Forest Hill as racially identifiable K-3
institutions. Pursuant to this proposal, first suggested by the
private plaintiffs and later espoused by the Forest Hill interve-
nors, children in the early elementary grades would attend
schools within their neighborhoods. While the court's opinion
provides no guidance as to the rationale underlying its disal-
lowance of neighborhood schools, our independent examina-
tion of the record persuades us of the appropriateness of the
court’s position.
Though mindful of the worthy community values inherent in
a neighborhood school, the maintenance of such values may not
12a
serve to supersede the constitutional imperative of desegrega-
tion. See Swann; Rapides 1. We need hardly remind of that
mandate at this point nearly three decades after Brown v.
Board of Education.” Federal courts are obliged to “make
every effort to achieve the greatest possible degree of actual
desegregation, taking into account the practicalities of the
situation.” Davis, 402 U.S. at 37, 91S.Ct. at 1292. This consti-
tutionally erected barrier to the operation of segregated
schools applies to all children within the school system, includ-
ing those in elementary grades. Kelley v. Metropolitan Coun-
ty Board of Education of Nashville and Davidson County,
Tenn., 687 F.2d 814 (6th Cir. 1982), cert. denied, US.
, 103S.Ct. 834, 74 L. Ed.2d (1983); Adams v. United
States, 620 F.2d 1277 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 826, 101
S.Ct. 88, 66 L.Ed.2d 29 (1980). See Lee v. Macon County
Board of Education; Anderson v. Dougherty County Board of
Education, 609 F.2d 225 (5th Cir.1980); United States v.
Board of Education of Valdosta, Ga., 576 F.2d 37 (Sth Cir.),
cert. denied, 439 U.S. 1007, 99 S.Ct. 622, 58 L.Ed.2d 684
(1978); Mills v. Polk County Board of Educc on, 575 F.2d
1146 (5th Cir. 1978). Since “desegregation plans cannot be lim-
ited to the walk-in school,” Swann, 402 U.S. at 30, 91 S.Ct. at
1283, courts must explore the feasibility of a variety of reme-
dial methods before lending their judicial imprimatur to the
propagation or maintenance of one-race elementary schools.
Tasby v. Estes, 572 F.2d 1010 (5th Cir. 1978), cert. dism. sub
nom Estes v. Metropolitan Branches of the Dallas NAACP,
444 U.S. 437, 100S.Ct. 716, 62 L. Ed.2d 626 (1980). See Swann;
Lee v. Macon County Board of Education. See also Davis v.
East Baton Rouge Parish School Bd., 570 F.2d 1260 (5th
Cir.1978), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 1114, 99 S.Ct. 1016, 57
L.Ed.2d 72 (1979) (elementary, middle and high schools).
Student transportation, one of the “desegregation tools”
approved by the Supreme Court, cannot be discounted as a
valid alternative to the education of elementary school children
in a segregated environment unless the record demonstrates
* 347 U.S. 488, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed.2d 873 (1954).
l3a
that “the time or distance of travel is so great as to either risk
the health of the children or significantly impinge on the educa-
tional process.” Swann 402 U.S. at 30-31, 91 S.Ct. at 1283;
United States v. Teras Educ. Agency, 532 F.2d 380 (5th
Cir.1976), cert. denied, 443 U.S. 915, 99 S.Ct. 3106, 61
L.Ed.2d 879 (1979). As we observed in Rapides /, the accept-
able length and time of travel will perforce vary with the age of
the children and the risk posed to their health. 646 F.2d at 939.
To buttress their contention that the court's plan would
impose an excessive burden on Forest Hill K-3 students, the
intervenors offered evidence that: (1) some children would
travel approximately one hour each direction, (2) buses travel-
ing between Forest Hill and Lecompte must traverse a rail-
road track, and (3) the Forest Hill school embodied the most
treasured characteristics and qualities of the surrounding com-
munity. Photographs were offered to show the condition of the
Forest Hill school buildings.
We are impressed with the sincerity and depth of feeling
displayed by the Forest Hill parents. The record attests to the
fine quality of the citizenship of these intervenors. They are
law-abiding and supportive of our Constitution and laws.
Balancing the equities when dealing with their small children
is a particularly arduous task. Our painstaking review of the
record nevertheless discloses no evidence to contradict the
district court's finding, with respect to the children residing
within 2.5 miles of the heart of Forest Hill or along the highway
to Lecompte,'” that “the burden of busing others into Forest
Hill is far greater than busing Forest Hill students to Le-
compte.
' The intervenors attack the court's inclusion in its decree of the esti-
mated 50 students who live in the Mill Creek, Bennett Bay and Blue Lake
Road areas, to the west and south of Forest Hill. The government concedes
that “the time and distance of busing these students would be considerable.”
As intervenors point out, no findings were made by the district court on the
transportation burden, if any, sustained by these children. Forest Hill's
evidence in this regard affords us little assistance, inasmuch as the bus
drivers’ trip tickets do not distinguish between elementary, junior high and
l4a
The proposals advanced by the school board and intervenors
contemplate the transportation of black students from Le-
compte to Forest Hill over the same highway as is claimed to
be dangerous and overly long for the transportation of Forest
Hill students to Lecompte. We are not persuaded that the
burdens and risks of travel vary depending on the direction of
travel and the complexion of the travelers.
We note further, as did the district court, that the older
students have been riding the school bus to Lecompte for a
number of years. High School students from the Forest Hill
area have been bused to Lecompte voluntarily since the 1966-
67 school year, and seventh and eighth graders must also now
be bused from Forest Hill. The burden of busing the
elementary school children is minimized by the previous estab-
lishment of busing for the older children. As the district court
stated: “The elementary students simply get on buses already
loaded with their older brothers and sisters.”
Finally, the district court found Carter Raymond and Le-
compte Elementary to be structurally sound and capable of
accom. odating all students assigned.'' Accordingly, upon
consideration of all of the foregoing factors, we must concur in
high school children, all of whom ride the same buses. Nor does the map
submitted provide a sufficient premise for evaluating the nature and extent
of the burden imposed on the children vis-a-vis either their age, the putative
health risks or any potentially deleterious effects upon the educational
process. The testimony on this issue served only to describe the routes
traveled by children living in the outlying environs of Forest Hill. In light of
the paucity of evidence pertaining to the time and distance of travel for
younger children residing in the foregoing areas, we cannot assess the
equities of their assimilation in the court's tripartite desegregation program.
Upon proper motion, however, the court may wish to reconsider its assign-
ment of students from these remote localities to Lecompte schools.
" According to the intervenors, the district court’s inspection of the
Lecompte schools was an abuse of discretion. We are not persuaded. Forest
Hill residents do not dispute the court’s findings as to the adequacy of these
schools, which findings are in fact corroborated by the proffered photo-
graphs. If Lecompte Elementary and Lincoln Williams were in disrepair or
presented a palpable risk of harm, we are certain that the school board would
not subject children to such hazards. Lemon v. Bossier Parish School Board.
l5a
the district court's judgment that the intervenors’ legitimate
interest in preserving their neighborhood school must, in this
instance, vield to the constitutional requirement that all chil-
dren in the parish, black and white, share in a desegregated
educational experience.
We thus conclude that the district court’s decision to assign
Forest Hill students to the Lecompte schools and to close
Forest Hill School was a reasonable exercise of its equitable
discretion. The record in this case supports the court's convic-
tion that of all the proposals offered, its plan can best be
expected to achieve the mandated conversion to a unitary
system.
AFFIRMED.
CLARK, Chief Judge, dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. The mandate of this court’s prior
panel, 646 F.2d 925, controls this panel just as it did the district
court. Although the majority starts its reasoning by quoting a
crucial paragraph from that mandate, it has not applied its
letter or spirit to the district court’s order on remand which is
before us for review today.
Specifically, the prior mandate vacated the order closing the
Lincoln Williams and Forest Hill schools and required the
district court to: (1) give regard to neighborhood considera-
tions for rural schools, 646 F.2d at 944; (2) take into considera-
tion such equitable factors as “[t]he length and time of travel
.. .inlight of the age of the children, and the risk to health and
probable impingement on the educational process,” id. at 939;
(3) only employ the “harsh remedy” of closing rural schools “if
absolutely necessary to achieve the goal of a unitary system
after all other reasonable alternatives have been expiored;” id.
at 940; (4) “explicitly state its justification for ordering a school
closed” id. at 940; and (5) reexamine its closing of Lincoln
Williams and Forest Hill schools “in light of the full range of
mitigating equitable considerations” (id. at 941) because the
district court's findings that Lincoln Williams had a predomi-
nance of black pupils and that Lecompte Elementary was older
l6a
than Forest Hill but was “much the better location for pur-
poses of integration” formed an insufficient basis to sustain the
closings, id. at 940.
On remand, the district court wrote a new, longer opinion in
which it changed and added words but I cannot find in them
even one change of any substance to show that court complied
with these commands.
On this appeal the majority has impermissibly substituted
its present approval for the prior panel's rejection of the same
schools closing edict on the same basic district court findings
and erroneous premises. The net result is that this court has
now affirmed a district court order that failed to tailor its
remedy to the constitutional wrong identified in this case. The
consequences are that innocents suffer and the law is brought
into disrepute. The judgment should have been vacated again
and the cause remanded, this time with explicit directions to
limit relief to an appropriate remedy.
Of course a court’s equitable powers to remedy past consti-
tutional wrongs are very broad. Swann v. Charlotte-
Mecklenburg Bd. of Education, 402 U.S. 1, 15, 91S8.Ct. 1267,
1275-76, 28 L.Ed.2d 554 (1971). Of course all reasonable
methods to achieve this end are available. North Carolina
State Bd. of Education v. Swann, 402 U.S. 48, 46, 91 S.Ct.
1284, 1286, 28 L.Ed.2d 586 (1971). These are basic premises of
school desegregation law. The Supreme Court and this court
have often held that courts pursuing this goal may bus chil-
dren, reshuffle faculty, cluster, pair, rezone and close schools.
But a court’s powers in this type of case are not unlimited,
Rather, they are confined to proper objectives. In the case at
bar, the court’s task was not, as it declared, to achieve an
integrated student body in every school, or even to remedy
every problem of racial imbalance that may exist within the
school system. Swann, supra 402 U.S. at 24, 91S.Ct. at 1280.
Rather, it was limited to eradicating segregation cause [sic] by
past school board practices. Ross v. Houston Independent
School District, 699 F.2d 218, 227-28 (5th Cir. 1983). In school
desegregation cases the court’s unnatural role becomes that of
l7a
a super school board and temporary school administrator. It is
a role which must be played with circumspection and care for
the damage which overbroad remedial bans do to children,
parents and communities who have offended no one.
The existence of great power does not permit its fullest
exercise in every case. Because the court has limited objec-
tives and a limited role, the scope of the remedy it devises must
be tailored to fit the nature and extent of the constitutional
violation found. Hills v. Gautreaux, 425 U.S. 284, 293-94, 96
S.Ct. 1588, 1544-45, 47 L.Ed.2d 792 (1976). The prior panel
mandate required the district court to reexamine that portion
of its order closing Lincoln Williams and Forest Hill in light of
the full range of mitigating equitable circumstances it de-
scribed. It required the district court, not this appellate court,
to explore all other reasonable alternatives before it reinstated
the “harsh remedy” of “closing a facility built and maintained
at the expense of local taxpayers.” Not a single one of the “full
range of mitigating, equitable circumstances” (and there were
many) required to be considered was discussed or distin-
guished or applied. The district court really did no more than
put the wine of new words in the old skin of school closings
because it saw no other remedy to integrate Lincoln Williams.
When the district court reordered the closing of the Forest
Hill and Lincoln Williams schools, these two communities lost
their only schools. Children from both communities must now
be bussed many miles from their homes. Expert evidence
placed in this record on remand established that closing a
town’s only school, especially one located in a small settlement,
traumatizes the whole town. The greatest costs are to the
families that include school-aged children, but hurtful reper-
cussions extend throughout the community.
Parents in both “burdened” communities, one predominate-
ly white, the other predominately black, asked the court to
leave their schools open, at least for their youngest children.
Their petitions were ignored. These children, ranging in age
from kindergarten through early elementary grades, must rise
early, board buses, drive past their community school houses
lxa
and go into a distant town and then reverse the journey in the
evenings. Some will spend two hours a day on the school bus.
Their names are not recorded. Their family situations are not
detailed. Their needs, their hopes, their rights are dashed
without discussion. If a five-year-old gets sick or forgets her
coat or her lunch and wants to contact her parents she must
make a long distance telephone call to reach her home. It seems
small solace for the majority to suggest that some such chil-
dren may have high school-aged siblings who will be on the bus
with them part of the way. Much more remarkable, I think, is
the fact that the children, parents, and communities who are so
damaged did not cause or contribute in any way to the con-
ceived constitutional wrong the court sought to remedy. In-
deed, the district court and the majority both state that the
people of Forest Hill have been altogether law-abiding and
free of guilt.
Why then have they been put to this grief? For integration,
the district court said. It saw no other reasonable prospect to
integrate Lincoln Williams because its prior order pairing Lin-
coln Williams had been defeated by white flight. But the
Cheneyville students and parents who now plead to keep their
school did not leave it. Why must their plea to keep their school
open go unheeded? At the opposite base of this triangle, the
pleas of the Forest Hill students and parents who also want to
keep their school were equally ignored. Why? Why must the
“harsh remedy” be imposed on them without weighing the “full
range of mitigating equitable considerations” they brought
forward? “[T]o effect an equitable distribution of the burden”
the majority says. I can see that the punishment inflicted on
the citizens of Forest Hill is comparable to the punishment
inflicted on Cheneyville, but I cannot detect a spark of equity
in heaping the coals of sorrow on the heads of either communi-
ty. The record shows without contradition that the Forest Hill
area became predominantly white because of a change in the
community's economic-industrial conditions which had nothing
to do with schools. Cf. Pasadena City Board of Education v.
Spangler, 427 U.S. 424, 436, 96 S.Ct. 2697, 2704-05, 49
19a
L.Ed.2d 599 (1967). Neither the Lincoln Williams nor the
Forest Hill school was constructed or maintained to evade
desegregation. The school board has never used either school
for racial purposes. The punishment of these innocents fits no
crime of their or the district's making.
