Shelby County v. Holder Brief Amici Curiae

    IN THE

(Umtrt of tlw Unittb ^tafro
O ctober T e r m , 1970

No.

T h e  B oard oe P ublic  I n str u c tio n  of P in ella s  C o u n ty , 
F lorida, et al., Petitioners,

v.

L eon  W . B radley, J r., et al.

PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI 
TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

F rederick  B ernays W ie n e r ,
1750 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., 
Washington, D. C. 20006,
Counsel for the Petitioners.

E dward A. T u r v ille ,
825 Florida Office Building,
St. Petersburg, Florida 33701,

Of Counsel.

P ress of Byron S. Adams P rinting, Inc., Washington, D. C.



INDEX

Opinions b elow ........................................................................ 1

Jurisdiction ............................................................................ 2

Questions presented ...........................................................  2

Constitutional provisions and statutes in volved ..........  3

Statement ................................................................................  4
A. Earlier proceedings...............................................  4
B. Factual background ...............................................  5
C. Action of the court b e lo w .....................................  8
D. Consequences of the ruling b e lo w .........................  11

Reasons for grating the w r i t ................................................ 11

Conclusion ................................................................................  24

Page

Appendix A—Opinions b e lo w ...........................................  A1
(1) First o p in io n .............................................  A1
(2) Opinion on rehearing.................................A17

Appendix B—District court judgment following re­
mand ......................................................................A34

AUTHORITIES
C ases :

Alexander v. Board of Education, 396 U.S. 1 9 ........ 12, 23
Atlanta Motel v. United States, 379 U.S. 2 4 1 ..........  22
Avery  v. Wichita Falls Indep. Sch. Dist., 241 F. 2d

230, certiorari denied, 353 U.S. 938 .........................  13
Bell v. School City of Gary, Indiana, 324 F.2d 209, 

certiorari denied, 377 U.S. 924 .................................13,19



n Index Continued

Briggs v. Elliott, 132 F. Supp. 776 ............................... 13
Brown v. Board of Education I, 347 U.S. 483 ..........  12
Cardona v. Power, 384 U.S. 672 .....................................  22
Cassell v. Texas, 339 U.S. 282 .......................................  23
Deal v. Cincinnati Board of Education I, 369 F.2d 55,

certiorari denied, 389 U.S. 847 ...................................  13
Deal v. Cincinnati Board of Education II, 419 F.2d

1387 ................................................................... .............. 13
Downs v. Board of Education of Kansas City, 336

F.2d 988, certiorari denied, 380 U.S. 9 1 4 ..............  13
Ellis v. Board of Public Instruction of Orange

County, 423 F.2d 203 ...................................................  8
Evans v. Ennis, 281 F.2d 385, certiorari denied, 364

U.S. 933 ............................................................................  13
Evers v. Jackson Sc. Sch. Dist., 328 F.2d 408 ..........  13
Gaston County v. United States, 395 U.S. 285 ..........  22
Green v. County School Board, 391 U.S. 430 ............ 5,13
Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U.S. 641 ............................. 22, 23
Kemp  v. Beasley III, 423 F. 2d 8 5 1 .............................  13
Keyes  v. School District No. One, Denver, 303 F.

Supp. 289 ........................................................................ 21
Matter of Addabbo v. Donovan, 22 App. Div. 2d 383,

256 N.Y. Supp. 2d 1 7 8 .................................................  21
Offermann v. Notkowski, 378 F. 2d 2 2 .........................  13
Singleton v. Jackson Municipal Separate School

Dist., 419 F.2d 1211 .....................................................  10
South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 3 0 1 ............... 22
Springfield School Committee v. Barksdale, 348 F.2d

261 ....................................................................................  13
Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202 .....................................  23
Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Educa­

tion I, 369 F.2d 2 9 .........................................................  13
Swann v. Charlotte-Mechlenburg Board of Educa­

tion II, certiorari granted, 399 U.S. 926, No. 281,
this Term ............................................................... 11,13, 24

United States v. Jefferson County Board of Educa­
tion, 372 F.2d 836, on rehearing in banc, 380 F.2d 
385, certiorari denied sub nom. Caddo Parish 
School Board v. United States, 389 U.S. 840 .. .5,14, 21 

United States v. School District 151 of Cook County,
404 F.2d 1 1 2 5 .................................................................13,21

Page



Index Continued 111

C o n st itu t io n  of t h e  U n ited  S t a t e s :

XIV Amendm ent...............................
Section 1 .....................................
Section 5 .....................................

XV Amendment ...............................

Page

........ 2,22

........ 3,23
2, 3,11, 22
.........  22

S t a t u t e s :

Civil Rights Act of 1964, Pub. L. 88-352, 78 Stat 241
14 20 21 22

Section 401(b) .............................. 2, 3,11, U , 17, 21, 23
Section 407(a) .............................. 2, 3,11,14, 20, 21, 23

42 U.S.C. § 2000c(b) .........................................................  3
42 U.S.C. § 2000c-6(a) .....................................................  3

M iscella n eo u s  :

110 Cong. Rec.:
p. 2280 .......................................................................... 17
p. 2805 .......................................................................... 17
p. 3 7 1 9 ..........................................................................  17
p. 6417 .......................................................................... 17
p. 11926 ........................................................................ 18
p. 11929 ........................................................................ 18
pp. 12436-37 ............................................................  18
pp. 12438-41 ............................................................  18
pp. 12706 et seq.........................................................  18
p. 1 2714 ........................................................................ 18
pp. 12715, 12717 .........................................................  19
p. 12717 ........................................................................ 19
pp. 12817 et seq.........................................................  20
p. 13310 ........................................................................ 20
p. 133312 ......................................................................  20
p. 14239 ........................................................................ 20
p. 14511 ........................................................................  20
pp. 14631, 15869 .......................................................... 20

H.R. 7152, 88th Cong., 1st sess..........................15,16,17,18
H.R. Doc. 124, 88th Cong., 1st sess.:

p. 6 ................................................................................  15
p. 7 ................................................................................  15



IV Index Continued

Page
H.R. Rep. 914, 88th Cong., 1st sess.............................. 16

p. 5 ................................................................................ 17
p. 7 ................................................................................ 18
p. 8 4 .............................................................................. 17
Id., Part 2, pp. 21-22................................................  16

Sen. 1731, 88th Cong., 1st sess......................................15,16



IN THE

Supreme GImtrt nf % llUnxtib States
O ctober T er m , 1970

No.

T h e  B oard of P u blic  I n str u c tio n  of P in ella s  C o u n ty , 
F lorida, et al., Petitioners,

v.

L eo n  W . B radley, J r., et al.

PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI 
TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

T h e  B oard of P u blic  I n str u c tio n  of P in ella s  C o u n ty , 
F lorida, and others, your petitioners, pray that a writ of 
certiorari issue to review the judgment of the United States 
Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, entered in the 
above-entitled case on July 1, 1970.

OPINIONS BELOW

Neither the first opinion of the court below (Appendix 
A (l) , infra, pp. A1-A16), later withdrawn on rehearing, 
nor the second opinion of the court below (Appendix A (2), 
infra, pp. A17-A33), has yet been reported.



2

JURISDICTION

The first opinion of the court below was entered on 
July 1, 1970 (Appendix A ( l) , infra, p. A l) . A timely 
petition for rehearing, resulting in a new opinion, was 
denied on July 28, 1970 (Appendix A (2), infra, pp. A17, 
A29). The Clerk of the Fifth Circuit advises that no 
formal judgments as mandates are now entered in school 
board cases, and that the opinion is issued as and for the 
mandate in all such cases.

QUESTIONS PRESENTED

1. Whether it is lawful to direct classification of school 
children by race in order to remove inequities in education 
that were created by racial classification.

2. Whether the Constitution requires massive busing to 
achieve racial balance in an otherwise unexceptionable 
unitary school system, where such busing excludes 
thousands of white children from their neighborhood walk- 
in schools because of their race or color.

3. Whether the court below, which decreed extensive 
busing of school pupils in order to achieve racial balance, 
improperly disregarded the explicit direction of Congress, 
implementing the XIV Amendment under Section 5 thereof 
in Section 401(b) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that 
“ ‘desegregation’ shall not mean the assignment of students 
to public schools in order to overcome racial imbalance.”

4. Whether the court below, which decreed extensive 
busing of school pupils in order to achieve racial balance, 
improperly disregarded the explicit direction of Congress, 
implementing the XIV Amendment under Section 5 thereof 
in Section 407(a)(2) of the Civil Rights of 1964, that 
“ nothing herein shall empower any * * * court of the 
United States to issue any order seeking to achieve a 
racial balance in any school by requiring the transporta­
tion of pupils or students from one school to another in 
order to achieve such racial balance.”



3

CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS AND 
STATUTES INVOLVED

1. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment provides, in 
pertinent part—

“ nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, 
or property, without due process of law; nor deny to 
any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection 
of the laws.”

2. Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment provides:
“ The Congress shall have power to enforce, by 

appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”

3. Section 401(b) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 
(42 U.S.C. § 2000c(b)), provides:

“ As used in this title— * * *
“ (b) ‘Desegregation’ means the assignment of 

students to public schools and within such schools 
without regard to their race, color, religion, or national 
origin, but ‘desegregation’ shall not mean the assign­
ment of students to public schools in order to overcome 
racial imbalance.”

4. Section 407(a) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 
(42 TI.S.C. 2000c-6(a)) provides in pertinent part:

“ Whenever the Attorney General receives a com­
plaint in writing * * * to the effect that * * * 
minor children, as members of a class of persons 
similarly situated, are being deprived by a school 
board of the equal protection of the laws * * * the 
Attorney General is authorized * * * to institute 
for or in the name of the United States a civil action 
* * * for such relief as may be appropriate * * * 
provided that nothing herein shall empower any official 
or court of the United States to issue any order seeking 
to achieve a racial balance in any school by requiring 
the transportation of pupils or students from one 
school to another or one school district to another in 
order to achieve such racial balance, or otherwise 
enlarge the existing power of the court to insure 
compliance with constitutional standards.”



4

STATEMENT

In this case the district court found and held (Final 
Order, August 4, 1969, p. 6) that the petitioner “ Board 
has taken steps to eradicate the effect of past segregated 
schooling. The all-Negro schools remaining in Pinellas 
County do meet constitutional standards (Adams v. 
Matthews, 403 F.2d 181 (5th Cir. 1968)), under the circum­
stances that no feasible Green [v. County School Board, 
391 U jS. 430] alternatives exist. The probabilities are that 
the schools will remain all-Negro until housing patterns 
change in the area or that new school sites can be selected 
which will promote desegregation.”

The court of appeals however decreed massive busing 
involving the transportation of an additional 5400 pupils 
to achieve racial balancing, concluding on rehearing that 
the Pinellas County schools had been effectively converted 
into a unitary system in every respect, except student 
assignment in certain schools because of the concentrated 
black population in parts of St. Petersburg (infra, p. A29).

The issue thus posed permits the present substantially 
abbreviated Statement.

A. Earlier Proceedings

The original complaint in this case, filed May 7, 1964, 
sought an injunction enjoining the petitioner Board from 
operating a bi-racial school system in Pinellas County. 
On January 15, 1965, the Board was ordered to submit a 
complete plan for the removal of dual attendance zones, 
and for the opening of all public schools in Pinellas County 
on a non-racial basis. On March 15, 1965, the Board filed, 
and the district court approved, a Plan of Desegregation 
that had been jointly developed and to which counsel for 
the respondents consented. This plan called for a complete 
unitary school system on a geographic basis, no dual zones, 
no freedom of choice, and with all zone lines drawn on a 
rational and reasonable basis.



5

Two Motions for Further Relief thereafter tiled were 
denied. The second denial was appealed, after which the 
court of appeals on July 12, 1967, remanded the cause for 
further consideration in the light of its decision in United 
States v. Jefferson City Board of Education, 372 F.2d 836 
(C.A. 5), on rehearing in banc, 380 F.2d 385, certiorari 
denied sub nom. Caddo Parish School Board v. United 
States, 389 U.S. 840.

A fux-ther hearing was postponed at respondents’ request 
to permit the Board to develop new zones, and on 
October 21, 1968, the Board reported further progress in 
desegregation.

The present case arises out of respondents’ Motion for 
Further Relief thereafter filed, on December 13, 1968, in 
consequence of which the district court on March 6, 1969, 
directed the petitioner Board to adopt a comprehensive 
plan of desegregation consistent with Green v. County 
School Board, 391 U.S. 430. Such a plan was filed on 
April 15, 1969, and thereafter a two-day evidentiary 
hearing was held to consider respondents’ objections 
thereto. Those objections were resolved by a district court 
order entered on August 4, 1969, from which respondents 
appealed to the court below.

B. Factual Background

To quote from the second opinion of the court below 
(infra, pp. A18-A19):

‘ ‘ The Pinellas school system covers the whole of Pinellas 
County with a land area of 265 square miles. The student 
population of the system is approximately 80,000, of which 
12,700, or 16%, are Negro students. Approximately 9,500 
of these Negro students live in the City of St. Petersburg, 
in the southernmost part of the system.

‘ * Since 1964, when the original complaint in this case was 
filed up to the 1969-70 school year, there has been a gradual 
decrease in the percentage of students in all-Negro schools



6

throughout the entire system. In the 1969-70 school year, 
there were 102 schools in operation—72 elementary, 19 
junior high, and 11 senior high schools. During the 
1969-70 school year, 12 elementary schools, one junior 
high and one senior high school served all-Negro or 
virtually all-Negro student bodies. Approximately 8,400, 
or 66% of the 12,700 Negro students in the entire system 
at all levels attended all-Negro or virtually all-Negro 
schools.

“ Under the school board’s plan, the plan approved by 
the district court, there were to be 107 schools in operation 
—75 elementary, 20 junior high, and 12 senior high 
schools. At the elementary level, nine would remain all- 
Negro or virtually all-Negro. There would also remain 
the one all-Negro junior high and one all-Negro senior 
high school. Under this plan, 8,200 out of the 12,700 Negro 
students in the entire system at all grade levels, or 64%, 
would attend all-Negro or virtually all-Negro schools.

“ The school board’s plan does not change the already- 
existing majority-to-minority transfer policy, which during 
the 1969-70 school year has resulted in the transfer of 
only 62 students.2 The plan also leaves intact two bi-racial 
committees operating in Pinellas County. * * *”

The issues now presented turn on the status of the all­
black schools; as stated by the district court (Final Order, 
August 4, 1969, p. 5),

“ The remaining all-Negro schools consist of five all- 
Negro elementary schools and one all-Negro junior high 
school. There are, in addition, two substantially all-Negro 
elementary schools and one substantially all-Negro high 
school. These schools, out of a total of 103 regular schools, 
are all located in the densely populated downtown St. 
Petersburg area.”

“2 [Footnote in original] Fifty of these students, however, were 
Negroes transferring from all-Negro to predominantly white 
schools. ’ ’



7

The record shows that the St. Petersburg area now has 
a population of about 43,000 black citizens. In 1954, about 
half that number lived in a heavily congested area of some 
fifteen square blocks; since then, their numbers have nearly 
doubled, and they have moved into what was formerly 
St. Petersburg’s white residential areas, with the con­
sequence that schools that were previously all-white walk-in 
schools became all-black walk-in schools. All the elementary 
schools in St. Petersburg today that were predominantly 
black prior to the ruling below are walk-in schools, as are 
the majority of all elementary schools in that city.

To continue with the district court’s findings of fact 
(Final Order, August 4, 1969, pp. 5-6):

“ Plaintiffs have objected to the defendant Board’s plan 
for the schools of St. Petersburg since the proposed plan 
does not result in the elimination of these all-Negro 
schools. The Court finds that no feasible alternative has 
been shown to this Court for these schools. The Plaintiffs’ 
expert, Dr. John Finger, testified in effect that the schools 
in the densely Negro areas could be integrated only by the 
use of a pupil assignment plan or a pairing plan involving 
additional bussing of substantial distances. This Court 
finds that no feasible alternative to zones for the all-Negro 
schools in St. Petersburg can be developed at this time. 
Additionally, the Court finds that the existence of these 
all-Negro schools is the result of voluntary housing patterns 
of Negro parents and is no longer a result, in this year 
1969, of state imposed segregation of Negroes in residential 
areas and schools.

“ The Court concludes, based on the record and in light 
of all suggested alternatives, including the suggestions of 
plaintiffs’ expert, that the defendant Board has met its 
burden of converting the school system to one which is 
without so-called “ W hite” and “ Negro” schools but merely 
schools, a few of which, statistically, are all-Negro, but none 
of which are the result of a dual school system.”



8

C. Action of the Court Below

Respondents appealed from the judgment of the district 
court dated August 4, 1969, contending that the predom­
inantly black population of seven elementary schools, one 
junior high school, and one senior high school, all in 
St. Petersburg, involved a violation of their constitutional 
rights, which, they contended, entitled them to racial 
balancing in the schools.

Following oral argument, the court of appeals requested 
additional findings of fact, which the district court entered 
on April 28, 1970. These findings reflected the school 
population by race for every school of all three levels in 
St. Petersburg.

The district court further found (Supplemental Findings 
of Fact, April 28, 1970, p. 2), in response to the court of 
appeals’ inquiry concerning the number of white students 
who could be assigned to the nine all-black schools if Ellis 
v. Board of Public Instruction of Orange County, 423 F. 2d 
203 (C.A. 5), were fully complied with, that the number 
of white students that could be so assigned was 11 none. 
* * * This Court finds * * * that the utilization of Ellis 
zone lines, instead of fairly drawn zone lines, would result 
in an increase of Negro students attending the nine all- 
Negro schools with a concomitant decrease of Negro 
students presently attending majority-white schools.”

