Filed: Aug. 28, 1996
Latest Update: Feb. 21, 2020
Summary: United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit. No. 94-9355. Jerry LOCKETT, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF MUSCOGEE COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT, GEORGIA, et al., Defendants-Appellees. Aug. 28, 1996. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia. (No. 64-991-COL), J. Robert Elliott, Judge. Before COX and BARKETT, Circuit Judges, and MOORE*, Senior District Judge. BARKETT, Circuit Judge: Plaintiffs-appellants Jerry Lockett, et al., appeal the
Summary: United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit. No. 94-9355. Jerry LOCKETT, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF MUSCOGEE COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT, GEORGIA, et al., Defendants-Appellees. Aug. 28, 1996. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia. (No. 64-991-COL), J. Robert Elliott, Judge. Before COX and BARKETT, Circuit Judges, and MOORE*, Senior District Judge. BARKETT, Circuit Judge: Plaintiffs-appellants Jerry Lockett, et al., appeal the ..
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United States Court of Appeals,
Eleventh Circuit.
No. 94-9355.
Jerry LOCKETT, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
BOARD OF EDUCATION OF MUSCOGEE COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT, GEORGIA,
et al., Defendants-Appellees.
Aug. 28, 1996.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle
District of Georgia. (No. 64-991-COL), J. Robert Elliott, Judge.
Before COX and BARKETT, Circuit Judges, and MOORE*, Senior District
Judge.
BARKETT, Circuit Judge:
Plaintiffs-appellants Jerry Lockett, et al., appeal the
district court's order vacating all outstanding injunctions against
the Board of Education of Muscogee County, Georgia ("school
district"), and declaring that the school district had successfully
eliminated all vestiges of its dual education system and had
exhibited good faith in discharging its constitutional duties to
desegregate its schools.
Background
Plaintiffs, African-American students attending public school
in Muscogee County, commenced this class action over thirty-one
years ago, seeking to enjoin the Muscogee County school board from
operating a dual education system, and seeking a court-ordered
reorganization of the school system. In 1965 and 1968 the district
court denied Plaintiffs relief and those denials were affirmed on
*
Honorable John H. Moore II, Senior U.S. District Judge for
the Middle District of Florida, sitting by designation.
appeal. Lockett v. Board of Educ. of Muscogee County, 391 F.2d 272
(5th Cir.1968); Lockett v. Board of Educ. of Muscogee County,
342
F.2d 225 (5th Cir.1965). In 1971, however, following the decisions
in Green v. School Bd. of New Kent County,
391 U.S. 430,
88 S. Ct.
1689,
20 L. Ed. 2d 716 (1968), and Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg,
402 U.S. 1,
91 S. Ct. 1267,
28 L. Ed. 2d 554 (1971), this court
ordered the school district to present and implement a
desegregation plan consistent with the principles established in
Swann, Singleton v. Jackson Mun. Sch. Dist.,
419 F.2d 1211 (5th
Cir.1969), and Carter v. West Feliciana Parish Sch. Bd.,
432 F.2d
875 (5th Cir.1970). See Lockett v. Board of Educ. of Muscogee
County,
442 F.2d 1336 (5th Cir.1971). In response to this court's
order, the school district submitted a plan to the district court
to achieve student and faculty racial compositions proportionate to
the racial compositions of their respective populations
county-wide. That plan reads in pertinent part:
AMENDED PLAN TO DESEGREGATE THE SCHOOLS OF MUSCOGEE COUNTY,
GEORGIA
The Board of Education of Muscogee County School
District, in continuation of its effort to unify its schools
to eliminate every vestige of discrimination because of race
or color of its students and to maintain a fully desegregated
system, hereby adopts this Amended plan of Desegregation so as
to fully comply with the law in such cases made and provided.
The percentage of white and Negro students attending the
school in the County are approximately 70% white and 30%
Negro, and it is the purpose and intent of this Board to
obtain approximate proportionate representation of each race
in each school in the most efficient manner;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED:
STUDENT ASSIGNMENT
All white students, equal in number to 70% of the
capacity of the school to which they have been assigned,
living nearest to said school, and all Negro students, equal
in number to 30% of the capacity of the school to which they
have been assigned, living nearest to said school, shall
attend said school for the year beginning in September, 1971.