For eighteen years this school district has been under the
injunctive edicts of federal courts. It has not violated one. The
fault for any perceived shortcomings in the district, lies at the
doorstep of the federal courts, not the school district, its staff
or patrons. Moreover, courts delude no one but themselves
when in the name of justice they make wholesale adjustments
to the intimate, individual and differing rights of hundreds of
citizens. If this latest edict proves nothing else, it will prove
again that courts are a totally inadequate institution to resolve
with broad injunctions the numerous, complex, interrelated
rights which comprise a “school case.”
The district court accepted as its “principal purpose. . . the
adoption of a plan which achieves the greatest amount of in-
tegration.” This was wrong. Integration is not a constitutional
command. One race schools which are not the result of past
segregation do not keep a school district from being unitary.
Swann, supra, 402 U.S. at 25-26, 91 S.Ct. at 1280-81. This
false premise led the district court to close Lincoln Williams to
its patrons. As errors are prone to do, it, in turn, caused the
further error of closing Forest Hill to bring misery company.
The two wrongs do not make a right.
More's the pity. Even accepting the district court's
erroneous premise of a duty to integrate, its plan for achieving
theoretical integration was not the best remedy available. A
less disruptive solution was identified by the parties. Under
the school board’s third plan, children from predominantly
black zones in the Lecompte areas could have been bussed to
Forest Hill. This plan could have been supplemented in the
manner suggested by a group of Cheneyville citizens who
proposed that the Lecompte elementary schools be closed. If
this approach had been used, that community could have re-
tained a seventh and eighth grade school and four-year high
20a
school for their own children as well as those from Cheneyville
and Forest Hill. Children from predominantly white areas in
the Lecompte region could have been bussed to Lincoln Wil-
liams. Instead of closing the only schools in two communities,
just one of the three Lecompte area schools would have been
closed. Carter Raymond and Lecompte High could have con-
tinued to serve the area. Instead of bussing children from two
communities, only children from one area would have had to be
bussed. As the court aptly observed, the road mileage between
these communities is no greater in one direction than the
other. Statistically, the desired racial mixture could have been
achieved in both schools.
The assumption of the district court and the majority that
there was no alternative to closing Lincoln Williams was
erroneous. The threat of flight by white children to be bussed
from Lecompte to Lincoln Williams does not justify rejection
of this plan any more than the threat that pupils from Forest
Hill won't go to Lecompte Elementary or the threat that
blacks from Cheneyville will not follow the court’s plan. Of
course the court was not required to ignore a likelihood of pupil
flight. It had happened before. In a free country it may happen
again. A court’s school order can mandate county officials in
the performance of their duties, it can map zone boundaries
and it can fence in schools, but it cannot command a single
student to go to a single school for a single day.
But just as United States v. Scotland Neck City Bd. of
Education, 407 U.S. 484, 491, 92 S.Ct. 2214, 2218, 33 L.Ed.2d
75 (1972) established that flight cannot be accepted as a reason
for achieving anything less than complete uprooting of the dual
school system, it cannot be accepted as a reason for reaching
past the wrong to be remedied when a less disruptive, equally
effective plan is available. It cannot do so because a remedy
that exceeds the wrong to be righted violates clear precedent
of the Supreme Court and this court. It cannot do so here
because the district court’s order disobeys the controlling man-
date of the prior panel. The court did not demonstrate that its
plan was more likely to be effective than the possible plan that
2la
would close only one of Lecompte’s schools. Indeed, the record
indicates quite to the contrary.
In thirteen years on this court I have participated in the
affirmance of a number of public school desegregation plans.
Most have been, as most are, successful in theory only. I
nevertheless remain readily obedient to my obligation to fol-
low precedent. But that does not keep me from knowing what
everyone knows — zones, pairs, clusters and bussing are
workable remedies for school desegregation only in extreme
cases. When the problem is reduced to dealing with people of
good will who have done no wrong, maximum use of the neigh-
borhood school is the key to assuring equal educational oppor-
tunity. That equality of opportunity is the constitutional lode-
star. In some cases, precedent and prior school district actions
will proscribe the maximum preservation of neighborhood
schools. This is clearly not such a case. The prior panel estab-
lished that the district court should have followed its mandate.
So should we.
22a
APPENDIX B
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
No. 81-3462
D. C. Docket No. CA-10,946
VirGIE LEE VALLEY, ET AL.,
PLAINTIFFS-APPELLEES,
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
INTERVENOR-APPELLEE,
versus
RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL BOARD, ET AL.,
DEFENDANTS-APPELLANTS,
AND
CLYDE HOLLOWAY, ET AL.,
INTERVENORS-APPELLANTS.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Western District of Louisiana
Before CLARK, Chief Judge, POLITZ and RANDALL,
Circuit Judges.
JUDGMENT
This cause came on to be heard on the record on appeal and
was argued by counsel;
ON CONSIDERATION WHEREOF, It is now here
ordered and adjudged by this Court that the judgment of the
said District Court in this cause be, and the same is hereby,
affirmed;
23a
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that appellants pay to
appellees the costs on appeal, to be taxed by the Clerk of this
Court.
March 30, 1983
CLARK, Chief Judge, dissenting.
IssuED AS MANDATE: JUN 6 1983
24a
APPENDIX C
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
No. 81-3462
ViRGIE LEE VALLEY, ET AL.,
PLAINTIFFS-APPELLEES,
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
INTERVENOR-APPELLEE,
Uv,
RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL BoarD,
ET AL., DEFENDANTS-APPELLANTS,
AND
CLYDE HOLLOWAY, ET AL.,
INTERVENORS-APPELLANTS.
(April 29, 1983]
Appeals from the United States District Court for the West-
ern District of Louisiana.
ON PETITION FOR REHEARING AND SUGGESTION
FOR REHEARING EN BANC
(Opinion March 30, 5 Cir., 1983, 702 F.2d 1221).
Before CLARK, Chief Judge, POLITZ and RANDALL,
Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
The petition for Rehearing of intervenors-appellants, Clyde
Holloway, et al., is DENIED and no member of this panel nor
Judge in regular active service on the Court having requested
that the Court be polled on rehearing en banc, (Rule 35 Federal
25a
Rules of Appellate Procedure; Local Fifth Circuit Rule 16) the
Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc is DENIED.
CLARK, Chief Judge.
For the reasons stated in my dissent to the panel opinion, I
dissent from the denial of rehearing.
26a
APPENDIX D
VIRGIE LEE VALLEY, ET AL.,
PLAINTIFFS-APPELLEES,
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
INTERVENOR-APPELLEE,
U.
RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL BOARD, ET AL.,
DEFENDANTS-APPELLANTS,
AND
CLYDE HOLLOWAY, ET AL.,
INTERVENORS-APPELLANTS.
No, 81-3462.
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS,
FIFTH CIRCUIT.
May 26, 1983.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the West-
ern District of Louisiana; Nauman S. Scott, Judge.
ON PETITION FOR REHEARING AND
SUGGESTION FOR REHEARING EN BANC
(Opinion March 30, 5 Cir., 1983, 702 F.2d 1221)
Before CLARK, Chief Judge, POLITZ and RANDALL,
Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
The Petition for Rehearing of Rapides Parish School Board,
et al. is denied, 702 F.2d 1221 and no member of this panel nor
Judge in regular active service on the Court having requested
that the Court be polled on rehearing en banc, (Rule 35 Federal
Rules of Appellate Procedure; Local Fifth Circuit Rule 16) the
Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc is denied.
CLARK, Chief Judge:
For the reasons stated in my dissent to the panel opinion, I
dissent from the denial of rehearing.
27a
APPENDIX E
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR
THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA
JULY 22, 1981
No. 10,946
VIRGIE LEE VALLEY, ET AL.
v.
RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL BOARD
Before NAUMAN 8. SCOTT, Chief United States District
Judge.
By decree dated May 18, 1981, our judgment of August 6,
1980 was affirmed in part and remanded in part. The only
matter for consideration under the remand is that portion of
the student assignment plan covering schools in Wards 2 and 3
(Group V area in the plan) having the following student mem-
bership as of May 31, 1980.
PUPIL MEMBERSHIP AS OF MAY 31, 1980
SCHOOLS PUPILS TOTALS
B % Ww %
Forest Hill Elem. K-& 26 ( 8.3) 285 (91.7) 311
Lecompte Elem. K-4 230 (61.5) 144 (38.5) 374
Poland High K-12 30 ( 9.6) 281 (90.4) 311
Rapides High 10-12 138 (44.2) 174 (55.8) 312
Carter Raymond Jr. High 5-9 =218 = (62.1) 133 (37.9) 351
Lincoln Williams Elem. K-8 185 (92.9) 14 ( 7.1) 199
TOTALS 827 (45.5) 1081 (54.5) 1858
The combined student population of this area in the 1979-80
school year was as follows:
Lecompte Area (Group V)
B W TOTAL
Elementary K-6 468 (45.5%) Ol (54.5%) 1,029
Jr. High 7-8 142 = (47.0%) 160) (53.0%) 302
High 9-12 217) = (41.2%) 310 (5S. 8%) 527
TOTALS 827 (45.5%) 1031 (55.5%) 1.85%
In remanding the court instructed that:
“We cannot lend our sanction so easily, however, to those
portions of the plan involving pupils and facilities in
Wards 3 and 4. Here, as we have described, the district
court elected to close a predominantly white rural school,
Forest Hill, and a predominantly black school, Lincoln
Williams, equidistant in different directions from the
town of Lecompte; and to transfer their pupils to Le-
compte schools. As far as we can determine, the only
justification for closing Lincoln Williams was its predomi-
nance of black pupils. The court admitted that Forest Hill
is more modern than Lecompte Elementary, but de-
scribed the latter as having ‘much the better location for
purposes of integration,’ in terms of distance for busing of
reassigned pupils. Alternatives are only sparingly men-
tioned.
“These findings are an insufficient factual basis on which
to approve the closing of Forest Hill and Lincoln Wil-
liams. Equally effective alternatives may exist which
would avoid the closing of a modern facility and the inter-
community transfer of kindergarten pupils. These should
be explored on remand and, if the district court adheres to
its present plan, specific reasons for their rejection should
be given. We cannot ignore the district court's disregard
of neighborhood considerations for rural schools in this
context, particularly where K-2 students in Alexandria
were spared transfer to the point that three schools re-
main virtually all-black. Specific desegregation measures
in southeastern Rapides Parish should be re-examined in
light of the full range of mitigating equitable consider-
ations.
' Since our reasons for denying intervention by Forest Hill residents were
29a
The area served by the Group V schools, outlined in yellow,
Exhibit C26a, contains in the school year of 1979-80 six operat-
ing schools. The high school students in the Poland district
attended Poland K-12. Those students from the rest of the
area, Cheneyville, Forest Hill and Lecompte school districts,
Exhibit C26b attended Carter Raymond Junior High 5-9 in the
ninth grade and Rapides High 10-12. The Junior High and
Elementary students attended schools in their own districts at
Lincoln Williams K-8, Forest Hill K-8, Carter C. Raymond 5-9
and Lecompte Elementary K-4. Lecompte (pop. 1518) is in the
very center of this area, being 11.0 miles from Woodworth
(pop. 409); 9.7 miles from Forest Hill (pop. 370); 13.3 miles
from Poland (pop. 0), and 9.1 miles from Cheneyville (pop.
1082), Exhibits C2 and C26a-c. It would appear from the map,
Exhibit C26a, that the populated area around LSU-A, north of
Lecompte on U. S. Highway 71 is about 8 or 8/2 miles. Three
highways extend south from Alexandria through this area:
Highway 1 extending through the Poland district, Exhibit 26b,
has a student population over 90% white; U. S. Highway 165
extending south through the Forest Hill district has a white
student population of over 90%; 771 (93.24%) of the 827 black
students in the area attended the schools located along U. S.
Highway 71 at Lecompte and Cheneyville.
There has been a gradual decline of student population at
Cheneyville area (Cheneyville formerly had a white high
school); and an almost complete exodus of white students from
Lincoln Williams after the “white school” was integrated with
Lincoln Williams in 1975. Poland is the only majority white
school district accessible to Lincoln Williams. There was abso-
lutely no likelihood that these students would attend Lincoln
Williams when the whites in the Lincoln Williams district had
already refused to do so. It was our finding that there was no
reasonable prospect that Lincoln Williams could be integrated
no longer viable, and since any alternatives offered by them would aid us in
the resolution of the issue remanded, we ordered that the intervention now
be allowed. Intervenors have submitted alternatives and have participated
in the hearing of June 30, 1981.
30a
by clustering or pairing. Consequently we determined that
Lincoln Williams must be closed.
Rapides High School opened at the commencement of the
1966-67 school year. As originally contemplated it was to serve
as the high school for the entire area. However, the Poland
district opted out and it has served since the 1966-67 school
year as a consolidated school for the remaining three districts.
Prior to the 1980-81 school year the ninth grade from these
same three districts had attended Carter C. Raymond in Le-
compte. We personally inspected all of the schools involved
and determined that there were sufficient facilities, classroom
and otherwise, to accommodate all the students in the area in
the schools located in Lecompte. Lecompte was centrally lo-
cated, had radiating bus routes, many of which were already in
operation. This would equalize the length and duration of bus
routes as much as possible. Consequently we found that the
assignment of all students to the Lecompte schools offered the
best and the most reasonable prospect of successful integra-
tion in the area. Therefore our tentative plan published July 3,
1980 provided:
1979-80 1980-81
GROUP V W B W B
Lecompte Elementary (K-2) 144.230 (61.5%) 231 = 211 (47.7%)
C. Raymond Jr. High (3-8) 133 218 (62.1%) 477 =. 374 (43.9%)
Rapides High (9-12) 174 =: 138 (44.2%) 310 = 217 (41.1%)
In our order of July 3, 1980 we requested alternatives to the
tentative plan and received only three affecting the schools in
Wards 2 and 3.” Information in these three alternatives was
® See Exhibits E, F, and G attached to the defendant Board's filing of July
28, 1980.