On July 1, 1970, the Fifth Circuit rendered an opinion 
(Appendix A ( l) ,  infra, pp. A1-A16) that required mass 
busing to eliminate the all-black schools. In consequence 
of a petition for rehearing pointing out numerous factual 
errors in that opinion, it was withdrawn by the court of 
appeals and a new one promulgated (Appendix A (2), infra, 
pp. A17-A33), which, although still requiring mass busing, 
substantially modified the earlier requirements. These 
differences may be summarized as follow s:

1. On rehearing, the Fifth Circuit found that the faculty 
and staff desegregation standard had been met (infra,



9

pp. A19-A20). It had earlier held precisely the contrary 
{infra, p. A4).

2. On rehearing, the Fifth Circuit held, as it had 
originally, that transportation, facilities, and extracur­
ricular activities were all operated on a desegregated basis 
{infra, pp. A4, A20).

3. In respect of student assignment there were significant 
variances between the two opinions.

a. Originally, Palmetto Elementary School was to be 
paired with Northward of Clearwater, and Kings Highway 
with Curtis {infra, p. A6). In fact, Kings Highway had 
already been paired with Palmetto, and Northward already 
had 40% black students. On rehearing, the pairing of 
Palmetto and Kings Highway was approved, and Curtis 
was directed to be paired with Dunedin {infra, pp. A22- 
A23).

b. Originally, Glenoak was to be paired with Lakewood 
{infra, p. A 7 ); on rehearing, it was ordered that the Board 
could, as an alternative, group Glenoak, Lakewood, and 
Bay Vista into one zone {infra, pp. A23-A24).

c. The zone lines of Lakeview were ordered redrawn to 
incorporate at least 400 white students in the northern 
part of Bay Point and Bay Vista zones and in the inter­
vening finger of Childs Park {infra, pp. A7-A8). This 
direction incorrectly assumed that Lakeview’s capacity was 
1555 students when in fact that capacity was only 658. On 
rehearing, the Fifth Circuit ordered that Lakeview could 
either be paired with Maximo or grouped with Maximo 
and Bay Point {infra, p. A24).

d. There were extensive changes in respect of Campbell 
Park {infra, pp. A8-A9, A25-A26), somewhat too complex 
for detailed elaboration here.

e. The same comment applies to the treatment, in the 
two opinions, of Wildwood, West Central, and Fairmount 
Park, all of which were walk-in schools {infra, pp. A8, A25).



10

f. Both opinions directed the pairing of Disston Junior 
High with Sixteenth Street Junior High (infra, pp. A9-A10, 
A27).

g. Both opinions provided the same alternatives in 
respect of the senior high schools (infra, pp. A10-A11, 
A27-A28).

h. The second opinion required changes over the first in 
respect of student assignments to some 21 elementary 
schools, or close to 30% of all such schools; this is apparent 
from a comparison of Appendix A to the first opinion 
(infra, pp. A13-A15) with Appendix A to the second 
opinion (infra, pp. A30-A32).

Under the terms of the order on rehearing, the Board 
was directed to comply with the court of appeals’ rezoning 
by August 14, 1970 (infra, pp. A21, A29). No stay was 
requested from the court of appeals, as the Fifth Circuit 
had earlier indicated that, in school desegregation cases, 
“ No stay will be granted pending petition for rehearing 
or application for certiorari” (Singleton v. Jackson 
Municipal Separate School Dist., 419 F. 2d 1211, 1222 
(C.A. 5, Dec. 1, 1969).* Instead, the Board considered the 
alternative courses left open to it, and presented to the 
district court a plan adopted pursuant to the court of 
appeals’ order on rehearing. That plan was approved by 
the district court on August 6, 1970; a copy of the district 
court’s order of that date is, for the information of this 
Court, included as Appendix B hereto (infra, pp. A34-A41).

* An application for a stay, presented here by the Governor of 
Florida, was denied on August 8, 1970 by Mr. Justice Black.



11

D. Consequences of the Ruling Below

An estimate prepared by the Board’s Department of 
Statistical Information discloses that, pursuant to the fore­
going order of August 6,1970, some 5400 additional students 
must be bused back and forth on every school day.

675 of these must be transported between iy> and 2 miles
1725 “ “ “ “ < < “ 2 “ 2 y 2  “
1550 “ “ t  t “ 2 y 2 “ 3 “
1000 “ “ t  < “ 3 “ 3 y 2  “
450 “ “ “ “ < i “ 3 “ 4  <<

REASONS FOR GRANTING THE WRIT

This case presents in sharpest focus a question of school 
desegregation to which this Court has yet to give plenary 
consideration, an issue that is currently not only the most 
pressing one in the educational area but one whose resolu­
tion by the court below involves its least edifying paradox: 
Is classification of school children by race a proper con­
stitutional remedy for removing the inequities in education 
that stemmed from racial classification?

The significance of that question is underscored by the 
circumstance, up to now pretty consistently disregarded 
by the lower courts, that Congress has explicitly declared, 
acting under its Section 5 power of enforcing the 
Fourteenth Amendment, not only that “ ‘desegregation’ 
shall not mean the assignment of students to public schools 
in order to overcome racial imbalance” (Sec. 401(b), Civil 
Rights Act of 1964, supra, p. 3), but also that “ nothing 
herein shall empower any * * * court of the United 
States to issue any order seeking to achieve a racial balance 
in any school by requiring the transportation of pupils or 
students from one school to another or one school district 
to another in order to achieve such racial balance” (Sec. 
407(a), Civil Rights Act of 1964, supra, p. 3).

The impressive legislative history underlying the quoted 
provisions is also involved in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklen-



12

burg Board of Education, No. 281, this Term, in which 
certiorari was granted last June (399 U.S. 926), although 
there the legislative materials outlined below have not yet 
been fully brought to this Court’s attention. Nor has 
this Court up to now considered in depth the extent to 
which Congressional enforcement action under Section 5 of 
the XIV Amendment should guide judicial interpretation 
of that Amendment’s substantive provisions.

The present case is free from any and all complications 
arising out of school board intransigence, or out of “ free­
dom” of choice plans, or indeed out of subterfuges or 
colorable ploys of any kind. It presents squarely the 
precise issues that are currently so very troublesome, in 
all parts of the Nation, issues that this Court up to now 
has not resolved:

Does anything in the Constitution require massive 
busing to achieve racial balance in an otherwise un­
exceptionable unitary school system, particularly when 
Congress has solemnly declared racial balance to be no part 
of desegregation?

Bearing in mind the constitutional norm (Alexander v. 
Board of Education, 396 U.S. 19, 20) of “ unitary school 
systems within which no person is to be excluded from any 
school because of race or color,” is the busing-for-racial- 
balance decreed below, which plainly results in excluding 
white children from their neighborhood walk-in schools 
because of their race or color, consistent with that norm?

First. No decision of this Court has required racial 
balancing, i.e., classifying by race in order to extirpate 
racial classification. To the contrary, every case here 
from Brown v. Board of Education I, 347 U.S. 483, decided 
in 1954, through Alexander v. Board of Education, 396 U.S. 
19, determined last Term, has iterated and reiterated the 
Constitution’s mandate for wholly non-racial public school 
systems.



13

In Briggs v. Elliott, 132 F. Supp. 776, 777 (E.D.S.C.), 
a strong three-judge district court, which included Parker 
and Dobie, Circ. JJ., declared that—

“ The Constitution, in other words, does not require 
integration. It merely forbids discrimination.”

Insofar as what was there said dealt with freedom of 
choice, the case is plainly no longer law after Green v. 
County School Board, 391 U.S. 430. But insofar as the 
decision held that the Constitution does not require racial 
balancing nor command the abandonment of bona fide 
neighborhood school plans simply because they result in 
racial imbalance, it presently has the support of seven and 
perhaps eight circuits:

C.A. 1: Springfield School Committee v. Barksdale, 
348 F.2d 261.

C.A. 2: Offermann v. Nitkowski, 378 F.2d 22, 24.

C.A. 3: Evans v. Ennis, 281 F.2d 385, 394, semhle, 
certiorari denied, 364 U.S. 933.

C.A. 4: Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Edu­
cation I, 369 F.2d 29, 32; Swann v. Charlotte-M ecklenburg 
Board of Education II, No. 281, this Term.

C.A. 6: Deal v. Cincinnati Board of Education 1, 369 
F.2d 55, certiorari denied, 389 U.S. 847; Deal v. Cincinnati 
Board of Education II, 419 F.2d 1387.

C.A. 7: Bell v. School City of Gary, Indiana, 324 F.2d 
209, certiorari denied, 377 U.S. 924; United States  v. School 
District 151 of Cook County, 404 F.2d 1125, semble.

C.A. 8: Kemp  v. Beasley III, 423 F.2d 851, 857.

C.A. 10: Downs v. Board of Education of Kansas City, 
336 F.2d 988, certiorari denied, 380 U.S. 914.