All other students assigned to said school shall be
assigned by the Superintendent and his staff to the school
nearest to the residence of said student which does not then
have its quota of white or Negro students as above stated.
All students who have not been assigned to any school for
the current Fall term, or who later enter the School System,
shall be assigned by the Superintendent and his staff to the
school nearest the residence of said student which then has
space available and has less than its quota of white or Negro
students, as the case may be, then assigned to said school.
There shall be no transfer or assignment of any student
during the entire school year, except in case, absent the
consideration of race, a change is educationally called for or
where compelling hardship or other good reason is shown by the
student.
In school years after the school year beginning in
September, 1971, the Board of Education, prior to the end of
such school year, shall determine the approximate percentage
of white and Negro students attending the school in this
District and assignment of students shall be made as above
provided so that the approximate number of white and Negro
students in each school shall be substantially the same as the
percentage of white and Negro students in the entire School
System.
The approved plan included a provision which created a continuing
obligation to make student assignments in proportion to the
county-wide racial composition consistent with the 1971 order. The
school district's proposal was approved by court order on July 14,
1971 ("1971 order"), and accordingly the parties were subject to
the court's supervision until such time as the district court
dismissed the order.1
1
In 1972 the order was amended to exempt first grade and
kindergarten students from the plan. The 1972 amendment also
stated:
The quota or percentage of white and Negro students in
each school in the next school term shall be
substantially the same as the percentage of white and
Throughout the 1970s the school district implemented student
reassignment and attendance zone adjustments in order to achieve
its goal of proportionate student representation, and submitted
annual reports describing its efforts and their effects on the
racial composition of the schools. By about 1973, 57 of the 64
schools had racial compositions within a 10% range of the
county-wide student racial composition, and an additional 5 schools
fell within a 20% range of the county-wide ratio. The school
district maintained relatively constant statistical racial
compositions within its schools up through the 1976-77 academic
year. Similarly, the racial compositions of faculty and staff
within most of the schools were within a 15% range of the
county-wide average from 1972 to 1980. The record does not contain
specific data describing the relative quality of facilities,
transportation, or extracurricular activities throughout the 1970s
and 1980s.
By the end of the 1970s the school district began reducing the
number of student reassignments and attendance zone adjustments.
During the same period that the district was curtailing its
affirmative desegregation efforts, the demographics of the county
began to shift, which resulted in a decrease in the number of white
students, an increase in the number of black students, and racially
Negro students in the entire school system at the end
of the current school term.
We find unpersuasive the school district's argument that
under this language, the plan's proportionate representation
requirement was not applicable to any school year after
1972-73. Indeed, the school district itself continued to
submit data on the racial composition within its schools
well into the 1980s.
polarized residential areas. By the mid-1980s the racial
compositions within many schools again were statistically
disproportionate with the county-wide ratios, and indeed, by 1991
a number of racially identifiable schools existed.2 Similarly, by
the mid-1980s the number of schools with acceptable faculty
compositions was declining. At no time prior to the commencement
of the current proceedings did the school district attempt to
dismiss or modify the 1971 order.
In 1991, Plaintiffs, citing the increase in racially
identifiable schools in the district, filed a motion seeking an
injunction and an order directing the school district to take
whatever action necessary to achieve proportionate representation.
The district court dismissed the motion as moot because the
original class of plaintiffs were no longer students; however, in
November of 1992, this court remanded the motion for consideration
on its merits pursuant to Graves v. Walton County Bd. of Educ., 686
F.2d 1135 (5th Cir., Unit B, 1982). Lockett v. Board of Educ. of
Muscogee County Sch. Dist.,
976 F.2d 648 (11th Cir.1992). Prior to
remand, however, the school district implemented a neighborhood
school plan, whereby cross-district busing would be eliminated and
elementary students would be assigned to schools in their local
neighborhoods, thus potentially aggravating the racial imbalances.
