Samnorwood Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Texas Educ. Agency, No. 06-41347 (Jun. 24, 2008)
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (LA, MS, TX) has ruled that a federal court desegregation order is not applicable to two Texas school districts that, having voluntarily and completely desegregated by vote of their respective school boards prior to the desegregation suit being filed, were not parties to the suit and never under a desegregation order. The U.S. government brought the suit in 1970 against a number of districts and the Texas Education Authority (TEA), and a U.S. district court found that the districts were responsible for maintaining a dual school system and that TEA had aided their efforts. The court issued a desegregation order stating, “[TEA] shall not permit, make arrangement for or give support of any kind to student transfers, between school districts, when the cumulative effect, in either the sending or receiving school or school district, will be to reduce or impede desegregation, or to reinforce, renew, or encourage the continuation of acts and practices resulting in discriminatory treatment of students on the grounds of race, color, or national origin.” Under Texas law, any student eligible for enrollment may transfer from his home district to any other district if the parents and the receiving district agree. Samnorwood and Harrold Independent School Districts, small rural districts that depend on transfers for continuing financial viability, both ran afoul of the desegregation provision in 2004 when TEA found they had failed report some transfers as TEA required under the desegregation order. They brought a legal action challenging the fines TEA imposed and the desegregation order itself, both as applied to them and on its face. The district court held it had not exceeded its own remedial power in entering the desegregation order and that the order “properly applied statewide because it was meant to eliminate the vestige of discrimination that remained from the fact that Texas operated a ‘state-wide dual school system prior to desegregation in the 1960s.’” Although the court ruled that the districts were not be to sanctioned in this case, it held TEA was free to sanction schools for failing to report transfers in the future.
The Fifth Circuit reversed. After finding that the school districts had legal standing to bring their suit, the appeals court first addressed their claim that the desegregation order’s transfer provision exceeded the district court’s power because it was “aimed at eliminating a condition that does not violate the Constitution or does not flow from such a violation.” The court agreed with the districts that there was no evidence that either of them had engaged in intentional discrimination and, therefore, “allowing the districts to remain under the desegregation order would improperly impose a desegregation remedy where there has been no showing or finding of a constitutional violation.” The appeals court rejected the lower court’s holding that TEA’s enforcement of the transfer rules was proper because the districts were part of a statewide dual school system, as well as the notion that the desegregation order applied to the districts because TEA “funded some segregated schools at the time” the order was entered. The court cited past decisions finding that a federal court cannot impose liability on individual school districts on a theory holding them presumptively responsible for actions of the state or another governmental entity and that “one cannot presume that racial imbalances between separate school districts result from unconstitutional discriminatory acts on the part of those school districts.” However, the court warned school districts that its ruling was not “a license to discriminate” and that evidence of discrimination in transfer decisions would subject them to suit and judicial remedy.
Samnorwood Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Texas Educ. Agency, No. 06-41347 (Jun. 24, 2008)