The appeal in these three consolidated cases arose out of like claims asserted by various inmates of the North Carolina Correctional System to the effect that, by failing to provide them with adequate legal library facilities, the State was denying to them reasonable access to the Courts and equal protection of the laws as guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The District Court granted plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment and required the responsible State officials to submit a proposed plan for implementing the State's obligation to provide adequate library facilities for the use of indigent prisoners seeking to file pro se habeas or civil rights actions, or an acceptable alternative therefor. The State, obedient to this order, filed a plan for prison legal research facilities. It would seem that at this point the petitioners, among other things, objected to the omission from the plan of any legal defenders' program by way of a supplement to the library facilities proposed under the plan. The Court accordingly ordered counsel for all parties to submit briefs on the issue of whether an independent attorneys' office, supplementary to the library facilities was necessary to satisfy proper constitutional standards. After consideration of the briefs filed, the Court refused to require the State to establish an independent attorneys' office and approved, with modification, the library controversy.

Both the State and the petitioners have appealed the State from the order for summary judgment because it contends it is without any obligation to provide prisoners with legal research facilities or an alternative therefor, and the plaintiffs from the order approving, with modification, the proposed plan, because they urge such plan is inadequate.

We affirm the action of the District Court in granting summary judgment and, with a minor modification, in approving the plan submitted as satisfying the constitutional obligation of the State to furnish either legal research facilities to the inmates of its correctional system or an acceptable alternative therefor, in accordance with the provisions of the order for summary judgment as granted by the District Court.

The North Carolina Department of Correction has custody of approximately 10,000 prisoners. These prisoners are housed in some 80 prison units situated in 67 different counties, stretching from one end of the State to the other. The population in these units varies from 1086 in Central Prison to as little as 13 in the Warrenton Unit and the units stretch from the Carrituck Subsidiary unit in the east, to the Haywood County Subsidiary unit in the west, a distance of 475 miles. Fifteen of the units house less than a hundred prisoners, fifty from 100 to 200 prisoners, and 10 house over 200 prisoners. The reason for this diffusion of facilities and wide distribution of the prison population is the desire to facilitate work release and other rehabilitative programs and, wherever thought feasible, to keep the prisoners near their families and within home counties, calculated to aid in their subsequent successful re-entry into society. The only unit having a writ room and the semblance of a legal library is the Central Prison in Raleigh. Under the plan approved by the District Court, there would be "approximately seven core libraries located in units throughout the state. Each of these units * * * (would) service a number of designated institutions. In selecting which units * * * (would) be the site of libraries, the Department of Correction * * * (would) consider from which units the most petitions are most likely to originate, and further it * * * (would) consider geographic access." The site selections, however, were subject to the approval of the Court. The plan, also, had various provisions whereby the facilities would be made available to the prisoners.1 The plan, also, contemplated a library consisting of certain specified legal reports, statutes or treatises.2

The argument of the State that it was not obligated to submit such a plan and that the grant of summary judgment to require such submission is without merit. Barring the development of an acceptable alternative, the State was bound to make available on some reasonable basis to the inmates of its penal institutions adequate legal research facilities. The District Court extended to the State an opportunity to present an acceptable alternative. The State did not offer such alternative. Under those circumstances, its duty was plain: The State was obligated to provide the inmates with adequate legal research facilities. Its admitted failure to do so warranted the grant by the District Court of summary judgment.

Petitioners, on the other hand, argue that the plan, as approved, as satisfying the requirements of the order for summary judgment, is deficient in that it fails to include provision for an independent attorneys' office to supplement the library facilities made available to the inmates and that the library facilities themselves are not extensive enough. The District Court, while finding that the addition of an independent attorneys' office would be helpful, held that the State was not obligated to provide such additional assistance. In cases which have arisen since the pioneer authority, Gilmore v. Lynch (N.D.Cal.1970) 319 F. Supp. 105, aff. sub. nom. Younger v. Gilmore (1971) 404 U.S. 15, 92 S. Ct. 250, 30 L. Ed. 2d 142, it has been generally assumed that adequate legal research facilities and an acceptable legal assistance program are to be thought of as alternatives and not as supplements to each other in the discharge of the State's obligation in this area. See Kirby v. Ciccone (8th Cir. 1974) 491 F.2d 1310, 1312; Noorlander v. Ciccone (8th Cir. 1973) 489 F.2d 642, 650-1; Johnson v. Anderson (D.Del.1974) 370 F. Supp. 1373, 1385; cf. Ross v. Moffitt (1974) 417 U.S. 600, 616-18, 94 S. Ct. 2437, 41 L. Ed. 2d 341. We agree and are of opinion that the District Court correctly ruled that the State is under no constitutional duty to offer the inmates of its penal institutions both adequate legal research facilities and an independent attorneys' office, however helpful the dual service might be.3

In view of the great variety in prisoner population in the many diffuse and widely distributed prison installations in the North Carolina prison system, we, also, find that the provisions for the use of the facilities and the adequacy of the facilities themselves, meet constitutional standards save in one particular. The instance in which we are of the opinion the plan is deficient is the differentiation made in the rights of male and women prisoners. Women prisoners are afforded under the plan less accessibility to legal research facilities than male prisoners. The plan states no substantial reason for this discrimination nor is one apparent in the record. See Reed v. Reed (1971) 404 U.S. 71, 76, 92 S. Ct. 251, 30 L. Ed. 225; Eslinger v. Thomas (4th Cir. 1973) 476 F.2d 225, 230-1. Without such a showing, the discrimination against female prisoners is invalid. The plan must be modified by removal of this discrimination.

As modified, the decree of the District Court herein is affirmed.