On May 21, 1992, Plaintiffs filed a motion seeking to enjoin
2
According to the school district's expert on desegregation,
by 1993, 23 of the 33 elementary schools, 3 of the 8 middle
schools, and 2 of the 7 high schools were no longer within a 20%
range of the county-wide student racial percentages. Only 15 of
the 48 schools were within a 15% range of the county-wide racial
percentage, whereas, 12 schools had student populations that were
more than 90% of one race.
implementation of the new neighborhood assignment plan during the
pendency of the appeal; however, the district court denied the
motion finding no irreparable harm, relying in part on the school
district's proposal to institute a magnet program and a
majority-to-minority transfer program. In 1993, Plaintiffs again
moved to enjoin the district's assignment plan, and again, the
court denied their motion. Finally, on June 7, 1993, the school
district moved for a final dismissal and a declaration of unitary
status.
On November 18, 1994, following an evidentiary hearing, the
district court granted the school district's motion, finding: (1)
the school district effectively had disestablished its dual system
in 1963; (2) the school district effectively had desegregated its
schools in the 1971-72 school year; (3) the school district had
maintained a high degree of racial balance in student assignments
for a longer period of time than most large counties in the
country; and (4) the racial imbalance exhibited in the 1980s and
1990s, and present today, resulted from demographic changes over
which the school district had no control. Based upon these
findings, the court ruled that the Muscogee County School District
had satisfied its burden of showing that it had successfully
eliminated the vestiges of the old dual system to the maximum
extent practicable, and that the school district had exhibited a
good faith commitment to the discharge of its constitutional
duties.
Discussion
In 1954, the Supreme Court recognized that state-compelled
segregation in education violates the Equal Protection Clause of
the Fourteenth Amendment. Brown v. Board of Ed., 347 U.S. 483,
495,
74 S. Ct. 686, 692,
98 L. Ed. 873 (1954) ("Brown I "). However,
the Court did not order the immediate eradication of
constitutionally violative dual school systems. Instead, the Court
ordered district courts to supervise school systems that had
previously practiced de jure segregation in their efforts to
effectuate the constitutional mandate of Brown I "with all
deliberate speed." Brown v. Board of Ed., 349 U.S. 294, 301,
75
S. Ct. 753, 757,
99 L. Ed. 1083 (1955) (" Brown II "). District
courts were instructed to assert jurisdiction over school systems
in order to ensure compliance with the courts' remedial orders and
the Constitution until such time as a district court determined
that the vestiges of past discrimination had been eliminated to the
maximum extent practicable. Swann, 402 U.S. at 15, 91 S.Ct. at
1275. To this end, a school district is obligated to comply in
good faith with the entire desegregation decree throughout the life
of the order, and must "take whatever [affirmative] steps might be
necessary to convert to a unitary system in which racial
discrimination would be eliminated root and branch,"
Green, 391
U.S. at 437-38, 88 S.Ct. at 1693-94. The purpose of such
remediation, however, is to eliminate the vestiges of
state-compelled dual systems, and not to remedy racial imbalances
unrelated to de jure segregation. Freeman v. Pitts,
503 U.S. 467,
494,
112 S. Ct. 1430, 1447,
118 L. Ed. 2d 108 (1992).
Forty-one years have passed since Brown I and Brown II, yet a
number of school systems, as well as the district courts that
retain jurisdiction over them, continue to struggle with the scope
and duration of their duties under Brown II and its progeny. In
this case the primary issue is whether Muscogee County's school
district fulfilled its obligations under the district court's 1971
desegregation order, and whether the district court correctly
terminated its jurisdiction over the case.
The school district argues, and the district court agreed,
that unitary status had been achieved in around 1980, and
therefore, the school district's obligations under the 1971 order
terminated at that time even though unitary status was not actually
declared until 1994. The school district also contends that the
district court did not err in finding that the racial imbalances
that currently exist are the result of demographic shifts, and are
not the vestiges of its prior dual system.