Exhibit E referred to the history and the physical facilities at Forest Hill,
but gave no suggestions regarding integration.
However, we were impressed with the information contained in Exhibits
F and G, principally the information related to possible bus congestion
around Lecompte Elementary and Carter C. Raymond and the over-burden
of facilities other than classrooms if the number of students assigned to these
schools were not reduced and assigned elsewhere, perhaps as suggested in
Exhibit G.
3la
seriously considered and we felt compelled to make a more
detailed personal inspection of these schools, particularly Le-
compte Elementary and Carter C. Raymond.* Our re-
examination of Carter C. Raymond confirmed its adequate
classroom capacity and confirmed also that it was overbuilt and
had some limitations of bus access. The bus access limitations
would be shared to a much smaller degree by Lecompte
Elementary, located only a block away. We concluded that the
play area and other non-classroom facilities in Carter C.
Raymond were insufficient to accommodate the number of
students assigned in our tentative plan. Consequently our
tentative plan had to be revised.
However the problem was somewhat different from that
originally addressed by us in our tentative plan. Most impor-
tant was the fact that we had already accepted an alternate
plan for Jones Street Junior High School in Alexandria (Ward 1
- Exhibit C26a) assigning the 7-8 grades in the Poland district
to Jones Street. This assignment was absolutely essential to
the successful integration of Jones Street. At the meeting of
August 1, 1981* there was no protest to the assignment of high
school students to Rapides High School. We agreed with sug-
gestion in Exhibit F that the population of Carter C. Raymond
be reduced, and with the suggestion in Exhibit G that one
school in addition to Lincoln Williams be closed.
® Both of these schools have been majority black for some period of time,
consequently had not received the public tax support enjoyed by Poland and
Forest Hill; however Rapides High School provides irrefutable evidence that
they will receive such support if attended by whites as provided in our final
plan. Carter C. Raymond is a modern, structurally sound installation and has
all the facilities necessary for K-12 school. It has always been identified as the
black school. Lecompte Elementary was formally the white high school and
is located only a block from Carter C. Raymond. Structurally, it is probably
sounder than any of the other schools but, being a three story building it is
not as modern as the other schools. It is however beautifully maintained and
more than adequate for an elementary school, Exhibits Forest Hill 5, 7 and 8.
* See Minute Entry of District Court forwarded to the Court of Appeals
November 5, 1980.
32a
We determine first that Poland should remain open as a K-6
school. Poland’s grades 7-12 had already been assigned else-
where as outlined above. Cheneyville is much closer to Poland
than it is to Forest Hill. By assigning to Poland that portion of
Lincoln Williams students residing east of Highway 181, Ex-
hibit 26d, Poland’s projected black ratio increased from 9.6% to
47.7%. This meant that the remaining Lincoln Williams stu-
dents, those residing west of Highway 181 and grades 7-8
students residing east of Highway 181, would travel to Le-
compte or through Lecompte to Forest Hill to attend school.
There is no highway communication between the Lecompte
area and Forest Hill so that all students who might be assigned
to Forest Hill from the Cheneyville area would have to pass by
the schools in Lecompte and bus an additional 9 miles in order
to reach Forest Hill, Exhibit C26b & d.
The next matter which we have for determination after the
examination of the alternatives submitted by the School Board
was whether the remaining Junior High and Elementary stu-
dents assigned to the Lecompte schools under our tentative
plans should continue to attend those schools as contemplated
or whether a number of those students should be assigned to
Forest Hill and a Lecompte school closed. Although Lecompte
Elementary had been a white K-12 school, it had been majority
black for a number of years. Carter C. Raymond had always
been a school for black students. The record shows that Le-
compte Elementary and Carter C. Raymond were 61.5% and
62.1% black in the school year of 1979-80. We had already
determined that Aaron Elementary in Alexandria and Lincoln
Williams Elementary in Cheneyville, 100% and 92.9% black
respectively, had to be closed for purposes of integration. It
was not fair to the black community nor legally proper that
only identifiably black schools be closed for purposes of in-
tegration. Thus neither Lecompte nor Carter C. Raymond
should be closed except as an absolute necessity, Lee v. Macon
County Board of Education, 448 F.2d 746 (5th Cir.1971),
Mims v. Duval County School Board, 447 F.2d 1330 (5th
Cir.1971), and Ellis v. Board of Public Instruction of Orange
33a
County, Florida, 465 F.2d 878 (5th Cir.1972). There was no
such justification here.
All of the area north and east of Indian Creek Lake to the
Alexandria district on the north, the Poland district on the east
and highway 181 and the Evangeline Parish line on the south
would have to travel through Lecompte (or an intersection
one-half mile west of Lecompte) and then begin an additional 9
miles bussing to arrive at Forest Hill, Exhibit C26d. The
seventh and eighth grade Cheneyville students east of High-
way 181 would have to go even further, Exhibit C26d. On the
other hand there are practically no students living in the
Forest Hill district west of Forest Hill city limits and practical-
ly none in the Lecompte district living in the bombing range
area west of Woodworth. Thus Forest Hill is on the periphery
of an area made up of Cheneyville, Forest Hill, Woodworth,
LSU-A area and Lecompte, Exhibit C26b. Lecompte, on the
other hand, is in the center. This was recognized by all these
communities when they organized a consolidated school dis-
trict for the purpose of constructing Rapides High School and
locating that school in Lecompte. High School students from
the Forest Hill area have been bussing voluntarily to Le-
compte since the 1966-67 school year. It is certain that seventh
and eighth grade students must attend the schools in Le-
compte because of the excessive distance involved in assigning
Cheneyville students to any other location, Exhibit C26b & d.
Since the Forest Hill students are concentrated in the immedi-
ate Forest Hill area and on the road between Forest Hill and
Lecompte the bussing burden on them would be minimal. The
burden would be further minimized by the fact that Forest Hill
grades 9-12 have been bussing to Lecompte previously and
that grades 7-8 must also be assigned there. The elementary
students would simply get on busses already loaded with their
older brothers and sisters. Under these circumstances we
found that the evidence as well as the law dictated that all
Forest Hill students should be assigned to the schools in Le-
compte, as follows:
34a
1979-80 1980-81
GROUP V Ww B Ww B T
Poland Elementary (K-6) 281 30( 9.6%) 150 137 (47.7%) 287
Lecompte Elementary (K-3) 144 230 (61.5%) 223 185 (45.3%) — 408
C. Raymond Jr. High (4-8) 133 218 (62.1%) 282 256 (47.5%) 538
Rapides High (9-12) 174 138 (44.2%) 310 217 (41.1%) 527
After the remand of May 18, 1981 we ordered that the
intervention of the Forest Hill residents (Forest Hill) be
allowed and ordered the filing of any alternatives to the
Court’s final plan for the Group V school area. On the date of
the evidentiary hearing of June 30, 1981, we received three
plans from plaintiff, four from Forest Hill and one from the
School Board. We later admitted two additional plans from the
School Board. On that date also the plaintiffs disavowed plans
filed previously by them on June 11, 1981. Plans were also
submitted by concerned citizens of Lecompte. The govern-
ment submitted no plans, but supported the plan adopted
August 6, 1980.
All of the plans submitted have one common fault. None of
them proposes a plan for integration. Each of them proposes to
keep the 1979-80 schools intact regardless of the burden it
might place on children in other schools and without any re-
gard for the prospects of successful integration of the schools in
the area.
We have considered plaintiffs’ plans and have eliminated the
first and second alternatives which suggest reopening Lincoln
Williams as an integrated school in certain grades for the whole
area. There is no reason to believe that students from Forest
Hill, Woodworth, the LSU-A region and Poland would be
more likely to attend Lincoln Williams than those in the
Cheneyville area which have refused to attend in the past.
Plaintiffs’ first and principal suggestion is that Lincoln Wil-
liams and Forest Hill remain racially identifiable K-3 schools,
as follows:
B Ww Total
Lincoln Williams (K-3) 95 ll 106
Forest Hill (K-3) 8 124 132
35a
We assume that plaintiffs are attempting to show a parallel to
the three racially identifiable schools approved by the Court of
Appeals in this proceeding in its decree of May 18, 1981. We
cannot allow K-3 schools but if the proposal were restricted to
grades K-2 as was the case in those schools and as suggested in
Lee v. Macon County Board of Education, 616 F.2d 805 (5th
Cir.1980), we might consider this alternative. If reduced to
K-2 Lincoln Williams would contain only 87 students and
Forest Hill only 104, well below the 117 minimum necessary to
qualify for the assignment of teachers under the laws and
regulations of the State of Louisiana, Exhibit C27. Plaintiffs’
alternatives must be rejected.
Forest Hill submitted four alternatives, none of which make
any reference to student populations in any of the schools.
“There is no statistical information from which it can be deter-
mined whether there is any potential whatsoever in any of the
plans for successful integration.” The one common denomina-
tor in all the plans is that Forest Hill be K-8 as it was during the
school year 1979-80. Each plan provides therefore that not one
Forest Hill K-8 student will be bussed out of his own district.
Plans 1 and 3 provide in addition that no one will be bussed into
the Forest Hill school. Plan 2 proposes segregated bussing, the
meticulous individual selection of 45 black students from the
area of Woodworth to assure that Forest Hill will remain clear
of any integrating effort. Woodworth is the demographic
equivalent of Forest Hill. It has always been in the Lecompte
area and is a principal source of white students attending the
Lecompte schools. We doubt seriously if there are 15 black
students in the Woodworth area. If they do exist there is
nothing in the record to show it. If they did exist we would not
allow the meticulous individual selection necessary to assure
segregated bussing into Forest Hill. Plan 4, like Plans 1 and 2,
provides that Lincoln Williams be K-8. This robs that plan of
any significant integrative effect. Plan 4, like Plans 1, 2 and 3,
must be rejected.
School Board Plan No. 1 proposes the selection and segre-
gated bussing to Forest Hill of black students attending grades
36a
4-8 in Lecompte and Carter C. Raymond. This is rejected for
the same reasons outlined by us in considering the Forest Hill
Plan No. 2. The Board Plans Nos. 2 and 3 are alike in that they
provide for K-5 schools at Forest Hill and Lecompte, a 6-8
school at Carter C. Raymond, a K-6 school at Poland, and the
closing of Lincoln Williams. Under Plan 2 Forest Hill (K-5) is
38% black and Lecompte (K-5) is 53% black. Under Plan 3
Forest Hill (K-5) is 45% black and Lecompte (K-5) is 48% black.
We find no fault with the result. We do object to the method.
Plan 2 zones into Forest Hill (K-5) a 100% black area adjacent
to and around Lecompte Elementary which is also to remain an
operating K-5 school. Plan 3 does the same thing except that
the zone is slightly enlarged. Students in a one-race zone can be
bussed for purposes of integration but they should not be
bussed to a K-5 zone when a K-5 school exists in their own zone.
The Board’s plans must be rejected.
Concerned Citizens of Lecompte filed four proposals. These
proposals are deficient and hard to evaluate because there are
not supporting statistics regarding the number of students and
the resulting students ratios. Proposal No. 1 suggests that
grades 6, 7 and & in Poland, Cheneyville, Forest Hill and
Lecompte attend Carter C. Raymond, that Poland be a K-5
school for Poland and Cheneyville and Lecompte Elementary
be a K-5 school for Forest Hill and Lecompte. The proposal for
7-8 is already in effect except for seventh and eighth graders in
the Poland area who attend Jones Street Junior High School.
We cannot jeopardize the success already realized by Jones
Street. Actually, many of these students, those near the city
limits of Alexandria, live closer to Jones Street than they do to
Rapides High School. We do intend, however, to modify the
Jones Street zone, assigning those students fartherest [sic]
from Jones Street (Echo area) to Carter C. Raymond. The
school staff informs us that this will cut at least 2 hour from the
bussing route into Jones Street. We have already determined
that Poland could not maintain a reasonable black/white ratio if
it took all the K-5 students from Lincoln Williams.
We have adopted and put into effect Proposal 2 except that
37a
Lecompte Primary is a K-3 school instead of a K-4. This pro-
posal also suggests that 7-8 students in Cheneyville attend
Carter C. Raymond. The plan now in effect provides for this
and these students have been assigned to Carter C. Raymond
since the beginning of the 1980-81 school year.
Proposal 3 has the same deficiency regarding Poland as
Proposal 1 and Proposal 4 involves unacceptable bussing.
There are only 23 students living west of Forest Hill, Forest
Hill Exhibit 13. This covers all 13 grades. No more than one-
fourth should be in the 6-9 grades. Because of bussing dis-
tances, any plan which busses students from the entire
Cheneyville, Forest Hill, Lecompte, Poland area must bus to
Lecompte just as the Rapides High students do. This proposal
is also rejected.
Our principle purpose throughout was the adoption of a plan
which achieves the greatest amount of integration with a
reasonably assured prospect of success. We find that the plan
adopted August 6, 1980, including the area serviced by schools
in Group V thereof, to have been a success. In some instances
such as the Sixth Grade Centers and Jones Street Junior High
School the success was spectacular. The following figures tell
the story of Group V, Court Exhibit 25(4):
EXPERIENCE TABLE
1979-80 1980-81 1980-81
(actual) (projected) (actual
91881)
GROUP V Bi W% BY W% Bi W%
Poland Elem. (K-6) 9.6 W.4 47.7 52.3 37.5 62.5
Lecompte Elem. (K-3) 61.5 38.5 45.3 54.7 62.6 37.4
C. Raymond (4-8) 62.1 37.9 47.5 52.5 60.0 40.0
Rapides High (9-12) 44.2 55.8 41.1 58.9 43.8 56.2
Lincoln Williams (K-8) 92.9 a Closed Closed
Forest Hill (K-8) 8.3 91.7 Closed Closed
Although projected percentages were not realized in Group V,
such projections could hardly have been realized in the atmo-
sphere in which this plan was implemented. A national election
in which bussing was the major issue; every campaigning
38a
politician blasting the bussing procedure; a state court enjoin-
ing implementation, particularly as it applied to Forest Hill;
Clyde Holloway, leader of the Forest Hill intervenors, running
for Congress on the sole issue, and national publicity creating
an incendiary theater from August 6, 1980 until the end of
January 1981. In spite of the fact that they absorbed more than
a third of the black students formerly attending Lincoln Wil-
liams, Lecompte Elementary’s black percentage showed only
a slight increase: 61.5% in 1979-80 to 62.6%. This in spite of the
boycott by students from Forest Hill. Under those very same
circumstances Carter Raymond's 62.1% of black students in
1979-80 actually was reduced to 60%. Poland’s 9.6% black to
90.4% white ratio was adjusted to 37.5% black against 62.5%
white. Rapides High which was already integrated at 44.2%
black was reduced slightly to 43.8% black. Lincoln Williams
which was 92.9% black was eliminated and its students
absorbed in the schools named above. The 91.7% white school
at Forest Hill was closed and most of its students attended
private academies. White flight has occurred in the Group V
area, School Board Exhibit G attachments. We have been
informed by the School Board staff that 47 of these students
have been attracted back to the public school system in the
year 1980-81, Exhibit 28.