Only the Fifth Circuit, which formerly espoused the 
same view (e.g., Avery  v. Wichita Falls Indep. Sch. Dist., 
241 F.2d 230, certiorari denied, 353 U.S. 938; Evers  v.



14

Jackson dc. Sell. Dist., 329 F.2d 408, 410), has since 
jettisoned its earlier doctrine, and now adheres in all 
respects to the racially-oriented policy of racial balancing, 
policy that ruled the present case. United States  v. 
Jefferson County Board of Education, 372 F.2d 836, 
adhered to on rehearing in banc, 380 F.2d 385, 389 n. 3 
(expressly overruling nine earlier cases to the contrary), 
certiorari denied sub nom. Caddo Parish School Board v. 
United States, 389 U.S. 840. There is no need to include 
here a listing of the many Fifth Circuit cases applying 
the Jefferson County doctrine.

It is sufficient simply to emphasize, what indeed will be 
apparent from the citations above, that on the issue of 
mass busing to achieve racial balance there exists a live 
and continuing conflict of circuits that only this Court can 
resolve.

Second. The concept of racial balancing as a form of 
desegregation was explicitly and emphatically disapproved 
by Congress when it enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 
The legislative history reflects the following steps: First, 
after the President noted the problems flowing from racial 
imbalance, the first bills thereafter introduced contained 
numerous provisions dealing with that problem. The 
House Judiciary Committee then struck out every reference 
to racial imbalance. The anti-racial-balancing clause now 
in Section 401(b) was accepted on the House floor by the 
Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, in charge of the 
bill, while the anti-racial-balancing proviso now in Section 
407(a) was actually drafted by the four bipartisan leaders 
who supported and indeed promoted the measure in the 
Senate. An amendment to strike the latter proviso, pro­
posed by the leader of the Senate opposition to the legisla­
tion, was not adopted. Here there is room only for the 
highlights of this impressive legislative development:

1. The measure that became the Civil Rights Act of 
1964 was recommended to Congress by President Kennedy. 
He requested Congress to “ assert its specific constitutional



15

authority to implement the 14th Amendment” (H.R. Doc. 
124, 88th Cong., 1st sess., June 19, 1963, p. 6) with respect 
to achieving desegregation in the public schools, first by 
accelerating the litigation process, second by a program of 
technical and financial assistance to school districts 
‘‘engaged in the process of meeting the educational 
problems flowing from desegregation or racial imbalance 
* * *” (id., p. 7; italics added).

2. The first version of the bills introduced immediately 
thereafter and designed to effectuate the Presidential 
message (H.R. 7152, Sen. 1731; both 88th Cong., 1st sess.) 
had identical provisions. Title III of each, entitled 
“ Desegregation of Public Education,” contained no less 
than five subsections specifically looking to the correction 
of racial imbalance.*

* [Our italics in each instance:]
“ Sec. 303. (a) The commissioner is authorized, upon the

application of any school board, State, municipality, school district, 
or other governmental unit, to render technical assistance in the 
preparation, adoption, and implementation of plans for the de­
segregation of public schools or other plans designed to deal with 
problems arising from racial imbalance in public school systems. 
Such technical assistance may, among other activities, include 
making available to such agencies information regarding effective 
methods of coping with special educational problems occasioned by 
desegregation or racial imbalance, and making available to such 
agencies personnel of the Office of Education or other persons 
specially equipped to advise and assist them1 in coping with such 
problems.

“ (h) The Commissioner is authorized to arrange, through grants 
or contracts, with institutions of higher education for the opera­
tion of short-term or regular session institutes for special training 
designed to improve the ability of teachers, supervisors, counselors, 
and other elementary or secondary school personnel to deal 
effectively with special educational problems occasioned by de­
segregation or measures to adjust racial imbalance in public school 
systems. * * *

“ Sec. 304. (a) A school board which has failed to achieve 
desegregation in all public schools within its jurisdiction, or a



16

3. Sen. 1731 never got off the ground, despite its sponsor­
ship by no less than 45 senators, while H.R. 7152 was, 
following extensive hearings, completely rewritten in 
committee. There was reported out an entirely new 
measure, see H.R. Rep. 914, 88th Cong., 1st sess., in which 
former Title III was renumbered Title IV, and in which 
every mention of “ racial imbalance” was deleted. The 
justification for such deletion was set forth in the additional 
views of Messrs. McCulloch of Ohio, Lindsay of New York, 
Cahill of New Jersey, Shriver of Kansas, MacGregor of 
Minnesota, Mathias of Maryland, and Bromwell of Iowa 
{id., Part 2, pp. 21-22):

“ The committee failed to extend this assistance to 
problems frequently referred to as ‘racial imbalance’ 
as no adequate definition of this concept was put 
forward. The committee also felt that this could lead 
to the forcible disruption of neighborhood patterns, 
might entail inordinate financial and human cost and 
create more friction than it could possibly resolve.”

school board which is confronted with 'problems arising from 
racial imbalance in the public schools within its jurisdiction, may 
apply to the Commissioner, either directly or through another 
governmental unit, for a grant or loan, as hereinafter provided, 
for the purpose of aiding such school board in carrying out 
desegregation or in dealing with problems of racial imbalance.

“ (b) The Commissioner may make a grant under this section, 
upon application therefor, for—

“ (1) the cost of giving to teachers and other school per­
sonnel inservice training in dealing with problems incident to 
desegregation or racial imbalance in public schools; and

“ (2) the cost of employing specialists in problems incident 
to desegregation or racial imbalance and of providing other 
assistance to develop understanding of these problems by 
parents, schoolchildren, and the general public.

“ (c) * * * In determining whether to make a grant, and in 
fixing the amount thereof and the terms and conditions on which 
it will be made, the Commissioner shall take into consideration 
* * * the nature, extent, and gravity of its problems incident to 
desegregation or racial imbalance, and such other factors as he 
finds relevant.”



17

Even so, the elimination of the references to racial im­
balance did not satisfy one of the dissenting members, who 
complained (H.R. Rep. 914, supra, at p. 84) that “ this 
action [i.e., such elimination] is a matter of ‘public rela­
tions’ or semantics, devised to prevent the people of the 
United States from recognizing the bill’s true intent and 
purpose. The administration apparently intends to rely 
upon its own construction of ‘discrimination’ as including 
the lack of racial balance as distinguished from a statutory 
reference to ‘racial imbalance’ * * *.”

4. As reported out by the Judiciary Committee on 
November 20, 1963 (H.R. Rep. 914, supra, at p. 5), Section 
401(b) provided that

“ ‘Desegregation’ means the assignment of students 
to public schools and within such schools without regard 
to their race, color, religion, or national origin.”

When the bill was considered on the floor of the House 
on February 6, 1964, Mr. Cramer of Florida moved an 
amendment to provide that “ ‘desegregation’ shall not 
mean the assignment of students to public schools in order 
to overcome racial imbalance.” Chairman Celler of the 
Judiciary Committee accepted that amendment (110 Cong. 
Rec. 2280), and, as thus amended, Section 401(b) was not 
further changed in the course of its passage through 
Congress; it was carried onto the statute book as amended 
by Mr. Cramer.

5. The House passed H.R. 7152 on February 10, 1964 
(110 Cong. Rec. 2805). In the Senate, the measure was 
placed on the calendar without reference to committee 
(id. 3719, Feb. 26), and was taken up for consideration on 
March 26 (id. 6417). As is well known, three months of 
debate ensued.

Because of the absence of committee action, H.R. 7152 
was rewritten by the joint leadership in the course of the 
debate, and on May 26, Amendment No. 656 in the nature



18

of a substitute was offered by Senators Dirksen (Minority 
Leader), Mansfield (Majority Leader), Humphrey (Major­
ity Whip), and Kuchel (Minority Whip) (110 Cong. Rec. 
11926). Included in Amendment No. 656 was a new proviso 
to Section 407(a) reading as follows {id. at 11929):

“ provided that nothing herein shall empower any 
official or court of the United States to issue any order 
seeking to achieve a racial balance in any school by 
requiring the transportation of pupils or students from 
one school to another in order to achieve such racial 
balance, or otherwise enlarge the existing power of 
the court to insure compliance with constitutional 
standards. ’ ’

This proviso did not appear either in H.R. 7152 as 
reported out by the House Judiciary Committee (H.R. Rep. 
914, 88th Cong., 1st sess., p. 7) or in H.R. 7152 as it reached 
the Senate.

6. On June 2, Senator Russell of Georgia introduced 
Amendment No. 766 to strike the quoted proviso from the 
Dirksen-Mansfield-Humphrey-Kuchel substitute (110 Cong. 
Rec. 12436-37), contending at some length that deleting 
the proviso would eliminate the sectional aspects of the 
pending bill and would give the Attorney General authority 
to integrate outside the South. Senator Russell contended 
that, with the proviso included, the Attorney General would 
act only in the South, and the courts would be powerless 
to touch de facto segregation in the North. (110 Cong. 
Rec. 12438-41.)