Plaintiffs argue that the school district's obligation to make
affirmative efforts to desegregate the school system commenced in
1971 and did not end until the district court declared unitary
status in 1994. During that time, however, the school district
failed to make good faith efforts to desegregate, as exemplified by
the district's curtailment of desegregation programs after 1980,
its refusal to implement majority-to-minority transfer programs,
and its implementation of a neighborhood school plan, which
increased racial imbalances. Thus, according to Plaintiffs, the
district court ignored the school district's failure to satisfy its
duties under the court order between about 1980 and 1994, the year
that the court actually declared unitary status.
Plaintiffs also argue that the school district failed to
proffer sufficient evidence to rebut the presumption that schools
that are racially identifiable are vestiges of prior
unconstitutional segregation. Plaintiffs argue that in ruling that
the current imbalances are due primarily to demographic shifts, the
district court failed to consider the adverse actions of the school
district, including the curtailment of student transfers and
attendance zone adjustments, the siting of schools, and the use of
mobile classrooms. Moreover, Plaintiffs claim that because the
school district failed to keep statistics on the effects of these
actions, Plaintiffs could not rebut the demographic data that the
school district presented.
Because the Muscogee County School Board did not seek a
declaration of unitary status prior to the current litigation, our
inquiry into whether the school district has attained unitary
status depends upon an examination of the school district's
desegregation efforts and their effects from 1971 until the
present. It is well-established that "persons subject to an
injunctive order issued by a court with jurisdiction are expected
to obey that decree until it is modified or reversed, even if they
have proper grounds to object to the order." Celotex Corp. v.
Edwards, --- U.S. ----, ----, 115 S. Ct. 1493, 1498,
131 L. Ed. 2d 403
(1995). The school district was subject to the 1971 court order
until such time as the district court vacated that order by
declaring that the school district had achieved unitary status and
complied with the order in good faith. Pasadena City Bd. of Ed. v.
Spangler,
427 U.S. 424, 439-40,
96 S. Ct. 2697, 2706,
49 L. Ed. 2d 599
(1976). Thus, to the extent that the district court ignored the
school district's actions after 1980, while the district was still
subject to the 1971 order, the court erred.
In determining whether a school district has complied with
the constitutional mandate of Brown I and Brown II, a district
court must examine student assignments, faculty and staff
assignments, facilities, extra curricular activities, and
transportation. Green, 391 U.S. at 437-38, 88 S.Ct. at 1693-94;
Board of Ed. of Oklahoma City Public Sch. v. Dowell,
498 U.S. 237,
250,
111 S. Ct. 630, 638,
112 L. Ed. 2d 715 (1991). More recently,
courts have also considered the relative quality of education
offered to black and white students.
Freeman, 503 U.S. at 492, 112
S.Ct. at 1446. Where a school district has a history of practicing
segregation, substantially disproportionate racial compositions
within the schools is presumed to be constitutionally violative,
and the school district bears the burden of proving that the
imbalances are not the result of present or past discriminatory
action on its part.
Swann, 402 U.S. at 25, 91 S.Ct. at 1281. In
determining whether the school district has satisfied that burden,
a district court should consider (1) whether the racial imbalances
are traceable, in a proximate way, to constitutional violations,
(2) whether the school district has exhibited a record of full and
satisfactory compliance with the decree, and (3) "whether the
school district has demonstrated, to the public and to the parents
and students of the once disfavored race, its good faith commitment
to the whole of the court's decree and to those provisions of the
laws and the constitution that were the predicate for judicial
intervention in the first place."
Freeman, 503 U.S. at 491, 112
S.Ct. at 1446.
The district court found, and the school district concedes,
that student assignments in the Muscogee County schools currently
are racially unbalanced. The parties also agree that the school
district previously had operated an unconstitutional dual system.
Thus, the first issue on appeal is whether the district court
clearly erred in ruling that the school district satisfied its
burden of showing that current racial imbalances are not caused by
prior unconstitutional practices, but instead, are the result of
demographic shifts within the county and the student population.
The district court in Freeman was presented with a factually
similar inquiry. 3 In that case, the DeKalb County School System,
which had previously practiced de jure segregation, voluntarily
proposed a plan to desegregate its school system. The district
court approved the proposed plan through a 1969 consent order which
called for the closing of all former de jure black schools and the
reassignment of students among the remaining schools. In 1976 the
district court ordered the school system to expand its
majority-to-minority student transfer program, to establish a
bi-racial committee to oversee the transfer program and boundary
line changes, and to reassign faculty to achieve racial balance.
