Flagler's schools today ensure equal opportunity for every child by
enlightened, caring teachers and administrators. But back in the day
much struggle was required to achieve progress. The1972 school
desegregation court case below reminds us of how far we've come.
Flagler was the last school district to desegregate in
Florida, when a federal judge threw out the district's argument that
there were "no blacks" in the county only "Orientals." Said the federal
judge
: “In the long march from Mansfield this Court has seen, heard, or heard of everything - everything, that is, until today.” (United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, 1972. No. 71-2323)
Excerpt from the Court Decision:
457 F.2d 1402
UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
FLAGLER COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Defendants, James O.
Craig, Supt. of Schools, School Board of Flagler
County, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 71-2323.
United States Court of Appeals,
Fifth Circuit.
March 29, 1972.
Stanley D. Kupiszewski, Jr., DeLand, Fla., for defendant-appellant; James O. Craig, pro se.
Jerris Leonard, Asst. Atty. Gen., Brian K.
Landsberg, Atty., U. S. Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., John L.
Briggs, U. S. Atty., John D. Roberts, Asst. U. S. Atty., Jacksonville,
Fla., David L. Norman, Asst. Atty. Gen., Roderick N. McAulay, Atty.
Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., for plaintiff-appellee.
Before JOHN R. BROWN, Chief Judge, and INGRAHAM and RONEY, Circuit Judges.
JOHN R. BROWN, Chief Judge:
1.
As
a last gasp in the struggle against desegregation in the Flagler County
(Florida) School District, Superintendent James O. Craig, now alone and
unaided by the school board, appeals pro se from the District Court's
order enjoining the operation of racially segregated public educational
facilities and requiring the immediate implementation of a unitary
school system, including compliance with the semi-annual reporting
provision of Singleton v. Jackson Municipal Separate School District, 5
Cir., 1970, 426 F.2d 1364.1
2
In the long march from Mansfield this Court has seen, heard, or heard of everything-everything, that is, until today.
3
Here
the District Court, after finding that Flagler County was operating a
dual school system, ordered the immediate implementation of a unitary
school system on August 7, 1970. The School District resisted, arguing
that it did not know what the term "race" or "ethnic origin"
contemplated. It contended that it could not assure that Negro students
were not being discriminated against because it did not have a
Congressional definition of the term "Negro." What began as an ingenius
quandry soon became disingenuous when HEW offered these definitions:
Negro: -
persons considered by themselves, by the school or by the community to be of African or Negro origin.
Oriental:
persons considered by themselves, by the school or by the community to be of Asian origin.
Similar guidelines were announced for identifying
American Indians, Spanish Surnamed Americans and All Others. Thereupon,
the School District blithely filed a Supplemental Report identifying
all teachers and students in the District as "Orientals," since they
were so "considered by the school." Therefore, it reasoned, there was no
discrimination, since there was only one race in the entire school
district (i. e., "Orientals") and it could not be found to be in
noncompliance with Constitutional standards.
With no surprise to anyone the District
Court summarily rejected this absurdity and to the credit of the School
District and the good sense of its members, the Board consented to a
decree, avoiding any further embarrassment by urging that contention in
this Court. The School Superintendent, who was named as a
party-defendant in the suit below as a matter of form, appeals singly
pro se from the District Court's order.
His argument is that he cannot enforce the
District Court's order because it contains no definition of what is a
Negro and therefore, he contends, the order is vague and uncertain.
Justice Douglas's statement in Tijerina v. Henry, 1970, 398 U.S. 922, 90
S.Ct. 1718, 26 L.Ed.2d 86, sufficiently answers that argument-"One
thing is not vague or uncertain, however, and that is that those who
discriminate against members of this and other minority groups have
little difficulty in isolating the objects of their discrimination." The
record indicates that in the past the School District has apparently
had no difficulty identifying Negroes for the purposes of segregating
them. For desegregation they can be identified with similar ease.
Appellant's other argument, that he does
not know how to implement the District Court's mandate that
discrimination in the system be rooted out completely by use of
non-discriminatory assignment of students (as the Trial Court suggests,
on the basis of alphabetical order) is without any redeeming merit.
Whether viewed as frivolous under our Rule
20, which it clearly is, or on the merits-or more accurately, the total
lack of merits-the appeal utterly fails.
Affirmed.
1. The United States instituted the present
action nearly six months after the entry of a consent decree providing a
desegregation plan for the county, because the first semi-annual report
required by that decree failed to include statistical data relating to
the racial composition of student bodies and faculties
2. Jackson v. Rawdon, 5 Cir., 1956, 235 F.2d 93, cert. denied, 352 U.S. 925, 77 S.Ct. 221, 1 L.Ed.2d 160
3
See, e. g., Hernandez v. Driscoll
Consolidated Independent School District, 2 Race Rel.L.R. 329
(S.D.Tex., January 11, 1957). There, the school district tried to
circumvent an order of the State Supertendent of Public Instruction,
promulgated as a result of a court order in Delgado v. Bastrop Ind.
School Dist., Civil No. 388 (W.D.Tex., June 15, 1948). The
Superintendent's order had permitted segregation of Mexican Americans in
the first grade only-as a means of combating a prevalent language
deficiency. Driscoll Independent School District's coup was to keep
Mexican American students in the first grade for the first four years of
their educational careers...
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