7. Two days later, Senator Humphrey undertook to 
explain Title IV of the bipartisan substitute contained in 
Amendment 656 (110 Cong. Rec. 12706 et seq.). He said 
on the matter now in issue {id. at 12714):

“ Next, changes are made to resolve doubts that have 
been expressed about the impact of the bill on the 
problem of correcting alleged racial imbalance in public 
schools. The version enacted by the House was not 
intended to permit the Attorney General to bring suits 
to correct such a situation, and, indeed, said as much



19

in section 401 (b). However, to make this doubly 
clear, two amendments dealing with this matter are 
proposed.

“ The first provides that nothing in title IV ‘shall 
empower any court’ or official of the United States to 
issue ‘any order’ seeking to achieve ‘a racial balance 
in any school by requiring the transportation of pupils 
or students from one school to another or one school 
district to another in order to achieve such racial 
balance or otherwise enlarge the existing power of the 
court to insure compliance with constitutional stand­
ards. ’ This addition seeks simply to preclude an 
inference that the title confers new authority to deal 
with ‘racial imbalance’ in schools, and should serve to 
soothe fears that title IV might be read to empower 
the Federal Government to order the busing of children 
around a city in order to achieve a certain racial 
balance or mix in schools.

“ Furthermore, a new section 410 would explicitly 
declare that ‘nothing in this title shall prohibit clas­
sification and assignment for reasons other than race, 
color, religion, or national origin.’

“ Thus, classification along bona fide neighborhood 
school lines, or for any other legitimate reason which 
local school boards might see fit to adopt, would not 
be affected by title IV, so long as such classification was 
bona fide. Furthermore, this amendment makes clear 
that the only Federal intervention in local schools will 
be for the purpose of preventing denial of equal pro­
tection of the laws.”

Shortly thereafter this additional colloquy took place 
{id. at 12715, 12717):

“ Mr. B yrd of West Virginia. Can the Senator from 
Minnesota assure the Senator from West Virginia that 
under title VI school children may not be bused from 
one end of the community to another end of the com­
munity at the taxpayers’ expense to relieve so-called 
racial imbalance in the schools?

“ Mr. H u m ph r ey . I do. * * * (p. 12717) I should 
like to make one further reference to the Gary case.*

* The reference is to Bell v. School City of Gary, Indiana, 324 
F.2d 209 (C.A. 7), certiorari denied, 377 U.S. 924.



20

This case makes it quite clear that while the Con­
stitution prohibits segregation, it does not require 
integration. The busing of children to achieve racial 
balance would be an act to effect the integration of 
schools. In fact, if  the bill were to compel it, it would 
be a violation, because it would be handling the matter 
on the basis of race and we would be transporting 
children because of race. The bill does not attempt 
to integrate the schools, but it does attempt to 
eliminate segregation in the school systems. The 
natural factors such as density of population, and 
the distance that students would have to travel are 
considered legitimate means to determine the validity 
of a school district, if the school districts are not 
gerrymandered, and in effect deliberately segregated. 
The fact that there is a racial imbalance per se is not 
something which is unconstitutional. That is why we 
have attempted to clarify it with the language of 
section 4.” *

8. Senator Dirksen, another co-sponsor, explained 
Amendment 656 on the following day (110 Cong. Rec. 12817 
et seq.). Thereafter, on June 10, Senator Dirksen intro­
duced Amendment 1052, which was in the nature of a 
substitute for Amendment 656, designed to include Senator 
Morton’s amendment on jury trials (110 Cong. Rec. 13310); 
the proviso to Sec. 407 (a), see id. at 13312, was left un­
changed from what it had been in the earlier version.

The balance of the legislative history of the Civil Rights 
Act does not require extended treatment. Amendment 
1052 was agreed to on June 17 {id. at 14239), while the 
bill as thus amended passed the Senate two days later {id. 
at 14511). The House ultimately concurred in the Senate 
amendment {id. 14631, 15869), and H.R. 7152 became law 
on July 2 (Pub. L. 88-352, 78 Stat. 241).

Third. Notwithstanding the foregoing sharp and dis­
tinct history of Congressional rejection of racial balancing

* Presumably Title IV rather than section 4 was intended.



21

as a form of desegregation, the provisos in §§ 401(b) and 
407 (a) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 have been either 
consistently misread or else simply disregarded—we would 
not be far from the mark to say that up to now they have 
been trivialized—by courts that have had these solemn 
statutory directions called to their attention. See United 
States  v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 372 F.2d 
836 (C.A. 5), on rehearing in banc, 380 F.2d 385, certiorari 
denied sub nom. Caddo Parish School Board v. United 
States, 389 U.S. 840; United States  v. School District 151 
of Cook County, 404 F.2d 1125 (C.A. 7); Keyes  v. School 
District No. One, Denver, 303 F. Supp. 289 (D. Colo.); 
Matter of Addabbo v. Donovan, 22 App. Div.2d 383, 256 
N.Y. Supp.2d 178.

We think that few if any portions of Congressional 
legislation have ever been treated with more judicial 
disdain—or with less judicial understanding—than the 
anti-racial-balancing provisos of the Civil Rights Act of 
1964. Significantly, not a single reported case of which 
we are aware has yet ascertained the provenance of the 
proviso in § 407(a), or has up to now commented on the 
Russell proposal to strike that proviso from the bill.

The cases thus present a most unjustified if thoroughly 
ironical result: The provisions in §§ 401(b) and 407(a) 
seeking to eliminate racial balancing as a permissible 
concept of desegregation, provisions that had the support 
of dedicated civil rights leaders on both sides of the aisle 
in both houses, one of which indeed was formulated by 
those leaders, have since been brushed aside, very 
cavalierly brushed aside, in the name of desegregation. 
Thus the decision below lends substance to the taunt of the 
veteran leader of the last-ditch rear-guard action against 
the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that the proviso in § 407(a) 
made the measure a purely sectional one aimed only at 
the former Confederacy. Otherwise stated, the court below 
ever since its Jefferson County decisions, 372 F.2d 836 and



22

380 F.2d 385, has succeeded in doing what Senator Russell 
of Georgia and his cohorts were quite unable to do on their 
own, it has cut the anti-racial-balancing provision out of 
the law.

Such disregard of Congressional action constitutes, we 
submit, still another reason for review by this Court.

Fourth. As has been seen, supra pp. 14-15, Congress en­
acted the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in response to the Presi- 
dental exhortation to implement the XIV Amendment; this 
is precisely what Section 5 of that Amendment empoweis 
Congress to do; this is precisely what Congress in fact 
did; and in doing so Congress expressly declared, not once 
but twice, not inadvertently or in passing but advisedly, 
that desegregation shall not mean racial balancing.

At the very least, this is a declaration entitled to far 
more respect than it has up to now been accorded by the 
court below. Certainly this Court has consistently sup­
ported every Congressional determination in the civil 
rights enforcement area, South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 
383 U.S. 301; Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U.S. 641; Cardona 
v. Power, 384 U.S. 672; Gaston County v. United States, 
395 U.S. 285; cf. Atlanta Motel v. United States, 379 U.S. 
241, 279-291 (Douglas J., concurring), and we cite XIV  
and XV Amendment cases interchangeably, since, as the 
Court has recognized, the problem of the scope of Congres­
sional enforcement is identical under both Amendments.

Contrariwise, the court below has refused to defer to the 
Congressional view of proper enforcement of the XIV  
Amendment in school desegregation cases—which con­
stitutes still another reason for this Court now to give 
plenary consideration to the relative role of Congress and 
the courts in respect of enforcing that Amendment.

Fifth. In the present case there will be no occasion to 
consider whether a Congressional formulation under the 
XIV Amendment can restrict, abrogate, or limit the sub­



23

stantive guarantees of that Amendment, compare Katzen- 
bach v. Morgan, 384 U.S. at 651n.l0 with id. at 668, 
because, quite apart from anything in §§ 401(b) and 407(a) 
of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, nothing in the Constitution 
of the United States permits, much less requires, massive 
busing of school children to achieve racial balancing.

For the very concept of racial quotas, the concept that, 
realistically, lies at the heart of the present case—the very 
concept of racial quotas recalls the odious numerus clausus 
that so disfigured education in Central Europe for many 
decades, and that half a century ago was feared by many 
to have extended its ugly tentacles into some of America’s 
oldest universities.

Just as the Equal Protection Clause does not require 
racial balancing in jury selection (Cassell v. Texas, 339 
U.S. 282, 286-287, 290-291; Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202, 
208-209), so likewise it does not require racial balancing in 
school administration.

The evils that resulted from racial classification in the 
operation of dual school systems will be compounded rather 
than cured by the injection of racial classification into the 
operation of unitary school systems. The direction 
(Alexander v. Board of Education, 396 U.S. 18, 20) “ to 
operate as unitary school systems within which no person 
is to be effectively excluded from any school because of 
race or color” surely forbids the result below, which in fact 
excludes several thousand white children from the walk-in 
schools nearest their homes simply because admitting 
them there fails to achieve overall racial balancing within 
the entire system.