In 1983, the district court again ordered an adjustment to the
majority-to-minority transfer program. In 1986, the school
district filed a motion for final dismissal of the court order, and
a declaration that the district had achieved unitary status.
3
For the facts underlying Freeman, and the district court's
analysis, see Freeman, 503 U.S. at 474-85, 112 S.Ct. at 1437-43.
Although the motion for dismissal was filed at a time when student
racial compositions in the schools were unbalanced, the school
system argued that the imbalances were due to demographic changes
independent of prior unconstitutional practices.
In analyzing whether the imbalances were attributable to the
dual system, or indeed, whether the prior de jure school
segregation had contributed to the county's demographics, the
district court focused on the interaction between the school
system's policies and the demographic shifts. To determine whether
the school district had "accomplished maximum practical
desegregation," the court examined the specific steps that the
school system had taken to combat the effects of demographic shifts
on the racial composition of the schools, particularly noting its
majority-to-minority transfer program, magnet school program, and
other racially integrated scholastic programs. Finding that the
school district's affirmative efforts to desegregate had little or
no offsetting effect on the racial mix, the district court
determined that the racial imbalances resulted almost completely
from the demographic shifts, and thus the imbalances were not due
to the school board's actions or inaction. Thus, the court
recognized that the impact of demographics on racial composition
can only be assessed relative to the other factors contributing to
the racial composition in the schools. In affirming the district
court's findings, the Supreme Court ratified the district court's
approach for analyzing the causes of racial imbalance within
schools.
In this case, the district court found that at least for the
first half of the 1970s the Muscogee County school district had
attained acceptable statistical racial compositions within its
schools. Having made that finding, the district court then
determined that any later imbalances were caused, not by factors
over which the school district had control, but by the demographic
shifts which took place after 1980. Consequently, the district
court effectively ruled that the school district was under no
obligation to make affirmative desegregation efforts after 1980.
The district court apparently assumed that once a school system has
achieved acceptable racial compositions within its schools, it has
no ongoing obligation to try to offset later imbalances caused by
circumstances over which it has no control. The district court
also assumed that demographic shifts are necessarily independent of
prior unconstitutional practices.
The district court, however, made some erroneous assumptions.
First, a school district does not escape its obligation to make
affirmative efforts to remedy racial imbalances simply because the
imbalances are caused by circumstances "over which [the school
district] has no control"; instead, while under court supervision
the school district must make efforts to eradicate all imbalances
which are traceable to prior de jure segregation. Freeman, 503
U.S. at 491, 112 S.Ct. at 1446. The school district bears the
burden of showing that no such causal link exists, and absent such
a showing, the district must continue to make affirmative efforts
to remedy racial imbalances while subject to court order.
Moreover, in the case of demographic shifts and their resulting
racial imbalances, the Supreme Court has recognized that school
segregation is a contributing cause of housing segregation,
Columbus Bd. of Ed. v. Penick,
443 U.S. 449, 465 n. 13,
99 S. Ct.
2941, 2950 n. 13,
61 L. Ed. 2d 666 (1979), and thus, demographic
shifts are not necessarily independent of prior unconstitutional
practices. Finally, in finding unitary status retroactively, the
district court failed to examine the relative quality of
facilities, transportation, and extracurricular activities that
existed in the 1970s and 1980s, conditions that must be considered
in conjunction with student assignments in determining unitary
status. Thus, the district court erred to the extent that it held
(1) that the school district's obligations to make affirmative
efforts under the 1971 order ceased upon achieving statistically
acceptable racial compositions in the 1970s; (2) that a school
system has no obligation to remedy imbalances caused by
circumstances over which the school district has no control; (3)
that demographics shifts are never caused by prior de jure school
segregation; and (4) that unitary status can be determined on
student and faculty assignments alone.