We find that there is great prospect for success during the
1981-82 school year and the years that follow.
1. The people of Forest Hill are conscientious and law abid-
ing. They have taken their issue to court as they had every
right to do. The Court of Appeals did not reverse, it only
remanded for more specific reasons which we, the trial court,
have now supplied.
2. The Forest Hill intervention has now been allowed. They
have been given the opportunity to suggest alternatives to the
court’s plan of August 6, 1980. These suggested alternatives
were unsupported by evidence and showed only a desire to
maintain the status quo.
3. The injunction against Forest Hill defendants has now
been modified so that the Forest Hill school premises may be
39a
used by the citizens of that community for any purpose except
the conduct of a school.°
4. Nearly all of the student population of the Forest Hill
school live within two and a half miles of the center of Forest
Hill or in the area between Lecompte and Forest Hill. In the
school year of 1979-80 there were only about 50 students living
outside the restricted area in Forest Hill and between Forest
Hill and Lecompte described above. 23 of these lived west of
Forest Hill in the Mill Creek area, 18 southeast of Forest Hill
in the Bennett Bay area, and 9 southeast of Forest Hill on the
Blue Lake Road, Forest Hill Exhibit 13. These considerations,
coupled with the fact that Forest Hill High School students
have bussed to Lecompte since 1966, makes the closing of
Forest Hill inevitable. For reasons shown above, the burden of
bussing others into Forest Hill is far greater than bussing
Forest Hill students to Lecompte. As we have stated before,
Forest Hill residents acknowledged that Lecompte was the
educational center of the area when they joined in building
Rapides High at that location.
5. We find also that compliance with the plan adopted Au-
* Our injunction of September 22, 1980 enjoining Forest Hill defendants
was, as observed by the Court of Appeals, broad. It was our opinion that this
breadth was necessary at the time the injunction was issued, Several un-
accountably fortuitous events had occurred which allowed Forest Hill defen-
dants to use the school. In case of any action for contempt we did not wish to
be confronted that any particular defendant was on the premises for reasons
which had no connection with school activities which were actually being
conducted on the premises. On the date that the injunction was issued we
informed the Forest Hill counsel that we would modify the injunction so as to
allow use of the premises for other than school purposes if such defendants
would make such application and pledge themselves to use the premises only
for non-school purposes. We declared such intent in the opinion attached to
that order: “However, it is permissible at any time for any defendant or
anyone acting in concert with any of them to make an application for mod-
ification of this injunction on proper grounds.” Thereafter we reminded
counsel on several occasions. For reasons best known to him and his clients,
no such application was made until June 12, 1981. We granted the motion and
modified the injunction. The school properties can now be used for any public
or civic purpose except for conduct of a school.
40a
gust 6, 1980 will be enhanced and encouraged by two amend-
ments to that plan.
a. The time necessary to bus 7-8 grade students from the
Echo area at the south end of the Poland district into Jones
Street Junior High School in Alexandria is excessive. We are
informed that bussing time on that route can be reduced at
least one-half hour by excluding that area from the Jones
Street Zone E and adding it to Carter Raymond as Zone D, as
shown in Exhibit A attached. The effect of this amendment is
to reduce the attendance of Jones Street by approximately 14
students and adding that number to Carter C. Raymond.
b. On or before the commencement of the school year 1981-
82 a white principal should be appointed at Carter C.
Raymond and a black principal appointed at Lecompte
Elementary.
All alternatives to our final plan for the areas served by
Group V have been rejected. The said plan should be amended
as set forth in Paragraph 5 immediately above and as amended
should be implemented at the commencement of the school
year of 1981-82.
DONE AND SIGNEDat Alexandria, Louisiana, on this the
22nd day of July, 1981.
/s/ Nauman 8. Scott
United States District Judge
dla
APPENDIX F
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR
THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA
Civit Action No. 10,946
VIRGIE LEE VALLEY, ET AL.
Uv.
RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL BOARD
FINAL JUDGMENT
This matter having come on for trial pursuant to remand in
Civil Action No. 80-3722 in the United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit (Unit A) entitled Virgie Lee Valley, etal,
Plaintiff-Appellee, United States of America, Intervenor-
Appellee v. Rapides Parish School Board, et al, Defendant-
Appellants dated May 18, 1981, hearing having been had,
plans and authorities having been submitted and considered by
us, the law and evidence being in favor thereof, it is
ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED that the plan
adopted by us on August 6, 1980 as amended by the Plan
(Exhibit A) attached hereto be implemented and made effec-
tive on or before the commencement of the 1981-82 school year;
it is further
ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED that we retain
jurisdiction in the event of appeal or the expiration of delay for
appeal for the purpose of assuring the implementation of the
plan adopted by this judgment.
Alexandria, Louisiana, this the 22nd day of July, 1981.
/s/ Nauman §S. Scott
United States District Judge
42a
APPENDIX G
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS,
FIFTH CIRCUIT
UNITA
May 18, 1981
Nos. 80-3722, 80-3776, 80-3855, 80-3988,
80-3008, 81-3013, 81-3033 AND 81-3083.
VirGIE LEE VALLEY, ET AL.,
PLAINTIFFS-APPELLEES,
v.
RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL BoarD,
DEFENDANT,
v.
NELSON LABOorRDE, ET AL.,
INTERVENORS-APPELLANTS,
v.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
INTERVENOR-APPELLEE.
VIRGIE LEE VALLEY, ET AL.,
PLAINTIFFS-APPELLEES,
AND
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
INTERVENOR-APPELLEE,
v.
RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL Boarb,
DEFENDANT,
STATE OF LOUISIANA, ET AL.,
DEFENDANTS-APPELLANTS.
REHEARING DENIED No. 80-3988
JULY 9, 1981
OPINION ON REHEARING, No. 80-3722
Aua. 14, 1981
SEE 653 F.2d 941
43a
Appeals from the United States District Court for the West-
ern District of Louisiana.
Before COLEMAN, GARZA and SAM D. JOHNSON, Cir-
cuit Judges.
GARZA, Circuit Judge:
Twenty-seven years after Brown v. Board of Education and
sixteen years after the commencement of this litigation, we are
confronted with yet another set of appeals arising from imple-
mentation of the command to desegregate public schools in
Rapides Parish, Louisiana. The current appeals stem from the
district court’s response to a Motion for Supplemental Relief
filed by the private plaintiffs in 1979. We consolidated them for
argument, and now render our decision in each by this opinion.
Though the Rapides Parish School Board was long ago
admonished of its continuing duty to accomplish the disman-
tling of racial duality in pupil and staff assignments, complex
and important issues have been raised by the effort to achieve
this goal. Is the school system fully unitary? If not, what
further relief is required? Are the orders issued below a proper
response to the facts of the case and previous directives of this
court?
Sadly, these are not the only issues. This case has been
unnecessarily complicated by the failure of all parties in in-
terest to adequately aid the district court, as well as by overt
interference with and defiance of its orders by certain ele-
ments in the community. We are therefore called upon to
decide whether additional orders issued by the district court in
aid of its jurisdiction and authority were within the permissible
bounds of discretion.
BACKGROUND
While Rapides Parish is predominantly rural, it contains one
large city, Alexandria. A single school system serves the en-
tire parish. Prior to 1965, the system was classically dual, with
one set of schools operated for white pupils and another for
blacks.
This litigation was instituted en March 23, 1965, and re-
44a
sulted in the employment of a number of devices to establish a
unitary system. Originally, the district court approved a de-
segregation plan relying on “free transfer” provisions, which
remained in effect until 1969. Under its operation, white pupils
continued to attend all-white schools and more than 96 percent
of black pupils continued to attend all-black schools.
The plaintiffs moved for supplemental relief following the
Supreme Court’s decision in Green v. School Board of New
Kent County, 391 U.S. 4380, 88 S.Ct. 1698, 20 L.Ed.2d 716
(1968), invalidating a freedom of choice plan which had failed to
achieve meaningful desegregation. The district court held that
the plan then in effect did create a real prospect of dismantling
the dual school system. Conley v. Lake Charles School Board,
293 F.Supp. 84, 88 (W.D.La. 1968).
We reversed and remanded for the implementation of a new
plan. Hall v. St. Helena Parish School Board, 417 F.2d 801 (5
Cir. 1969), cert. denied 396 U.S. 904, 90 S.Ct. 218, 24 L.Ed.2d
180 (1969). Upon review of the relevant statistical facts, it was
held “abundantly clear that freedom of choice as presently
constituted and operating . . . does not offer the ‘real prospect’
contemplated by Green.” 417 F.2d 801 at 809. Alternative
measures were suggested, including “geographic zoning. . .
pairing of grades or of schools, educational clusters or parks,
discontinuance of use of substandard buildings and premises,
rearrangement of transportation routes, consolidation of
schools, appropriate location of new construction, and major-
ity-to-minority transfers.” /d.
Once again, however, there was a disparity between the
intended effect of relief and the actual result. In 1969 and 1970,
the court below adopted three neighborhood zoning plans,
each of which was reversed for failure to present an adequate
prospect of dismantling the dual school system.
In July of 1969, the court approved a plan offered by the
school board which relied on neighborhood zoning or partial
pairing, but left 13 schools over 90 percent black. This court
reversed and remanded in Valley v. Rapides Parish School
45a
Board, 422 F.2d 814 (5 Cir. 1970), again ordering the formula-
tion of a new plan.
The district court next chose a school board plan which made
minimal student assignment changes, citing “the extreme
shortness of time confronting the school board.” We reversed
summarily, remanding the case with “instructions to the dis-
trict court to implement pendente lite [a plan offered by
HEW].. . oraplan devised by the district court to accomplish
a unitary system within the teachings of Green v. County
School Board.” Valley v. Rapides Parish School Board, 423
F.2d 1132, 1133 (5 Cir. 1970).
On remand, the district court adopted its own plan for
Wards 1 and 8 of the parish, which encompass the city of
Alexandria. (See the map of Rapides Parish attached as an
appendix hereto.) The plan assigned pupils in those wards to
the schools nearest their homes, and reinstated previous plans
for the remaining wards with some modifications. Once again,
this court was obliged to partially reverse. In Valley v.
Rapides Parish School Board, 434 F.2d 144, 145 (5 Cir. 1970),
those portions of the order below “which [did] not concern
either student assignment in Wards 1 and 8 or the majority-to-
minority transfer policy” were affirmed. As for the city wards,
the court noted that black pupils accounted for 47 percent of
the total enrollment and held:
Because of the residential dichotomy between Alexan-
dria’s black and white citizens, the so-called “neighbor-
hood school plan” adopted by the district court, although
admittedly impartial as to race, still leaves 60% of the
black students in schools where their race is an approx-
imately 90% or greater majority. Of the twenty-four re-
maining schools seven remain predominantly negro.
The end result is that neighborhood zoning in Alexan-
dria, Louisiana, leaves the majority of the city’s negro
students in a virtually segregated school system. /d.
The court then set out in detail a plan to remedy the deficien-
cy in eliminating racially identifiable schools, and ordered the
district court to implement that plan or one which would
46a
achieve the same result. Notably, it was admonished that
“(Tjhe fact that the plan complies with the requirements for a
neighborhood system as enunciated by this court in Ellis v.
Board of Public Instruction of Orange County, Florida, (5
Cir. 1970), F.2d 203, does not make the system constitutionally
palatable unless the plan actually works to achieve integra-
tion.” Jd.
Following this remand, a geographic plan for Wards 1, 8 and
9 was devised and implemented. The district court retained
jurisdiction. In 1973 and 1974, the United States, as interve-
nor, moved for supplemental relief. It alleged that enrollments
projected under the 1971 plan had not been met, and pointed to
the continued existence of racially identifiable schools. The
1973 motion resulted in some adjustments and the 1974 motion
was suspended “until further orders of [the] court.”
Renewal of litigation leading immediately to these appeals
began on August 31, 1979, when the private plaintiffs filed a
Motion for Supplemental Relief complaining of the persistent
spectre of one-race schools. They further alleged non-
compliance with the teacher ratio requirements of Singleton v.
Jackson Municipal Separate School District, 419 F.2d 1211 (5
Cir. 1969), and employment discrimination in the hiring of staff
and faculty. The government moved to reschedule hearing on
its 1974 motion, contending that the same schools which had
been all-black or virtually so in 1974 remained segregated in
1979.
Statistical facts supporting the need for further relief were
compelling. At the close of the 1979-80 school year, the board
operated thirty elementary, seven junior high, and twelve
high schools. These were attended by 24,622 pupils, of whom
8,793 (35.7 percent) were black and 15,829 (67.3 percent) were
white.' 76 percent of the pupils attended school in Alexandria,
or in the adjacent communities of Pineville and Tioga in Wards
9 and 10. 74 percent of all black pupils attended Alexandria
' These figures omit the number of pupils attending three special purpose
facilities which are not involved in the plan.