Past discrimination in one direction does not justify 
present discrimination in another. Two wrongs never yet 
made one right, least of all when sought to be committed 
in the guise of implementing the constitutional values of 
the Equal Protection Clause.



24

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, this petition for a writ of 
certiorari should be granted; and we urge that this case 
then be set for argument with or shortly after No. 281, 
Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education. In 
the event that the Court should take such action, counsel 
for these petitioners are prepared to proceed under an 
accelerated briefing schedule.

Respectfully submitted.

F rederick  B ernays W ie n e r ,
1750 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., 
Washington, D. C. 20006,
Counsel for the Petitioners.

E dward A. T u r v ille ,
825 Florida Office Building,
St. Petersburg, Florida 33701,

Of Counsel.

S e pt e m b er  1970.



APPENDIX



A1

APPENDIX A

OPINIONS BELOW
1. First Opinion

IN  THE
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 28639

L eon  W. B radley, J r ., a  m in o r , b y  L eo n  W. B radley, Sr., 
h is  f a th e r  a n d  n e x t  f r ie n d , e t  a l., Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

B oard of P u blic  I n str u c tio n  of P in ella s  C o u n ty , 
F lorida, e t  a l., Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal From the United States District Court for 
the Middle District of Florida

(July 1, 1970)

Before S im ps o n , M organ and I n g ra ha m ,
Circuit Judges.

M organ, Circuit Judge: The issue presented in this
school desegregation case is whether the Pinellas County, 
Florida, public school system is unitary. The district 
court, by its final order of August 4, 1969, held that 
the desegregation plan submitted by the school board for 
the year 1969-1970 (hereinafter, the school board’s plan) 
effectively “ converted the old dual system to a unitary



A2

system in which racial discrimination is eliminated” .1 The 
school board’s plan has not been put into effect pending 
this appeal. From the district court’s order, plaintiffs 
filed notice of appeal to this court on September 12, 1969. 
Upon oral argument and this court’s request for addi­
tional findings of fact, the district court entered its sup­
plemental findings on April 28, 1970.

Tested against the six criteria of Green v. County 
School Board of New Kent County, 391 U.S. 430 (1968) 
—faculty, transportation, staff, facilities, extracurricular 
activities, and student body composition—and the end to 
be achieved as set out in Alexander v. Holmes County 
Board of Education, 396 U.S. 19 (1969)—that the school 
system no longer operate as a dual system based on race 
or color but as a “ unitary school system within which 
no person is to be effectively excluded from any school 
because of race or color”—we find the school board’s 
plan, as approved by the district court, to he deficient in 
both faculty and staff assignment throughout the system 
and in student assignment in certain schools. In keeping 
with the approach of Ellis v. The Board of Public In­
struction of Orange County, Florida, 5 Cir., 1970, ------
F. 2d ------ [No. 20,124, February 17, 1970] ; Mannings v.
The Board of Public Instruction of Hillsborough County,
Florida, 5 Cir., 1970, ------ F. 2d ------ [No. 28,643, May
11, 1970]; and Davis v. Board of School Commissioners of
Mobile County, 5 Cir., 1970, ------ F. 2d ------ [No. 29,332,
June 8, 1970]; we will review all the requisites of Green, 
supra, to make a final determination as to whether Pinellas 
County has been effectively converted into a unitary 
system.

The Pinellas school system covers the whole of Pinellas 
County with a land area of 265 sqiiare miles. The student

1 The school board’s plan has been revised and amended through­
out the course of litigation. The figures used below are based 
on school population by race as of April 23, 1970.



A3

population of the system is approximately 80,000, of which 
12,700, or 16%, are Negro students. Approximately 9,500 
of these Negro students live in the City of St. Peters­
burg, in the southernmost part of the system.

Since 1964, when the original complaint in this case 
was filed up to the 1969-70 school year, there has been 
a gradual decrease in the percentage of students in all- 
Negro schools throughout the entire system. In the 1969- 
70 school year, there were 102 schools in operation—72 
elementary, 19 junior high, and 11 senior high schools. 
During the 1969-70 school year, 12 elementary schools, one 
junior high and one senior high school served all-Negro 
or virtually all-Negro student bodies. Approximately 
8,400, or 66%, of the 12,700 Negro students in the entire 
system at all levels attended all-Negro or virtually all- 
Negro schools.

Under the school board’s plan, the plan approved by 
the district court, there were to be 107 schools in op­
eration—75 elementary, 20 junior high, and 12 senior high 
schools. At the elementary level, nine would remain all- 
Negro or virtually all-Negro. There would also remain 
the one all-Negro junior high and one all-Negro senior 
high school. Under this plan, 8,200 out of the 12,700 Negro 
students in the entire system at all grade levels, or 64%, 
would attend all-Negro or virtually all-Negro schools.

The school hoard’s plan does not change the already- 
existing majority-to-minority transfer policy, which dur­
ing the 1969-70 school year has resulted in the transfer 
of only 62 students.2 The plan also leaves intact two 
bi-racial committees operating in Pinellas Connty. We 
do not disapprove of either of these two features of the 
school board’s plan.

2 Fifty of these students, however, were Negroes transferring 
from all-Negro to predominantly white schools.



A4

F aculty  and S taff

The faculty and staff desegregation standard enunciated 
in Singleton v. Jackson Municipal Separate School Dis­
trict, 5 Cir., 1969, 419 F. 2d 1211, requires assignment 
on a basis whereunder the ratio of Negro to white teachers 
and staff members in each school is substantially the same 
as each such ratio is to teachers and staff in the entire 
school system. This standard has not been met in the 
Pinellas County school system. It is clear that the board’s 
temporary assignment of two minority teachers to each 
school and its promise to meet the 87.5%-white—12.5%- 
Negro faculty ratio in the future does not comply with 
our Singleton decision. The board is therefore directed 
to formulate faculty assignments which comply with 
Singleton by July 15, 1970.

T ra n sportation , F a c il it ie s , and E xtracurricular 
A ctiv ities

From the record, it appears that the Pinellas County 
transportation system is operated on a desegregated basis. 
The district court, through its approval of the school 
board’s Exhibits D-l, D-2, and D-3, found that the trans­
portation is equally available to both Negro and white 
students in Pinellas County.

The facts indicate that the extracurricular activities 
and facilities of the Pinellas County schools are also op­
erated on a desegregated basis. There is no complaint 
regarding transportation, extracurricular activities or fa­
cilities.

The district court is directed to enter an order requir­
ing the continued desegregation of facilities and extra­
curricular activities and to include the requirements of 
Singleton v. Jackson, supra, as to transportation, school 
construction, and school site selection as a part of the 
order.



A5

S tu d en t  A ssig n m e n t

We have examined the board’s proposed plan, and, on 
our own initiative, have considered various means of 
modifying the plan so as to eliminate all-Negro or virtually 
all-Negro student bodies while at the same time main­
taining the neighborhood school concept of the school 
system. The Pinellas school board does not purport to 
use the strict neighborhood assignment system that was 
applicable in Ellis, supra, but rather employs attendance 
zones based on discretionary zone lines. We find that 
the situation can be greatly improved by pairing some 
schools located in close proximity to each other, as was 
done in Mannings, supra, and by redrawing the zone lines 
in several instances.

In the following pages of this opinion, we undertake 
to set out the modifications of the school board’s plan 
which will be necessary to achieve an assignment of 
students commensurate with a unitary system. The modi­
fications reduce the number of all-Negro or virtually all- 
Negro elementary schools from nine, as contemplated by 
the district court-approved board’s plan, to three. The 
modification will desegregate all junior and senior high 
schools in the system. Instead of 64% of the Negro stu­
dents being assigned to all-Negro schools, as would be 
the case under the school board’s plan, the result under 
our modifications will be 14.2% (1,738 students instead 
of 8,700). Every Negro child will attend an integrated 
school at some time during his educational career.

Attached as Appendix A is a chart depicting student 
body composition by school and race under the district 
court-approved board plan and the plan as modified by 
this court. The district court is directed to implement 
the board’s plan as herein modified before August 1, 1970.

The majority of the Negro population in the Pinellas 
school system is situated in a densely populated 40-square



A6

block area in the middle of St. Petersburg. Nine of the 
11 schools which would remain all-Negro or virtually all- 
Negro under the board’s plan are located within this 
area—seven elementary, one junior high, and one senior 
high. Together, these nine schools enrolled 7,019, or 58%, 
of the entire Negro student population in the school sys­
tem, during the 1969-70 school year.