The proper analysis requires an examination of the various
factors that may have contributed to the current racial imbalance,
and to determine whether, in spite of the school system's
affirmative efforts to accomplish maximum practical desegregation,
the impact of demographic shifts still would have resulted in the
imbalance. Unlike the situation in Freeman, in which the DeKalb
County school district had implemented desegregation programs to
affirmatively combat demographic shifts, the school district in
this case actually reduced the number of student reassignments and
attendance zone changes just as demographic shifts began to
adversely affect the racial composition of the schools, and did not
implement new desegregation initiatives in their place. Moreover,
because of an absence of data, this court has no basis for
assessing the arguably adverse impact that the school board's
neighborhood assignment plan, grade structure changes, portable
classrooms, and student transfers had on racial composition within
the schools. Thus, on the record presented, we have no way of
assessing the impact of shifting demographics on the current racial
compositions compared with other variables, including the school
district's actions and inaction, which arguably exacerbated, rather
than alleviated, the racial imbalances during the 1980s and 1990s.
At the very least, we do not believe that the school district
carried its burden of showing that current imbalances, caused by
demographic shifts or otherwise, are not the vestiges of
unconstitutional practices.
Under the second factor in Freeman, this court must look at
the degree to which the school district complied with the 1971
order throughout the life of the order. See Freeman, 503 U.S. at
491, 112 S.Ct. at 1446; see also
Dowell, 498 U.S. at 249, 111
S.Ct. at 637 ("[I]n deciding whether to modify or dissolve a
desegregation decree, a school board's compliance with previous
court orders is obviously relevant."). The terms of the 1971
order, which the school district itself drafted, obligated the
school district to annually determine the county-wide racial
composition of the students within the district, and to reassign
students so that the racial composition within the schools would be
substantially the same as the composition county-wide. Moreover,
the explicit purpose of the order was to eliminate every vestige of
discrimination and to maintain a fully desegregated system.
Although a school district is not constitutionally required to
exhibit a particular racial mix at all times, or to make
year-by-year adjustments, Swann, 402 U.S. at 24,
32, 91 S. Ct. at
1280, 1284, a school district must make affirmative efforts to
comply with the desegregation decree until a district court has
declared that unitary status has been achieved.
The record in this case shows that the Muscogee County school
district did make annual student reassignments and attendance zone
adjustments for most of the 1970s. The statistical data cited in
the district court's order indicates that for at least six years
the district maintained racial compositions within the schools
proportionate to the racial composition of the county's entire
student population. Thus, the record supports a finding that the
school district complied with the court order with respect to
student and faculty assignments throughout the 1970s. However, the
school district did not request a declaration of unitary status
until 1993, and therefore, it had a continuing obligation to abide
by the order until such time as the district court modified or
vacated the order. The record reflects, and the district court
found, that by 1980 the school district stopped making the
adjustments it had made in the 1970s, and that the curtailment of
desegregation efforts may have contributed to the subsequent racial
imbalances. In addition, the school district implemented a
neighborhood assignment plan, which required elementary students to
attend local neighborhood schools and eliminated cross-district
busing. Not only did the neighborhood plan have the potential to
exacerbate segregation, it directly contravened the clear mandate
of the order. Thus, the record suggests that although the school
district initially complied with the 1971 order, in about 1980 the
district unilaterally decided that it had satisfied its
obligations, and based upon that decision, it essentially ignored
the desegregation decree for the last fourteen years that it was
under the court's supervision.
Under the third factor in Freeman, before divesting itself of
jurisdiction, a district court must determine whether the school
district has complied in good faith with the desegregation decree
since it was entered and with the constitutional principles it
embraces. Freeman, 503 U.S. at 497, 112 S.Ct. at 1449. The good
faith requirement assures parents, students, and the public that
they will be protected against further injuries or stigma,
id., by
making "it unlikely that the school district would return to its
former ways,"
Dowell, 498 U.S. at 247, 111 S.Ct. at 636-37; see
also Morgan v. Nucci,
831 F.2d 313, 321 (1st Cir.1987) ("a finding
of good faith ... reduces the possibility that a school system's
compliance with court orders is but a temporary constitutional
ritual"). In addition, if the school district has demonstrated its
good faith, "[t]he causal link between current conditions and the
prior violation is even more attenuated." Freeman, 503 U.S. at
496,
497, 112 S. Ct. at 1448, 1449. When a school district has not
demonstrated good faith under a plan to remedy violations, the
Supreme Court has approved ongoing supervision.