47a
schools where they constituted a majority of 56 percent. A
comparison of enrollment figures for 1965 when the schools
were officially segregated with those for 1980 reveals that
almost no progress was made in ten schools, nine in Alexandria
and one in the Ward 3 community of Cheneyville.*
The matter was heard on April 29 and 30, 1980. The govern-
ment presented testimony on the continued existence of one-
race schools and the plaintiffs’ employment discrimination
claims. It proposed a plan prepared by its expert, Dr. Gordon
Foster, which utilized clustering and pairing to abolish one-
race schools in Wards 1, 8, and 9. The plaintiffs endorsed this
plan, and called for desegregation of other racially identifiable
schools. They offered no plan of their own. The school board
stated its opposition to the government plan, maintaining that
the system was unitary. It offered no plan.
On June 6, the district court issued a short preliminary
opinion, stating:
It is conceded that there are a number of racially iden-
tifiable schools in the Rapides Parish School System. We
find from the record that the existence of all of the racially
1965 1980
ENROLLMENT ENROLLMENT
% of Black Pupils % of Black Pupils
ALEXANDRIA
Aaron Elementary 100 100
Acadian Elementary 1 100
Lincoln Road Elementary 100 99
Lincoln Road Primary 97.7
Peabody Elementary 99.7 100
Silver City Elementary 100 100
South Alexandria Elementary 100 99.5
South Alexandria Primary 100 100
Jones Street Junior High 100 93.9
WARD 3
Lincoln Williams Elementary 100 92.9
48a
identifiable schools has not been justified as contemplated
under Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. of Educa-
tion, 402 U.S. 1, 91S.Ct. 1267, 28 L. Ed.2d 554 (1971); and
that the Rapides Parish School System is not unitary and
that additional relief must be granted. Lee v. Macon City
Bd. of Education, [616] F.2d [805] (5 Cir. 1980).
The court rejected the Foster plan, criticizing it on the
ground that it failed to cover the Alexandria metropolitan
area, much less the entire system. Notice was served that the
court would withdraw its own plan.
That plan was issued on July 3, and the parties were given 15
days to respond with comments or recommendations. After a
hearing in the nature of a status conference, the court entered
final judgment adopting its plan on August 6, 499 F.Supp. 490
(W.D.La.). The school board was ordered to implement it for
the 1980-81 school year, set to commence on August 20.
THE PLAN
The district court opens with a statement of principles.
Busing is called “an essential element of our public school
systems for many years,” which would be used “purposefully
and constructively.” The court recognized “that neighborhood
schools in metropolitan areas should exist but only to the
extent that they do not impair or inhibit the establishment of
an integrated school system.” This recognition was followed by
the curious observation that neighborhood schools “do not
exist outside of metropolitan areas.” The court allowed that it
would give “due recognition to physical circumstance and to
individual interests,” and finally noted that “construction of
new school buildings and disposition of old school
buildings . . . and sites can substantially affect that develop-
ment of a unitary system.”
The specific remedial orders contained in the plan are aimed
at eliminating the Alexandria and Cheneyville one-race
schools. Thus, attendance is realigned in the two separate
areas, with one school involved in the desegregation of both.
Mandatory pupil reassignment orders are coupled with a
majority-to-minority transfer provision.
49a
Desegregation of the eight Alexandria area elementary
schools bearing a racial stigma was accomplished by clustering
all elementary schools in Wards 1, 8, 9, and 10 into four groups,
each containing two of the schools. Four of the facilities, South
Alexandria Elementary, Lincoln Road Elementary, Peabody
Elementary, and Acadian Elementary, one in each cluster,
became sixth grade centers to be attended by all sixth graders
within each cluster. The plan additionally required the trans-
fer of sixth grade pupils from the Ruby Wise School in Ward 10
to South Alexandria Elementary. Pupils in grades K-5 from
the four new sixth grade schools were reassigned to predomi-
nantly white schools in their cluster.
Of the other four racially identifiable elementary schools,
Aaron Elementary was closed, and South Alexandria Prima-
ry, Lincoln Road Primary, and Silver City, one in each of three
clusters, were slated to serve grades K-2. They were projected
to remain primarily black. Pupils in grades 3-5 from these
schools were reassigned to primarily white schools in their
cluster.
Thus, elementary school desegregation in Alexandria was
accomplished by reassignment of pupils within compact geo-
graphic zones. The continuing predominance of black pupils at
K-2 schools in three of the clusters was justified through re-
liance on neighborhood school considerations for the very
young. The effect of these reassignments is indeed apparent,
and appears to have been largely satisfit d by actual enrollment
figures for fall, 1980.*
° The following shows the impact of the plan on the eight predominantly
black elementary schools listed above in note 2.
% Black % Black
Under Plan Under Actual
Grade Projections Enrollment
(GROUP 1)
South Alexandria Primary K-2 99.6 99.3
South Alexandria Elementary 6 44 44.7
50a
To desegregate the Jones Street Junior High School in Alex-
andria, the court rezoned attendance for each of the five junior
high schools in Wards 1, 8, 9, and 10, aiming to achieve a
minority enrollment of approximately 40%. Additionally, 205
white students from predominantly white schools in Wards 2
and 11 were assigned to Jones Street. The Ward 2 transferees
were seventh and eighth grade pupils from the school in Po-
land, which was reduced to a K-6 facility. 11th Ward trans-
ferees included seventh and eighth grade pupils from the town
of Buckeye, three of whom would become involved in further
orders. An earlier version had closed the junior high school in
Tioga, but the court reconsidered and rejected that determina-
tion in formulating its final plan. It noted that “{A]lthough this
% Black % Black
Under Plan Under Actual
Grade Projections Enrollment
(GROUP 2)
Lincoln Road Primary K-2 97.8 96.3
Lincoln Road Elementary 6 44.5 43.3
(GROUP 3)
Silver City K-2 100 99.8
Peabody 6 39.3 54.4
(GROUP 4)
Acadian 6 39.8 39.5
The Court's reasoning and the policy considerations used in formulating
this portion of the plan were described as follows:
We determined that better attendance by whites would be assured if
schools in the black area became 6th grade schools, each integrated class
having attended school together in grades 3, 4 and 5. We were also
aware that busing the entire class to a different school in the white area
for grades 3, 4 and 5 would accomplish nothing for integration and that
both blacks and whites would be better served if the class from the
school in the black area were split in three sections with each section
attending one school in the white area for a period of three years. Blacks
and whites alike would benefit from attending the same school for 3 out
of the 4 years during which the class was clustered. It would also reduce
the busing of whites. All students, whether clustered or not, attend the
6th grade in one of the four 6th grade centers in the black area.
5la
plan... has deficiencies, it is far better than any of the
alternatives suggested. It relieves Tioga of the inequities of
the original and spreads the burden of busing far more evenly
in other areas.” Enrollment figures reveal that these orders
were effective, though attainment of projected totals was
somewhat frustrated by “white flight.”
The remainder of the court’s plan affects schools in the
southeastern portion of the parish, in Wards 3, 2, and 4. Before
promulgation of the plan the Ward 3 town of Lecompte con-
tained three schools, Lecompte Elementary, Carter
Raymond, and Rapides High School. Lecompte Elementary
and Carter Raymond each served pupils in grades K-8 under
earlier orders. Each school had a majority of black pupils in the
range of approximately 60 percent. The Lincoln Williams
School in Cheneyville, some 10 miles to the southeast of
Lecompte, served all area pupils in grades K-8. The school
was, as noted above, approximately 93% black, and is the
“spur” for additional relief in this area of the parish. About the
same distance to the west of Lecompte is the community of
Forest Hill, which contained a K-8 school with a black atten-
dance percentage of only 8.3. High school students from both
communities went on to Rapides High School in Lecompte.
Northeast of Lecompte in Ward 2 is the community of Poland,
which had a K-12 school with 9.6 percent black pupils in atten-
dance.
The plan provided for Lecompte Elementary to become a
* Junior high school reassignments altered the percentage of black pupils
attending the five schools as follows:
% Black Under
Projected Actual
% Black % Black Enrollment,
1979-80 1980-81 1980
Alexandria Jr. High 43.7 42.5 42.7
Brame Jr. High 38.4 40.5 44.3
Jones Street Jr. High 93.3 42.6 52.3
Tioga Jr. High 2.5 40.9 42.8
Pineville Jr. High 13.7 41.9 43.7
ha
K-3 facility, and for Carter Raymond to serve grades 4-8,
Lincoln Williams was closed, and its K-8 pupils were trans-
ferred to the Lecompte schools. Forest Hill was also closed,
with its pupils transferred to Lecompte Elementary and Car-
ter Raymond. Pupils from the Poland School in grades 9-12
were shifted to Rapides High School. The variance between
percentages of black attendance at these schools as projected
by the district court and under actual 1980 enrollments is
distinct.”
To summarize the cumulative effect of its plan, the court
stated:
100% of the black student population in the parish will
attend integrated schools for ten of the thirteen years of
their education. 90.4% will attend fully integrated public
schools for the entire thirteen years of their public educa-
tion. Any one of the 9.6% may attend integrated schools
for the entire thirteen years by exercising his right of
transfer under the majority to minority rule. Thus all
black students in the metropolitan area may attend inte-
grated public schools for the entire thirteen years of their
public education if they wish to do so, 100% of the black
students outside the metropolitan area are assigned to
integrated schools for the entire thirteen years of their
public education.
Aside from pupil reassignments, the court provided that
principals of certain named schools be white, and of others,
Projected % Actual %
Grade of Black Attendance Enrolled
Poland Elementary K-6 47.7 36.8
Lecompte Elementary K-3 45.3 63.9
Carter Raymond 4-8 47.5 61.9
Rapides High 9-12 41.1 43.7
As the school board notes, the variance reflects the fact that most of the
Forest Hill pupils have left the public school system to avoid compliance with
the district court’s order.
58a
black. It reimposed a 31.5 Singleton ratio of faculty and staff,
and additionally ordered that in each school “the assistant
principal be of the race other than that of the principal of that
school.” The construction of new schools outside of the metro-
politan areas was forbidden in the absence of express court
approval, Finally, ina comment which should have served to
warn those contemplating avoidance of the plan, the court
stated “we shall use every means possible to assure that stu-
dents in the system attend only those schools to which they
have been assigned.”
POST-JUDGMENT PROBLEMS
Vociferous community resistance to the plan surfaced soon
after its implementation, both in the southeastern portion of
the parish, at Forest Hill, and in the northeastern community
of Buckeye. Forest Hill residents had attempted to intervene
on August 1, 1980, just before the date of final judgment, to
complain of the closing of their school. They urged that pre-
vious pleadings and evidence had not given notice that the
facility was in jeopardy. Intervention was denied by the dis-
trict court as untimely.
After the plan was adopted and imposed for the 1980-81
school year, Forest Hill residents “quietly and peaceably”
moved onto the closed school grounds and began to teach their
children on the premises. The district court had previously
issued an injunction against interference by school officials
with implementation of the plan, but it does not appear that
these residents acted in concert with school officialdom.
The government requested a temporary restraining order
barring such use of the school. A hearing was held, after which
the district court prohibited the residents from setting foot on
the ten-acre school premises, on pain of a fine between $100
and $300 per day. This order was merged into a permanent
injunction on September 22.
Matters became even more heated in the northern part of
the parish, and centered around efforts of the parents of three
former Buckeye students to thwart their transfer to the Jones
5da
Street School. The parents of Michelle LaBorde, Lynda
McNeal, and Ramona Carbo sought relief from State District
Judge Richard E. Lee of the Ninth Judicial District of
Louisiana, They obtained orders awarding “provisional cus-
tody” of the girls to families living in the zone of Buckeye
attendance.
The district court was apprised of these maneuvers, and
wrote a letter to the school superintendent directing him to
terminate the girls’ enrollment at Buckeye until such time as
they had obtained permission to transfer from a court-
appointed transfer committee. The principal at Buckeye
ordered them to leave the school.
The parents then jointly filed a petition for writ of man-
damus and injunctive relief in the state court, docketed as
LaBorde, et al v. Waite before Judge Lee. The United States
District Court for the Western District of Louisiana was
named a respondent. On November 3rd, Lee ordered school
officials to allow the girls to attend Buckeye, and on November
6th, he temporarily enjoined United States District Judge
Nauman Scott from issuing any order or decree “interfering
with or tending to interfere with the administration of justice
by the Ninth Judicial District Court of Louisiana... or the
rights, privileges and immunities of petitioners as litigants
[before that court).”
On November 6 the United States Department of Justice, as
counsel for the United States District Court, filed a petition to
remove LaBorde v. Waite to federal court. The petition was
granted on the same day, and Judge Scott vacated Judge Lee’s
injunctions of the 3rd and 6th.
This action did not deter Judge Lee from issuing injunctions,
On November 7, he enjoined Judge Scott from interfering with
the attendance of the three children at Buckeye High School,
and on November 14 he enjoined school officials from obeying
federal court orders. On the same day, Judge Scott enjoined
the parents, guardians, school officials and their attorneys
from proceeding further in state court. He scheduled a show-
55a
cause hearing to determine why the girls’ enrollment at Buck-
eye should not be terminated.
The hearing was held on December 3. Judge Scott ruled that
the girls must attend school in compliance with the August 8
order until such time as permission to transfer was formally
obtained, and refused to consider evidence concerning the
status of their residence until applications for transfer had
been filed. He then terminated their Buckeye enrollment,
directed school officials to enroll them at Jones Street, and
made permanent his injunction against further state court
proceedings.
Once again, Judge Lee was not deterred. On December 4,
acting sua sponte, he ordered Sheriff Marshall T. Cappel to
accompany the girls to the Buckeye school and arrest anyone
who attempted to interfere. Such persons were to be brought
before him. To avoid a confrontation, school officials allowed
the girls to stay in the school, but denied them credit until their
assignment status was resolved.
Judge Lee then, on December 5, ordered the superintendent
to afford credit to the girls, or, in the alternative, “to show
cause why [he] should not be held in contempt of court and fine,
jail sentence or both imposed.”
The girls, continuing at Buckeye, filed the formal applica-
tions demanded by Judge Scott and he set a hearing for Decem-
ber 19. Their counsel waived presentation of evidence, and the
United States presented witnesses. Judge Scott found that the
sole purpose of the custody proceedings was to evade the
August 6 desegregation order. He ordered the principal to
terminate the girls’ Buckeye enrollment, but allowed him to
give them credit for the time they had attended, provided that
they enrolled at Jones Street after the Christmas recess. The
parents, guardians, and school officials were advised that a
penalty of $500 per day would be assessed against any person
who violated these orders. Judge Scott took under advisement
the government's motion for an injunction against the sheriff,
denied the LaBordes’ request for a stay, and vacated the state
court orders of December 4 and 5. On December 28, the court
56a
filed a written opinion containing this injunction, and on De-
cember 29 amended it to include the sheriff. It also dismissed
the state court suit which had been removed.