The other two all-Negro or virtually all-Negro schools 
remaining under the board’s plan are located in the urban 
area of the City of Clearwater in the northern sector 
of Pinellas County. Both are elementary.3

As for these two all-Negro Clearwater schools, we find 
that each can be effectively desegregated through pairing 
with schools with contiguous attendance zones. Curtis 
Elementary (360 Negroes, 0 white) and Palmetto Ele­
mentary (331 Negroes, 0 white) are clustered in the City 
of Clearwater in close proximity to North Ward (Clw.) 
(163 Negroes, 289 whites) to the southwest and Kings 
Highway Elementary (0 Negroes, 718 whites) to the north­
east. It is Ordered that the Curtis Elementary attendance 
zone be paired with that of Kings Highway Elementary, 
and that the Palmetto attendance zone be paired with 
that of North Ward Elementary (Clw.). The resulting 
enrollment in each of the new paired zones would be: 
Curtis-Kings Highway, 360 Negroes, 718 whites; Palmetto- 
North Ward (Clw.), 494 Negroes, 289 whites.

Turning to the nine schools in St. Petersburg which 
would remain all-Negro or virtually all-Negro under the 
school board’s plan, the district court found that as to

3 We find that the board’s plan for converting Union Academy 
into a special education center and distributing its Negro student 
body between Sunset Hills and Tarpon Springs and for imple­
menting a similar plan for Lincoln Heights, and for reassignment 
of students to desegregate Ridgecrest all are effective in desegre­
gating the three formerly all-Negro schools in the upper part of 
Pinellas County.



A .7

these schools “ no feasible plan” of desegregation was 
shown other than the school board’s plan. On remand 
for supplemental findings, the district court found that 
no additional white students would be assigned to these 
nine schools if the attendance zone lines were changed so 
that a neighborhood school attendance policy (as set out 
in Ellis, supra) were followed.

We find that the all-Negro or virtually all-Negro junior 
high school and senior high school in St. Petersburg, as 
well as four of the seven elementary schools which would 
remain all-Negro or virtually all-Negro under the board’s 
plan, can be desegregated through pairing and relocation 
of zone lines without creating impractical attendance zones 
or inordinate transportation problems. In setting out our 
modifications below for the schools in St. Petersburg, we 
refer to the zone lines and attendance figures utilized in 
the system during the 1969-70 school year and apply our 
modifications to those zone lines and attendance figures. 
In so doing, we reject the zones proposed by the board 
for schools hereinafter discussed and Order implemen­
tation of the following modifications of existing zones.

E lem enta ry  S chools

The 1969-70 attendance zone of Glenoak Elementary (560 
Negroes, 7 whites) is contiguous with that of Lakewood 
Elementary (10 Negroes, 504 whites). Many of the white 
students in the Lakewood zone have traveled farther to 
attend Lakewood than they would have to travel were 
they to attend Glenoak. As for the remaining students 
in both zones, since the two schools are only one and 
one-half miles apart, these two contiguous zones are to 
be paired. Under such pairing, the resulting racial com­
position of the new school zone would be 570 Negroes 
and 511 whites.

The 1969-70 attendance zone lines of Lakeview Elemen­
tary (772 Negroes, 4 whites) are bounded on the south



A8

by a thin finger of Child’s Park Elementary school zone. 
Immediately thereunder is the Bay Point attendance zone 
(4 Negroes, 727 whites) and the Bay Vista attendance 
zone (8 Negroes, 645 whites), both of which are large, and 
both Bay Vista and Bay Point school buildings are in 
the southern part of their respective zones. Many stu­
dents in these two zones live closer, or as close to the 
Lakeview school as they do to Bay Point or Bay Vista. 
We Order the zone lines of Lakeview to be redrawn so 
as to incorporate at least 400 white students living in 
the northern parts of the Bay Point and Bay Vista zones 
and the intervening finger of the Child’s Park zone. This 
additional influx of students into Lakeview would not 
strain that facility as the school board’s plan itself specifies 
a 1,555 student capacity in that facility. The resulting 
proportion of Negroes to whites in the formerly all-Negro 
Lakeview Elementary School would be 772 Negroes and 
404 whites.

On the western side of the 40-square-block concentration 
of Negroes in St. Petersburg area is Wildwood Elemen­
tary attendance zone (752 Negroes, 1 white) bounded on 
the west by Child’s Park Elementary and Fairmont Ele­
mentary (66 Negroes, 182 whites), and bounded on the 
north by West Central Elementary (147 Negroes, 332 
whites). It is Ordered that the zone lines of Fairmont 
be redrawn so as to incorporate 80 Negro students from 
the southeastern segment of the Wildwood zone. Wild­
wood and West Central are Ordered to be paired, as the 
schools are only one and one-half miles apart. Under 
such modification, the proportion of Negro and white stu­
dents within the resulting two attendance zones would 
be: Fairmont—146 Negroes, 182 whites; Wildwood-West 
Central—819 Negroes, 333 whites.

In the northeast section of the 40-square-block area is 
Campbell Park Elementary (701 Negroes, 0 whites). It 
is bounded on the north by the attendance zones of Wood-



A9

lawn Elementary (4 Negroes, 270 whites) and on the 
northeast by North Ward (2 Negroes, 298 whites). The 
zone lines of Woodlawn are Ordered to be redrawn so 
as to incorporate 160 Negro students from the northern 
part of the Campbell Park zone. Most of the students so 
incorporated would not have to travel any farther to 
attend Woodlawn as they reside equidistant from both 
schools. Also, Campbell Park is Ordered to be paired 
with North W'ard, and the zone lines of the resulting 
new zone are to be extended into the Woodlawn zone to 
incorporate 100 white students presently in the Woodlawn 
zone into the new zone. Those elementary students in 
the northernmost corner of North Ward (approximately 
50), closer to the North Shore Elementary School to 
the north, should be assigned to the North Shore at­
tendance zone. The proportion of Negroes to whites re­
sulting in each of the two new zones would be: Woodlawn 
—164 Negroes, 170 whites; North Ward-Campbell Park— 
543 Negroes, 348 whites.

There are two additional schools that are to be com­
pleted and staffed by the beginning of the Fall of 1970 
—School “ A ” , in upper Pinellas County, and School “ G”, 
in St. Petersburg. The district court is directed to in­
corporate these schools, and any other additional elemen­
tary facilities which have heretofore not been in operation, 
into the system on a desegregated basis, and as will be 
consistent with the above modifications.

J u n io r  H ig h  S chools

The board plan leaves one all-Negro junior high school, 
Sixteenth Street Junior High (1,573 Negroes, 0 whites). 
Its attendance zone lines are nearly co-extensive with the 
40-square-block Negro concentration in St. Petersburg. Of 
the four contiguous junior high school attendance zones, 
that of Disston to the west is the zone in which the school 
itself is closest to Sixteenth Street School. Disston Junior



A10

High (29 Negroes, 971 whites) is approximately three 
miles from Sixteenth Street Junior High. All of the other 
contiguous junior high attendance zones are more ex­
pansive and the junior high schools therein are more 
distant.

Having considered the capacities of the schools, the 
distances to be traveled, and the alternatives involving 
the other junior high schools in St. Petersburg, Disston 
Junior High is O rdebed to be paired with Sixteenth Street 
Junior High within their present 1969-70 attendance zones.4 
The resulting proportion of Negroes to whites in the new 
zone would be 1,602 Negroes and 971 whites.

S e n io r  H ig h  S chools

Likewise, one senior high school, Gibbs Senior High 
School (992 Negroes, 1 white) would remain all-Negro 
under the board plan. Its attendance zone boundaries are 
exactly co-extensive with the 40-square-block area, and 
all three contiguous senior high school attendance zones 
extend outward covering more than twice the area of the 
Gibbs zone. Two of the three contiguous zones have the 
high schools situated in relatively close proximity to Gibbs 
—St. Petersburg Senior High (128 Negroes, 1082 whites) 
being one and one-half miles away, and Boca Ciega Senior 
High (65 Negroes, 1873 whites) being two miles distant. 
Desegregation of Gibbs must be accomplished by either 
of the two following methods:

(1) Extend the zone lines of the Boca Ciega at­
tendance zone into the southwestern section of the 
Gibbs zone so as to incorporate 200 Negroes into 
the Boca Ciega zone. Then draw a new zone line 
running north to south between Gibbs Senior High

4 Since the capacity of Sixteenth Street Junior High is twice that 
of Disston Junior High, a feasible pairing plan would assign one 
of the three grades of these “ middle schools” to Disston, and 
assign the other two grades to Sixteenth Street.



A ll

and St. Petersburg Senior High so as to divide the 
remaining 800 Negroes in the Gibbs zone and the 
1082 whites in the St. Petersburg High zone equally 
between St. Petersburg Senior High and Gibbs Senior 
High. The resulting proportion of Negro to white 
in these three redrawn zones would be: Boca Ciega 
—265 Negroes, 1873 whites (the additional 200 Negroes 
in the Boca Ciega facility would still leave that facility 
short of capacity); St. Petersburg—528 Negroes, 541 
whites; Gibbs—400 Negroes, 541 whites.

(2) An alternative for the desegregation of Gibbs 
Senior High is to close the present Gibbs facility 
and redraw the zone lines of the three contiguous 
high school zones so as to incorporate in equal num­
bers the Negro students in the present Gibbs zone. The 
district court is Ordered to give consideration to the 
views of the school board and the advice given the 
school board by the bi-racial committees as to the 
choice between the alternatives. The school facilities 
in the three contiguous high school zones are large 
and would not be strained by the influx of the ad­
ditional 330 Negro students.