Id.
As noted above, after the school district had achieved
proportionate representation for a number of years, it essentially
stopped reassigning students and rezoning—activities that ensure
racial balance. Moreover, the district never implemented a
majority-to-minority transfer program, a tool basic to "every"
desegregation program,
Swann, 402 U.S. at 26, 91 S.Ct. at 1281.
Indeed, through its neighborhood assignment plan, the district
affirmatively increased racial imbalances. Finally, "[i]t is for
the court of first instance to determine the question of the
validity of the law, and until its decision is reversed for error
by orderly review, either by itself or by a higher court, its
orders based on its decision are to be respected, and disobedience
of them is contempt of its lawful authority, to be punished."
Spangler, 427 U.S. at 439, 96 S.Ct. at 2706 (quoting Howat v.
Kansas,
258 U.S. 181, 190,
42 S. Ct. 277, 281,
66 L. Ed. 550 (1922)).
Although the school district could have sought modification or
termination of the order at any time, it had no authority to decide
unilaterally that it had achieved unitary status and had complied
with the 1971 order in good faith. Because the district did not
seek termination of the order through the proper judicial channels,
prior to 1993 the district court never got the opportunity to
contemporaneously review all of the other factors which indicate
the achievement of unitary status. Given the district's failure to
abide by its obligation to make affirmative efforts to desegregate
through much of the 1980s and 1990s, and its disregard for the
judicial decree, we believe the school district did not exhibit
good faith for the last ten to fifteen years that it was subject to
the 1971 order.
In summary, the school district failed (1) to meet its burden
of showing current imbalances are not vestiges of its prior
unconstitutional practices, (2) to comply with the 1971 order
throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and (3) to evince a good faith
commitment to the court's order and the principles established in
Brown. In light of these deficiencies, it is not clear whether the
school board's actions after 1980 exacerbated, rather than
alleviated, school segregation in Muscogee County at a time when
the district was still subject to court order. Therefore, we hold
that the district court erred in divesting itself of jurisdiction.
Accordingly, the district court must retain jurisdiction in order
to monitor the progress of the school district's desegregation
efforts until such time as a reliable body of data exists to assure
the district court that the school district has desegregated its
schools to the maximum extent practicable. In particular, the
district court should assess the school district's efforts in, and
commitment to, combating imbalances by evaluating its new
majority-to-minority transfer program, magnet school program, and
any other programs that can be implemented in order to ensure
long-term desegregation.4 The school district also should begin
compiling statistics comparing the quality of the education between
4
In both its order denying Plaintiffs' 1991 motion to enjoin
the neighborhood assignment plan and its order vacating
jurisdiction, the district court relied upon the school board's
promises to implement an effective majority-to-minority transfer
program and a magnet school program. However, this court does
not have any information regarding the scope of those programs,
and whether they are having any appreciable effect on school
desegregation efforts.
those schools with a majority of white students and those schools
with a majority of black students so that upon the district court's
review of the school system's compliance with its desegregation
decree, quality of education can be assessed along with student
assignments. See generally Freeman, 503 U.S. at 492, 112 S.Ct. at
1446 (It is an appropriate exercise of discretion to address not
only the elements of a unitary system discussed in Green, but to
"inquire whether other elements ought to be identified, and to
determine whether minority students were being disadvantage in ways
that required the formulation of new and further remedies to insure
full compliance with the court's decree.").
Because the parties and the district court agree that unitary
status has been achieved with respect to faculty and staff
assignments, facilities, transportation, and extracurricular
activities, the district court's order divesting itself of
jurisdiction over these matters is affirmed.
Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is affirmed in
part, reversed in part, and remanded for the district court to
retain jurisdiction consistent with the principles discussed above.
AFFIRMED in part; REVERSED in part; and REMANDED.