Judge Lee was not finished yet. On January 2, he ordered
school officials to enroll the girls at Buckeye, and made them
wards of his court to avoid “serious psychological and mental
abuse.” There followed a series of events which would resem-
ble comic opera were it not for their unfortunate impact on the
community. Three state troopers were sent with the girls to
class at Buckeye on January 5. They ordered the principal to
enroll them. On the same day, Judge Scott issued a temporary
restraining order enjoining Louisiana, the state police, “and all
persons with notice of this order” from enforcing the state
court's orders or interfering with those of the district court
issued August 6 and December 29. This was served on the
Attorney General of Louisiana, the state police, and Judge
Lee. On receipt, the state troopers withdrew from Buckeye.
The next day, Judge Lee ordered the local constable to accom-
pany the girls and enforce his order. He also withdrew after
being apprised of the federal injunction.
Finally, with all state and local law enforcement authorities
apparently complying with federal orders, Judge Lee person-
ally escorted the girls to class on January 7, 12, and 13, direct-
ing the principal to enroll them on pain of arrest. The principal
complied. In the meantime, on January 7, Judge Scott ordered
Judge Lee and the girls’ parents to show cause why they
should not be found in contempt of the injunctions issued
December 29 and January 5.
On January 14, Judge Scott held a hearing on whether to
convert his temporary restraining order of January 5 to a
permanent injunction. Louisiana stipulated that it was binding
on all state officials. The court then made the state and Judge
Lee parties, and enjoined them from interfering with its
orders and from enforcing any state court orders in LaBorde v.
Waite. On the following day, a hearing was held on the show
cause order, Judge Scott ruled that the government had pre-
sented a compelling prima facie case of contempt, and, after
57a
receiving assurances from Judge Lee and the other parties
that they would comply with his orders, dismissed the con-
tempt motions without prejudice. The court allowed the girls
credit for the fall semester at Buckeye, conditioned upon their
enrollment at Jones Street for the fall semester. It required
that their transcripts be submitted to the court until they had
complied. Since January 14, the girls have neither attended
public schools in Rapides Parish nor agreed to enroll in Jones
Street.
ISSUES ON APPEAL
Eight separate appeals have reached us from the orders
below. The Rapides Parish School Board appeals from the
merits of the district court's August 6, 1980, final judgment. It
asserts (1) that the school system was unitary in the 1979-81
years, obviating the need for further relief, (2) that if the
system was not yet unitary, the remedy imposed improperly
exceeded the scope of the violation, and (3) that in any event,
the district court erred in ordering immediate implementation
of the plan without giving the parties further time to arrive ata
proper remedy.
The Forest Hill residents who had attempted to intervene
appeal (1) from the denial of the intervention, and (2) from that
portion of the August 6 order which closed the Forest Hill
School, characterizing it as outside the scope of relief re-
quested by the original parties. Forest Hill residents further
appeal from the injunction which prohibited use of the closed
school facility there, contending (1) that they were not in
violation of the court's original injunction against official in-
terference, (2) that a prerequisite showing of irreparable harm
had not been made, (3) that the injunction exceeded the scope
of relief requested, and (4) that it infringed their First Amend-
ment rights to free speech and peaceable assembly.
The remaining appeals arise from the Buckeye furor. The
parents of the three girls who attempted to evade Jones Street
attendance challenge the injunctions issued by the district
court to compel their compliance with its desegregation order.
58a
In particular, they maintain the invalidity of the district
court's retention of the girls’ transcripts pending compliance.
The Rapides Parish sheriff, Marshall T. Cappel, appeals from
the district court order prohibiting his interference with imple-
mentation of the desegregation orders. Finally, the State of
Louisiana has appealed from those orders of the district court
which enjoined the state and its officials from executing state
court orders contravening those of the federal court, and
argues that the federal court’s retention of transcripts pending
compliance violates fundamental rights to travel, to change
residence, and parental rights to direct the upbringing and
education of children.
RESOLUTION
I. THE MERITS OF THE DESEGREGATION ORDER
In its appeal docketed here as No. 80-3722, the Rapides
Parish School Board attacks both the district court’s finding
that supplemental relief was required and certain elements of
the plan imposed. The board first contends that the “entire
system as constituted prior to the imposition of this plan was
unitary.” This contention is grounded on three basic assump-
tions. First, it is assumed that this court, by its last considera-
tion of the case in 1970, held the system to be unitary with the
exception of student assignments in Wards 1 and 8, “and poss-
ibly 3 and 4.” Second, it is assumed that the one-race schools in
the Alexandria Wards 1 and 8 area exist “solely because of the
residential preference of the students and are not caused by
any unconstitutional action by this school board.” Third, it is
assumed that the 93% black school at Cheneyville in Ward 3
owes its racial character to the unavoidable effect of “white
flight” after earlier decrees had paired area schools.
We conclude that the district court correctly applied the
appropriate legal standards in finding further relief to be
necessary. In its 1970 opinion, Valley v. Rapides Parish
School Board, supra, this court made no express or implied
finding that any portion of the system was unitary; it merely
affirmed those portions of the plan appealed from insofar as
59a
they did not deal with pupil transfers in the Alexandria wards.
See 434 F.2d 144 and 145. If the district court later held other
areas of the parish unitary under a plan not appealed from, that
finding binds neither this court nor the court below. Swann v.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1, 91
S.Ct. 1267, 28 L.Ed.2d 554 (1971), firmly established that the
duty to eliminate a// vestiges of state imposed segregation is
continuing. A plan which gives promise of establishing a uni-
tary system cannot foreclose further relief if it does not in fact
abolish the evidences of segregation. In any case, only time
will tell.
We cannot ignore the continued existence of one-race
schools in this system. In Swann, the Supreme Court stated:
...inasystem witha history of segregation the need for
remedial criteria of sufficient specificity to assure a school
authority's compliance with its constitutional duty war-
rants a presumption against schools that are substantially
disproportionate in their racial composition... [T]he
court should scrutinize such schools, and the burden upon
the school authorities will be to satisfy the court that their
racial composition is not the result of present or past
discriminatory action on their part. 402 U.S. 1 at 26, 91
S.Ct. 1267 at 1281, 28 L.Ed.2d 544 at 572.
This principle has been consistently applied. See, e. g., Ander-
son v. County Board of Education, 609 F.2d 225 (5 Cir. 1980);
United States v. Board of Education of Valdosta, 576 F.2d 37
(5 Cir. 1978); Boykins v. Fairfield Board of Education, 457
F.2d 1091 (5 Cir. 1972).
We must also reject the school board argument that the
existence of these schools is justified by demographic facts
regarding residential patterns in Alexandria. Only last year, in
Lee v. Macon County Board of Education, 616 F.2d 805 (5 Cir.
1980), we held that “{N]Jot until all vestiges of the dual system
are eradicated can demographic changes constitute legal cause
for racial imbalance in the schools.” 616 F.2d 805 at 810. See
also Valdosta, supra; Flax v. Potts, 464 F.2d 865 (5 Cir. 1972).
As the figures set out in note 2, supra, reveal, these schools
60a
have never been desegregated. In the same sense, their com-
position may not be justified by pointing to “white flight” as a
permissible causative to continued imbalance. If such a factor
renders a plan unworkable, the district court may attempt
another solution, but we will not allow desegregation to be
thwarted by extra-legal action.
Against this legal backdrop, the maintenance of the all-black
schools described supra from 1965 through the spring of 1980 is
glaring, and clearly requires further relief. We now turn to an
examination of the plan drawn by the district court.
The appellant school board contends that if further relief
was indeed required, the district court’s remedy was exces-
sive. First, the board argues that the plan improperly orders
changes in areas of the parish which were not put in issue by
motions, and where the schools have previously been declared
unitary. It is maintained that “(T]he motion of the United
States in Wards 1 and 8, and the plan proposed by their expert,
under limiting directions from the government, involved only
schools in Wards 1, 8, and 9. Although plaintiff's motion origi-
nally rather vaguely referred to all schools in the system,
plaintiffs never submitted a plan involving schools in other
wards to the court and affirmatively adopted the plan proposed
by the government.”
Secondly, the board urges that the court erred in failing to
accord the same recognition to “neighborhood” or community
schools in the rural areas of the parish as it did in the metropoli-
tan zone. It asserts that the holding that no neighborhood
schools exist in rural areas was “a fundamental error of fact
which led the district court into improperly rearranging the
schools, and students, in Cheneyville, Poland, Lecompte,
Forest Hill, Ruby Wise, and Buckeye areas, including the
closing of Forest Hill.”
Finally, the board complains that immediate implementa-
tion of the plan prevented the formulation of a proper remedy,
and left no time for planning or efforts to convince school
patrons that the plan would not adversely affect their children.
Having carefully studied the plan, we are convinced that the
6la
district court performed admirably in most respects. It must
be remembered that the school board did not propose any plan
of its own, and that the private plaintiffs merely adopted a
government p!an which the court deemed inadequate. Given
this level of guidance from the parties, the plan is a remarkably
well-considered response to a difficult set of problems.
The fashioning of relief in a school desegregation case is an
exercise of the district court’s discretion in creating an equita-
ble remedy as a response to the denial of constitutional rights.
Where the local school authorities have failed to remedy past
wrongs, the power of the district court is broad. Swann, su-
pra, 402 U.S. 1, 15, 91 S.Ct. 1267, 1275, 28 L. Ed.2d 554, 566.
“The task is to correct, by a balancing of the individual and
collective interests, the condition that offends the Constitu-
tion.” Jd., 402 U.S. 1, 16, 91 S.Ct. 1267, 1276, 28 L.Ed.2d 554,
566. The criterion for determining the validity of provisions in
a desegregation plan is whether they are reasonably related to
the ultimate objective. U.S. v. Jefferson County Board of
Education, 372 F.2d 836 (5 Cir. 1966).
In considering these measures, the district court properly
viewed the system as a whole, rather than limiting its consid-
eration to the racial imbalance of isolated schools in the sys-
tem. Lee v. Macon City Board of Education, supra. The entire
parish operated as a dual, segregated system in the past, and
statistics show that the vestiges have not been eradicated
“root and branch” as required.
We must reject any contention that the movants below
waived a remedy going beyond Alexandria and its immediate
environs. The government points out in its brief that it was
only logical to concentrate on discussion of problems in Alexan-
dria, where most of the one-race schools were located. At the
April hearing, the government expressly reserved its right to
seek desegregation outside of Alexandria. The private plain-
tiffs initially sought desegregation of every racially identifi-
able school in the parish, and, when they endorsed the Foster
plan, renewed their request for a system-wide remedy. It
62a
should finally be noted that at the same hearing, counsel for the
school board commented on the Foster plan as follows:
Why didn’t you come prepared to deal with the whole
system, is W hat I don’t understand. If you are not able to
say now that what you propose will convert us to a unitary
school system, W hy didn’t you go ahead and include ev-
erything that will convert us to a unitary school system,
because that is what you say we have got to do.
We perceive no serious objection to that portion of the plan
concerning elementary school pupils in Alexandria. The clus-
ter units are well conceived, and achieve a proper balance
between competing considerations. Desegregation is achieved
within school groupings which do not require long-distance
transfer. Further, it is apparent from the fall, 1980 enrollment
statistics quoted above that the plan is indeed showing promise
of success as intended.
Serious objections are raised, however, to those portions of
the plan which are aimed at the desegregation of Alexandria
area junior high schools and schools in the southeastern wards
of the parish. N° * surprisingly, these are the provisions re-
quiring some degree of inter-community pupil transfer. The
objections revolve around the importation of junior high school
pupils from Wards 2 and 11 into Alexandria, and the closure of
rural schools at Forest Hill and Cheneyville. Specific findings
were made to justify these orders, and we must determine
whether the district court abused its discretion in fashioning
the relief complained of.
The appellants contend that the district court erred in failing
to accord the same respect to neighborhood schools in rural
areas as to those in Alexandria; the comment that there can be
no rural neighborhood schools is cited as an example of this
asserted misconception. We agree that the comment, taken in
its absolute context, is clearly erroneous. A review of case law
concerning the neighborhood school concept will reveal that it
should apply equally to metropolitan and rural facilities.
63a
We have recognized that “[U]sually, in rural and some city
school districts where the population is diffused, assignment
on a strict neighborhood basis has been sufficient to eliminate
discrimination in student assignments.” Cisneros v. Corpus
Christi Independent School District, 467 F.2d 142, 152 (1972).
It has consistently been held, however, that if such measures
prove inadequate to the task of eradicating all vestiges of a
dual school system, “{A] district court may and should consider
the use of all available techniques including the restructuring
of attendance zones and both contiguous and noncontiguous
attendance zones.” Davis v. Board of School Commissioners,
402 U.S. 33, 37, 91 S.Ct. 1289, 1292, 28 L.Ed.2d 577, 581
(1971). We reject any argument that urban and rural facilities
within a single school district which operated as a dual system
and has not yet achieved unitary status may not, as a matter of
law, be paired or clustered together.
In formulating such a plan, it is clear that bus transportation
may be utilized. The Supreme Court long ago ruled that there
is “no basis for holding that . . . school board authorities may
not be required to employ bus transportation as one tool of
school desegregation.” Swann, supra, 402 U.S. 1, 30, 918.Ct.
1267, 1283, 28 L.Ed.2d 554, 575. It is also clear that in its
formulation of noncontiguous zones, pupil reassignments with-
in them, and transportation to effectuate the reassignments,
the district court should take into consideration such equitable
factors as “[T]he length and time of travel. . . in light of the
age of the children, and the risk to health and probable im-
pingement on the educational process.” Cisneros, supra, 467
F.2d 142 at 153. These considerations are equally applicable to
rural and metropolitan schools.
As to the more intangible values associated with the neigh-
borhood school concept, there should be no urban-rural distine-
tion. We recognize that rural schools may, as the appellants
contend, serve the same community function and implicate the
same values as those in urban zones. We are told that since the
days of the one-room red-brick schoolhouse, life in rural com-
munities has frequently revolved in large measure around the
64a
local school, which may be the only cohesive element to cement
dispersed residents into a community.® This may well be true,
and such considerations are not without importance. They are,
however, even more yielding than practical variables such as
proximity when posed against the continuing need to achieve
meaningful desegregation. In Keyes v. School District No. 1,
Denver, Colorado, 521 F.2d 465 (1975), cert. denied, 423 U.S.
1066, 96 S.Ct. 806, 46 L.Ed.2d 657 (1975), the Tenth Circuit
noted the importance of neighborhood contact in such areas as
the playground, extracurricular activity, and parental involve-
ment, but cogently observed that “we cannot place it above the
constitutional right of children to attend desegregated
schools.” 521 F.2d 465 at 478.
Further, we see no reason for a general distinction between
urban and rural facilities as regards the closing of schools
pursuant to a plan for desegregation. The closing of a facility
built and maintained at the expense of local taxpayers is a
harsh remedy, which should only be employed if absolutely
necessary to achieve the goal of a unitary system after all other
reasonable alternatives have been explored. Where a district
court adopts such a measure, the inquiry before us is whether
the order was an abuse of discretion. See Ellis v. Board of
Public Instruction, 465 F.2d 878, 880 (5 Cir. 1972). The district
court must explicitly state its justification for ordering a school
closed, in order that we may properly make this determina-
tion.
Applying these principles to the order before us, we find
those regarding Alexandria Junior High Schools [sic] to have
been within the bounds of discretion. The unyielding racial
* Certain of the appellants have urged us to hold that there is a fun-
damental right to maintain a rural society separate and apart from the urban
environment; it is said to emanate from fundamental principles “beyond the
constitution.” While doubtless, the choice of rural residence and lifestyle
enjoys the protection of express and implied constitutional guarantees, there
is no broad, ephemera! right to a separate rural life which will defeat the
otherwise valid orders of a district court in furtherance of the long-
recognized constitutional mandate to desegregate.
65a
character of the Jones Street School was the worst problem
confronting the court. Specific findings were made to justify
the reassignment of pupils from Wards 2 and 11 to that facility,
and it appears that reasonable alternatives were fully ex-
plored. Participation of pupils from Buckeye and other areas of
Wards 2 and 11 was justified on the following grounds:
Although this parish first encountered integration
problems in 1965, and has had an active history of integra-
tion endeavor since that time, the Buckeye schools have
shouldered no responsibility. Out of a combined popula-
tion of 1306 students, 87 are being assigned to Jones
Street. They, like all the other students so assigned are
already bused, their buses simply are being turned in
another direction. They are the students in each ward
that are nearest to Jones Street. We find this alternative
to be the most equitable at our disposal.
Intercommunity busing into Alexandria does not begin until
the seventh and eighth grades, and involves only 205 pupils
under plan projections. We discern no basis for concluding that
the district court’s comment regarding rural neighborhood
schools reflected an improper disregard of equitable considera-
tion in constructing these zones of transfer; rather, it appears
that the court properly balanced the relevant competing con-
siderations. We therefore leave undisturbed those portions of
the order involving northeastern Rapides Parish.
We cannot lend our sanction so easily, however, to those
portions of the plan involving pupils and facilities in Wards 3
and 4. Here, as we have described, the district court elected to
close a predominantly white rural school, Forest Hill, and a
predominantly black school, Lincoln Williams, equidistant in
different directions from the town of Lecompte, and to trans-
fer their pupils to Lecompte schools. As far as we can deter-
mine, the only justification for closing Lincoln Williams was its
predominance of black pupils. The court admitted that Forest
Hill is more modern than Lecompte Elementary, but de-
scribed the latter as having “much the better location for
66a
purposes of integration,” in terms of distance for busing of
reassigned pupils. Alternatives are only sparingly mentioned.
These findings are an insufficient factual basis on which to
approve the closing of Forest Hill and Lincoln Williams.
Equally effective alternatives may exist which would avoid the
closing of a modern facility and the intercommunity transfer of
kindergarten pupils. These should be explored on remand and,
if the district court adheres to its present plan, specific reasons
for their rejection should be given. We cannot ignore the
district court's disregard of neighborhood considerations for
rural schools in this context, particularly where K-2 students
in Alexandria were spared transfer to the point that three
schools remain virtually all-black. Specific desegregation mea-
sures in southeastern Rapides Parish should be re-examined in
light of the full range of mitigating equitable considerations.
In passing on objections to the merits of the district court's
plan, we are left with the school board's argument that the
court’s order requiring immediate implementation only days
before the fall term was to begin constituted an abuse of discre-
tion. We flatly reject such a contention.
As counsel for the school board are no doubt aware, the
Supreme Court has repeatedly and firmly declared that school
systems must begin to operate immediately on a unitary basis
and that requests for delay must be viewed in light of the
passage of time since the inception of desegregation efforts.
“The burden on a school board today is to come forward with a
plan that promises realistically to work, and promises real-
istically to work now.” Green, supra, 391 U.S. 430, 439, 88
S.Ct. 1689, 1694, 20 L.Ed.2d 716, 724. The operative word is
now. See also Wright v. City Council of Emporia, 407 U.S. 451,
460, 92 S.Ct. 2196, 2202, 33 L.Ed.2d 51, 60 (1972); Swann,
svpra, 402 U.S. 1, 18, 28 L. Ed.2d 554, 565, 91S.Ct. 1267, 1275
(1971). Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, 396
U.S. 19, 20, 90 S.Ct. 29, 24 L.Ed.2d 19, 20 (1969); Dowell v.
Board of Education, 396 U.S. 269, 270, 90 S.Ct. 415, 416, 24
L. Ed. 2d 414, 416 (1969); Bradley v. School Board, 382 U.S. 108,
105, 86 S.Ct. 224, 225, 15 L.Ed.2d 187, 189 (1965); Rogers v.
67a
Paul, 382 U.S. 198, 199, 868.Ct. 358, 359, 15 L. Ed.2d 265, 267
(1965).
In the case sub judice, sixteen years of litigation have not
achieved the goal of a unitary system. Further, we note that the
school board did not aid the district court by proposing specific
remedial measures, having had the opportunity to do so long
before the beginning of the 1980 term. Finally, there has been
neither a showing nor even an allegation of harm resulting from
the court's implementation order sufficient to underly [sic] a
finding that discretion was abused.
Il. INTERVENTION BY FOREST HILL RESIDENTS
By the appeal docketed here as No. 80-3855, residents of the
town of Forest Hill challenge the denial of their intervention
into this suit, attempted after the district court's plan had been
originally proposed. The appellants claim entitlement to inter-
vention as a matter of right under Fed.R.Civ.P. 24(a)(2), and
assert that permissive intervention was proper under section
(b)(2) of that rule. They claim that no notice had been given
them from pleadings or proceedings that their school would be
affected until after the district court issued its plan, and assert
that no prejudice to other parties would result from their
intervention.
These arguments run afoul of a series of cases decided by this
court regarding intervention under Rule 24 in desegregation
cases. Clearly, the appellants were not entitled to intervene as
a matter of right. In United States v. Perry County Board of
Education, 567 F.2d 277, 279 (5 Cir. 1978), we held for the first
time that “parents seeking to intervene [in desegregation
cases] must demonstrate an interest in a desegregated school
system,” and affirmed the district court’s denial of intervention
on the ground that the movants were attempting to challenge
elements of the plan. This position was reaffirmed in Pate v.
Dade County School Board, 588 F.2d 501 (5 Cir. 1979), where it
was held that parents opposing facets of a desegregation plan
have no right to intervention under Rule 24(a)(2), and that
“(T]he parental interest that justifies permissive intervention
68a
is an interest in a desegregated school system.” 588 F.2d 501 at
503.
Even if we were to assume that the appellants stated a
judicially cognizable interest by opposing the desegregation
plan, it is clear that the district court did not abuse its discre-
tion by denying the motion. Under our decision in Hines v.
Rapides Parish School Board, 479 F.2d 762 (5 Cir. 1973), inter-
vention may be denied where existing parties to a lawsuit have
advanced the position which intervenors seek to promote, or
where the district court has already considered and passed on
that matter; here, the school board opposed the closure of the
Forest Hill facility, and the district court considered and
rejected its argument. Concluding that the denial of interven-
tion was proper, we do not address the appellants’ specific
arguments with regard to the closing of Forest Hill School.
Il. THE INJUNCTION AGAINST USE OF
FOREST HILL SCHOOL
By the appeal docketed as No. 80-3776, residents of Forest
Hill challenge the district court's permanent injunction of Sep-
tember 22, 1980, which prohibited any use of the Forest Hill
School grounds. A number of arguments are advanced toward
showing the invalidity of this order, as noted supra,
We will not, however, discuss those assertions in detail. We
realize that the district court was faced with what clearly
appears to have been an organized move to thwart its orders
when residents began to teach children at the closed facility.
An evidentiary hearing was held before the injunction issued,
at which Forest Hill parents testified that they had been pres-
ent at the school, and, with full knowledge of the court’s order
of closure, deliberately disobeyed it. On the other hand, while
action was necessary, the district court was also required to
observe the principle that an injunction is to be narrowly
tailored to remedy the specific action which gives rise to it. A
total prohibition on the use of a modern facility which could
serve many community purposes other than the teaching of
children seems extremely broad.
69a
In any event, we conclude that it is appropriate for the
district court to resolve this dispute, if application for relief
from the order is made to it following remand of the cause. The
lower court is in a far better position than this tribunai to
balance the competing interests involved,
IV. APPEALS FROM THE BUCKEYE DISPUTE
The remaining appeals’ are from orders issued by the dis-
trict court to protect the integrity of its desegregation plan
following an attempt by three pupils to enroll in a junior high
school other than that contemplated by the plan. Among the
most unfortunate occurrences in the long history of school
desegregation have [sic] been the employment of various legal
devices to thwart realization of the ultimate goal, whether for
an entire system or for particular pupils. Here, a novel scheme
was hatched with the aid of a state trial judge: the transfer of
custody for three girls to residents of a zone which permitted
attendance at the school to which they had previously been
assigned.
At the outset, we must restate several fundamental proposi-
tions which the parents involved and their counsel have chosen
to overlook. First, a federal court has the power to root out all
vestiges of state-sponsored segregation where school
authorities have failed to do so. Swann, supra. This broad
power undoubtedly includes the authority to rearrange atten-
dance zones and supervise student transfer policies. 7d. We
have held that in the case sub judice, the remedial power of the
district court was invoked by a finding that this system was not
unitary, and we have upheld those portions of the plan involv-
ing junior high school attendance zones.
While it has long been held that parents have a right to direct
the education of their children, Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268
U.S. 510, 45 S.Ct. 571, 69 L.Ed. 1070 (1925), such a right does
not give them the unqualified authority to choose a particular
7 These are docketed as numbers 80-3988, 81-3008, 81-3013, 81-3033, and
81-3083.
70a
public school, A federal district court’s desegregation order
Will bind the children affected, their parents, and state and
local officials, United States v, Hall, 472 F.2d 261.5 Cir, 1972),
We will first take up the district court's orders regarding
actions by the state court and the litigants before it, We find
the district court to have acted properly in removing the state
cases to federal court, in vacating the state judge's orders
afterward, and in the exercise of its jurisdiction and injunctive
power as to the state court and litigants,
There is absolutely no ground suggested to us or discernable
in the record on which we could find clearly erroneous the
district court's conclusion that these custody transfers were a
sham intended to avoid the effect of the desegregation orders,
Clearly, that is what occurred, One of the witnesses presented
by the government at the hearing on this matter was a school
bus driver, He testified that Ramona Carbo was picked up at
her parents’ home on Monday and Thursday mornings, and was
returned there on Wednesday and Friday afternoons, This
finding alone is sufficient to dispose of the argument that
matters of juvenile custody are reserved to the state courts; if
the sole purpose of a state judicial order is to thwart the
vindication of a federal constitutional guarantee, we will pierce
the veil of sham to prevent pretextual disregard of valid
remedial orders, .
It is also clear that the district court properly exercised its
power under 28 U.S.C, § 1442, in removing the state case to
federal court where the court was named as a defendant, and
that the court had broad power under the All Writs Act, 28
U.S.C, § 1651 to enjoin third parties, including state courts,
from interfering with its desegregation orders, See Cooper v,
Aaron, 358 U.S, 1, 78 S.Ct. 1401, 3 L, Ed.2d 5 (1958); United
States vu. Hall, supra; United States v. State of Teras, 356
F.Supp. 469 (E,D, Tex, 1972), aff'd, 495 F.2d 1250 (5 Cir, 1974),
The district court acted with both dispatch and prudence in
fashioning its injunctions against the state court, parents, and
pupils involved, After resistance had come to a head and then
collapsed, the court did not impose a penalty upon Judge Lee,
Tila
but accepted a promise to avoid further interference, This was
an act of no little tolerance where the state court caused several
third parties, most notably school officials, to be faced with
conflicting orders from state and federal courts, The district
court obviously, in all of these orders, kept in mind the princi-
ple that “state policy must give way when it operates to hinder
vindication of federal constitutional guarantees,” United
States v. Scotland Neck City Board of Education, 407 U.S,
484, 488, 92.S.Ct, 2214, 2216, 33 L,. Ed.2d 75, 80 (1972),
Finally, it is noteworthy that the state judge's actions appear
to have no basis in Louisiana law, Article 220 of the Louisiana
Civil Code, which we are told was the authority for Judge Lee's
ruling, is designed to be used primarily as authority for a
teacher to discipline students placed under his or her care, We
are unable to find any mention of a “provisional custodian” in
the context used by Judge Lee under Louisiana statutes or
case law. It is further apparent that the state judge either
ignored or was ignorant of the holding of the Louisiana
Supreme Court in Swope v. St. Marys Parish School Board,
256 La, 1110, 241 So.2d 238 (N70);
Our Court system should not be used as an instrument to
circumvent orders and decrees of a Federal Court in a
controversy in which the latter has already asserted its
jurisdiction, Any other course, if pursued regularly, will
set the State and Federal Courts into continuous and
chaotic conflict; and it will place litigants as well as the
District Judges of this State in an obviously untenable, if
not impossible, position, such a» would result in the pres-
ent case if we were to order the [State] District Judge
herein (and ultimately the defendants) to defy the pres-
ently existing orders of the Federal Court, 241 So,2d 238
at 242,
As Judge Lee flagrantly disobeyed the orders of a federal court
issued within the bounds of jurisdiction and discretion, ignored
the distinct contours of federal and state jurisdiction, dis-
regarded the clear command of his own State Supreme Court,
and blatantly overstepped his judicial role as mediator, choos-
72a
ing instead to act as advocate for a politically popular position,
it is not at all strange that he wound up as a leader without
troops, standing ineffectually at the school house door,
The injunctions lodged against the Rapides Parish sheriff
and the state of Louisiana must also be affirmed, As we have
noted, the decision of the Supreme Court in Cooper ve. Aaron,
supra, renders it clear that state officials are bound through
the supremacy clause by a federal court's desegregation order,
regardless of whether they acted in good faith or pursuant toa
nondiseretionary duty,
Of all of the orders issued by the district court during this
period, only one requires correction on remand, Insofar as the
court's order retaining the girls’ transcripts pending enroll-
ment in compliance with the plan operates to restrain them
from choosing to attend a private school, it must fail, In Pierce
v. Society of Sisters, supra, the Supreme Court established the
existence of a right to attend non-public schools as a con-
comitant of “the liberty of parents and guardians to direct the
upbringing and education of children under their control,” 268
U.S, 510, 584-85, 458,Ct, 571, 578, 69 L, Ed.2d 1070, 1078, The
retention of transcripts could also be viewed as an impermissi-
ble restraint on the constitutional right to travel, if a decision
were made to send the girls to schools outside of Rapides
Parish, If these three pupils choose to attend Rapides Parish
public schools, they may be ordered to attend that school
assigned them under the plan and their transcripts may be
withheld until compliance, within the discretion of the district
court, No such action, however, may be taken to compel their
attendance at public schools, and no penalty may be attached to
a decision not to do so,
CONCLUSION
Thus is concluded another chapter in the history of Rapides
Parish desegregation litigation. On the whole, the history is a
story of both tragedy and hope, Tragedy lies in the fact that
sixteen years have not been sufficient to eradicate the vestiges
of segregation, and that after the passage of so many years,
73a
certain elements of the community, including a member of the
state judiciary, are evidently willing to hinder the task and are
unwilling to bear any sacrifice. Hope lies in the real possibility
that the plan instituted by the district court in 1980, together
with whatever modifications the district court may implement
on remand, will finally result in the establishment of a unitary
system,
Several important lessons may be learned from the course of
this litigation to the present. One is that resistance will be
perpetually fruitless, The remedies afforded by the law to
those who feel aggrieved by their burden under a desegrega-
tion plan are a request for reconsideration by the district court
and appeal if it is refused. Defiance is the worst possible
course, for the second lesson is that such efforts along with
more subtle attempts to thwart the progress of desegregation
will only prolong the process and possibly increase the burdens
on all involved, Federal courts with continuing jurisdiction
over desegregation efforts will not ignore the task entrusted to
them by the Constitution and laws.
If all parties and affected persons will work together in good
faith, progress toward a unitary system can be smooth and
speedy, If maximum input and guidance are given a district
court engaged in the formulation of relief, the plan emerging
will necessarily be more equitable than one devised in an
atmosphere devoid of cooperation. What all parties to this suit
should bear in mind, is that when a unitary system is achieved,
litigation will end and full attention may be returned to the
business of educating children in the best way possible. The
words used by the Supreme Court to conclude its opinion in the
Swann case are instructive:
At some point, these school authorities and others like
them should have achieved full compliance with this
Court's decision in Brown I. The systems would then be
“unitary” in the sense required by our decisions in Green
and Alevander,
It does not follow that the communities served by such
systems will remain demographically stable, for in a grow-
ing, mobile society, few will do so. Neither school authori-
Tda
ties nor district courts are constitutionally required to
make year-by-year adjustments of the racial composition
of student bodies once the affirmation duty to desegregate
has been accomplished and racial discrimination through
official action is eliminated from the system. This does not
mean that federal courts are without power to deal with
future problems; but in the absence of a showing that
either the school authorities or some other agency of the
state has deliberately attempted to fix or alter demo-
graphic patterns to affect the racial composition of the
schools, further intervention by a district court should not
be necessary. 401 U.S. 1, 32, 91 S.Ct. 1267, 1284, 28
L.Ed.2d 554, 575-78.
The judgment of the district court is affirmed in part,
reversed in part, and remanded for proceedings consistent
with this opinion. The plan imposed by the district court will
remain in full force until such time as it may be amended below.
AFFIRMED IN PART and REVERSED IN PART; RE-
MANDED.
75a
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76a
APPENDIX H
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
No. 80-3722
D. C. Docket No. CA 10,946
VirRGIE LEE VALLEY, ET. AL.,
Plaintiffs-Appellees,
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Intervenor-Appellee,
versus
RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL BOARD, ET. AL.,
Defendants-Appellants.
APPEAL FROM THE
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA
Before COLEMAN, GARZA and SAM D. JOHNSON, Cir-
cuit Judges.
JUDGMENT
This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record
from the United States District Court for the Western District
of Louisiana, and was argued by counsel;
ON CONSIDERATION WHEREOF, It is now here
ordered and adjudged by this Court that the judgment of the
said District Court in this cause be, and the same is hereby,
affirmed in part and reversed in part; and that this cause be,
and the same is hereby remanded to the said District Court for
proceedings consistent with this opinion;
77a
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that appellants pay to
appellees, the costs on appeal to be taxed by the Clerk of this
Court.
May 18, 1981
IssuED AS MANDATE: AUG 24 1981
7TSa
APPENDIX I
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
No. 80-3855
D. C. Docket No. CA 10,946
VIRGIE LEE VALLEY, ET. AL.,
Plaintiffs-Appellees,
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Intervenor-Appellee,
versus
RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL BOARD, ET. AL.,
Defendants,
CLiypE HoLioway, ET. AL.,
Defendants-Appellants.
APPEAL FROM THE
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA
Before COLEMAN, GARZA and SAM D. JOHNSON, Cir-
cuit Judges.
JUDGMENT
This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record
from the United States District Court for the Western District
of Louisiana, and was argued by counsel;
ON CONSIDERATION WHEREOF, It is now here
ordered and adjudged by this Court that the judgment of the
said District Court in this cause be, and the same is hereby,
affirmed;
79a
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that appellants pay to
appellees, the costs on appeal to be taxed by the Clerk of this
Court.
May 18, 1981
ISSUED AS MANDATE JUN 9 198]
80a
APPENDIX J
VIRGIE LEE VALLEY, ET AL.,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Intervenor-Appellee,
vu
RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL BOARD, ET AL.,
Defendants-Appellants.
No. 80-3722.
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS,
FIFTH CIRCUIT.
Aug. 14, 1981.
ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
Before COLEMAN, GARZA and SAM D. JOHNSON, Cir-
cuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
On motion for rehearing the appellant Rapides Parish School
Board raises a single issue concerning the following provision
of the district court's order:
“3. Designation of Faculty and Other Staff. The Singleton
ratio of faculty and staff (31.5) as stated in our previous
decrees is confirmed and shall be maintained. More specif-
ically, the ratio of black principals shall be filled by pri-
ority at the beginning of each school year unless waived by
special order of this Court. It has come to our attention
that the ratio is one short, so that the first principal now to
be appointed must be black.
The current policy that a minority assistant principal
must be appointed as soon as the number of minority
students in a school reaches 20%, is now rescinded. This
policy, though helpful in the past, has resulted in over-
staffing in some instances, and under the plan now
adopted, is no longer necessary. It is now ordered that in
Sla
each school the assistant principal be of the race other
than that of the principal of that school.”
The Board maintains that the court below has enforced this
provision as a system-wide racial hiring quota, in con-
travention of Singleton v. Jackson Municipal Separate School
District, 419 F.2d 1211 (5 Cir. 1969), and its progeny. See also
Carter v. West Feliciana Parish School Board, 432 F.2d 875 (5
Cir. 1970); George v. Davis, 365 F.Supp. 446 (M.D.La.1973)
aff'd, 493 F.2d 663 (5 Cir. 1974). The United States, intervenor-
appellee, has argued that the challenged provisions relate only
to assignment, not hiring, and that they validly restate the
Singleton requirement that the ratio of black and white staff in
each school approximate the ratio in the parish as a whole.
In our opinion on the merits of this case, reported at 646 F.2d
925 (5 Cir. 1981), we affirm all portions of the district court's
order which wére not reversed, and we did not specifically
address this issue. We do not have a record before us sufficient
to show how the provision complained of has been enforced and
we therefore instruct the district court to re-examine this
matter on remand, in light of the authority cited.
SO ORDERED.
82a
APPENDIX K
UNITED STATES District Court,
W. D. LouIsiaANna,
ALEXANDRIA DIVISION.
AUG. 6, 1980.
Civ. A. No. 10946.
VirGie LEE VALLEY ET AL.
U,
RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL BOARD.
OPINION
NAUMAN 8S. SCOTT, Chief Judge.
This suit to integrate the public school system of Rapides
Parish, Louisiana has been on trial since March 23, 1965. It is
before us now on motions by the plaintiff and by the Govern-
ment (intervenor) for additional relief. This school system is
operating presently under our decree dated July 9, 1971, as
amended. The decree was agreed to by plaintiffs and defen-
dant. The Government took no appeal.
The issue presented by the motions is whether a unitary
system ever was achieved. In our preliminary judgment of June
6, 1980 we recognized that the system was not unitary; that the
plan of the Government's expert, Dr. Gordon Foster, was not
acceptable and was rejected; that a suggested plan would be
drawn by the Court, and that the filling of vacancies in the
office of principal at several schools was enjoined pending fur-
ther orders of the Court. Our suggested plan was filed on July
3, 1980, and comments and alternatives received. A suggested
alternative to our original junior high school plan was filed and
published on July 30, 1980. The hearing scheduled for August 1,
1980 was converted to a status conference since no additional
evidence was offered.
We have considered all of the alternatives to our original plan
as well as the responses and comments of the parties and
others. Based on this consideration we adopt the following:
88a
PLAN
The expertise of the undersigned consists of almost ten years
experience as a Federal District Judge in an area not unfamiliar
with the problems of school desegregation. The guidelines
utilized are the product of this experience.
I, PREPARATION
The scope of the evidence in the case presented at the hear-
ing beginning April 29, 1980 was limited to that part of the
Rapides Parish School system located in Wards 1, 8 and 9 which
comprised substantially less than the total Alexandria-
Pineville metropolitan area. We have informed the parties that
we consider the dimension of the matters at issue to be system-
wide. Since the evidence did not contain information sufficient
to evaluate the system outside Wards 1, 8 and 9 and since the
data on those three wards was incomplete (pupil locator maps,
etc.) we have utilized the services of Superintendent Nichols
(white), Assistant Superintendent Townsend (white), and
Assistant Superintendent Davis (black) to assemble and sub-
mit information as it was requested by us. This data can be
identified as Court Exhibits 1-20. Court Exhibit 1 was
requested by us from the Alexandria Daily Town Talk.
Il. GUIDELINES
There is one all-encompassing purpose: the adoption of a plan
which achieves the greatest amount of integration with a rea-
sonably assured prospect of success. Our use of all guidelines
set out below will be governed by their contribution to this
essential purpose. When they fail to contribute they will be
discarded.
1. Busing. Busing has been an essential element of our public
school systems for many years. A parent will accept extensive
busing to achieve an objective which he approves. He will
protest busing for purposes which he disapproves even though
the distance be short. Hence, it is not the busing itself but the
specific purpose which he approves or disapproves. The plan
Sda
will utilize busing purposefully and constructively, Busing
must be racially non-discriminatory.
2. Neighborhood Schools. We recognize that neighborhood
schools in metropolitan areas should exist but only to the
extent that they do not impair or inhibit the establishment of an
integrated school system. They do not exist outside metro-
politan areas. We recognize also that the neighborhood concept
is fundamental and most important in the early years of school
and that it becomes progressively less important as the pupils
become more sophisticated in the later years of elementary
school and in junior high school and high school. We shall
recognize the neighborhood concept but only to the degree that
it does not hinder or inhibit the establishment of a unitary
system,
3. Practicality. We shall use all tools lawfully available for
our purposes. We shall not adopt measures which are lawful,
but have no reasonable prospect of success. We shall give due
recognition to physical circumstance and to individual inter-
ests as they exist which can exert a substantial impact on our
prospects of success, and design remedies which will accommo-
date, where possible, such circumstances and individual inter-
ests,
Although we shall carefully balance the equities between the
black and white communities, this is not an end within itself
and must give way if it constitutes a substantial obstruction to
the successful implementation of the plan.
4. School Construction. Construction of new school build-
ings, disposition of old school buildings and school sites can
substantially affect the development of a unitary system.
III. SPECIFIC PROPOSALS
Although revision of pupil assignments was the principal
additional relief requested we have restated other elements of
the plan which have been established in plans previously
approved in these proceedings.
1. Pupil Assignment, At the close of the 1979-80 school year
Rapides Parish Public Schools were attended by 25,049 stu-
Sa
dents, 8,942 of whom were black and 16,107 white. This figure
includes the enrollment of three schools which are not properly
part of the integration plan. Kelso-Twin Cities is an alternative
school having a total enrollment of 126 students — 36 black and
%) white. Lakeside Elementary is a school for trainable men-
tally retarded children having 92 black and 61 white. St. Mary's
is a Catholic institution for mentally retarded children to which
the Rapides system contributes a total of 148 students — 21
black and 127 white.
PUPIL MEMBERSHIP AS OF MAY 31, 1980
SCHOOLS PUPILS TOTALS
B “ W
Aaron Elem. 270
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