In conclusion, we feel that the modifications herein or­
dered to be implemented before the September Term of 
the 1970-71 school year effectively convert the Pinellas 
County student body composition into a unitary school 
system. It is noted that these modifications, while leav­
ing three all-Negro elementary schools in the center of St. 
Petersburg, reduce from 64% to 14.2% the percentage of 
Negroes attending all-Negro schools, and all these Negroes 
will later attend desegregated junior and senior high 
schools.

The district court is further directed to order that a 
bi-racial committee similar in function to that established 
in Ellis, supra, be implemented and that the majority to



A12

minority transfer policy be made available to all students. 
See pages 10-11 of Mobile, supra, slip opinion, as to the 
operational correlation between these two features of the 
school plan for the 1970-71 school year.

D e f ic ie n c ie s  To Be R em edied

We conclude that three of the six elements which go to 
make up a unitary school system have been accomplished 
in Pinellas County: transportation, extracurricular activi­
ties, and facilities. The deficiencies in faculty and staff 
desegregation must be remedied not later than July 15, 
1970, and those in student composition not later than 
August 1, 1970, on the basis heretofore set out.

Once the orders and directions have been effectuated 
in accordance with the standards heretofore set forth, the 
district court must retain jurisdiction for a reasonable 
time to insure that the system is operated in a constitu­
tional manner. As the Supreme Court stated in Green, 
supra, “ . . . whatever plan is adopted will require evalu­
ation in practice, and the court should retain jurisdiction 
until it is clear that the state-imposed segregation has 
been completely removed”. 391 U.S. 439.

R eversed  a n d  R em anded  w ith  d ire c tio n s .



A13

Elementary 
Anona Elem. 
Azalea Elem.
Bay Point Elem. 
Bay Vista Elem. 
Bear Creek 
Belcher Elem. 
Belleair 
Blanton 
Campbell Park 
Childs Park 
Clearview Ave. 
Cross Bayou 
Curtis Elem. 
Dunedin Elem. 
Fairmount Park 
Fifty-Fourth Ave. 
Forest Hills 
Fuguitt 
Glenoak 
Gulf Beaches 
Gulfport 
Harris Elem.
High Point Elem. 
Jordan Elem. 
Kings Highway

Lakeview
Lakewood

School

APPENDIX “ A ”

Projected Student 
Enrollment 

Under Board’s 
Proposed Plan

Projected Student 
Enrollment Under 

Modifications 
Ordered hy 
this Court

Negroes Whites Negroes Whites

120 520 120 520
0 831 0 831
1 724 4 477
0 725 8 495
0 370 0 370
1 779 1 779

70 680 70 680
0 610 0 610

730 0 543 348
200 190 200 190

0 568 0 568
0 580 0 580

325 0 360 718
37 792 37 792
70 195 146 182
0 643 0 643
0 224 0 224
0 740 92 595

356 4 570 511
0 377 0 377
6 504 6 504
0 194 0 194
0 605 0 605

463 0 487 0
0 760 Paired with 

Curtis Elem.
1090 6 772 404

0 586 Paired with
Glenoak Elem.



A14

Projected Student 
Enrollment 

TJnder Board’s 
Proposed Plan

Projected Student 
Enrollment Under 

Modifications 
Ordered by 
this Court

School Negroes Whites Negroes Whites

Largo Central 1 659 81 478
Lealman Ave. 0 487 0 487
Lincoln Heights 0 0 0 0
Lynch Elem. 0 934 0 934
Madeira Beach Elem. 0 553 0 553
Melrose 644 0 636 0
Mildred Helms 0 850 116 681
Mt. Vernon 0 445 0 445
North Shore 0 570 0 600
North Ward-Clw. 170 280 Paired with

Palmetto Elem.
North Ward-S.P. 14 306 Paired with

Campbell Park El.
Northwest 0 385 0 385
Norwood 0 292 0 292
Oakhurst 0 900 133 787
Oldsmar 8 317 8 317
Orange Grove 0 370 0 370
Ozona 0 205 0 205
Palm Harbor 0 225 0 225
Palmetto 330 0 494 289
Pasadena 0 500 0 500
Perkins 694 0 615 0
Pinellas Park 0 708 0 708
Plumb 0 675 0 675
Ponce de Leon 0 775 0 775
Ridgecrest 380 0 64 416
Rio Vista 0 481 0 481
Roser Park 150 107 150 107
Safety Harbor Elem. 97 422 229 729
San Jose 20 714 20 714
Seminole Elem. 1 639 1 639



A15

Seventy-Fourth St.
Shore Acres
Skycrest
Skyview
South Ward
Starkey
Sunset Hills
Sunshine
Tarpon Springs
Tyrone Elem.
Union Academy 
West Central

Westgate 
Wildwood 
Woodlawn 
Elementary “ A ” 
Elementary “ D ”

Junior High

Azalea Jr.
Bay Point Jr.
Clw. Comprehensive 
Disston Jr.

Dunedin Jr. 
Kennedy Jr.
Largo Jr.
Lealman Jr. 
Madeira Beach Jr. 
Meadowlawn Jr.

School

Projected Student 
Enrollment

Under Board’s 
Proposed Plan

Negroes Whites
0 520
0 651

64 535
0 700

45 515
0 950

32 290
0 205

60 574
0 680

139 0
215 357

0 714
836 0

31 269
68 585

0 652

0 1275
0 950

100 250
20 980

150 1016
219 1081
200 1400

0 875
1 1015

77 1173

Projected Student 
Enrollment Under 

Modifications 
Ordered by 
this Court

Negroes Whites
0 520
0 651

64 535
0 700

45 515
0 950

90 322
0 205

154 620
0 680
0 0

Paired with
Wildwood Elem

0 714
819 333
164 170
68 585

0 652

0 1275
0 950

100 250
Paired with
Sixteenth St.
150 1016
219 1081
200 1400

0 875
1 1015

77 1173



A16

School

Projected Student 
Projected Student Enrollment Under 

Enrollment Modifications
Under Board’s Ordered by
Proposed Plan This Court

Negroes Whites Negroes Whites
0 1350 0 1350
0 217 0 217
0 1450 0 1450
0 1310 0 1310

70 468 70 468
110 890 110 890

1600 0 1602 971
475 225 475 225
145 455 145 455

0 1205 0 1205

Oak Grove Jr. 
Palm Harbor Jr. 
Pinellas Park Jr. 
Riviera Jr.
Safety Harbor Jr. 
Seminole Jr. 
Sixteenth St. Jr. 
Southside Jr. 
Tarpon Springs Jr. 
Tyrone Jr.

Senior High

Boca Ciega Sr. 162
Clearwater Sr. 150
Dixie Hollins Sr. 15
Dunedin Sr. 175
Gibbs Sr. 1075
Lakewood Sr. 201
Largo Sr. 125
Northeast Sr. 0
St. Petersburg Sr. 160
Seminole Sr. 1
Tarpon Springs Sr. 75

2228 265” 1873
2150 150 2150
2385 15 2385
1325 175 1325

38 400” 541
1149 124 1136
1750 125 1750
2200 0 2200
1064 528** 541
1524 1 1524
635 75 635

** The figures given are the results achieved if the first alterna­
tive for senior high schools is adopted. Figures resulting if the 
second alternative is adopted are:

N W N W
Boca Ciega 395 1873 St. Petersburg 458 1082
Gibbs 0 0 Lakewood 509 955



A17

2. Opinion on Rehearing
IN THE

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 28639

L eon  W. B radley, Jr., a  m in o r , b y  L eon  W. B radley, Sr.,
his father and next friend, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v .

B oard of P u blic  I n str u c tio n  of P in ella s  C o u n ty , 
F lorida, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal From the United States District Court for 
the Middle District of Florida

(July 28, 1970)

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING

Before S im ps o n , M organ and I n g ra ha m ,
Circuit Judges.

M organ, Circuit Judge: In the light of subsequent 
changes made by the school board in attendance zones 
and enrollment figures, and in order to incorporate into 
the Pinellas County school system new schools not shown 
in the original record, all as set out in the school board’s 
motion for rehearing, the prior opinion and judgment of 
this court of July 1, 1970, are withdrawn and the following 
opinion and orders are substituted therefor.

The issue presented in this school desegregation case is 
whether the Pinellas County, Florida, public school sys­
tem is unitary. The district court, by its final order of 
August 4, 1969, held that the desegregation plan submitted 
by the school board for the year 1969-1970 (hereinafter,



A18

the school board’s plan) effectively “ converted the old 
dual system to a unitary system in which racial discrimina­
tion is eliminated” .1 The school board’s plan was put 
into effect for the 1969-70 school year even though plain­
tiffs appealed. From the district court’s order, plaintiffs 
filed notice of appeal to this court on September 12, 1969. 
Upon oral argument and this court’s request for additional 
findings of fact, the district court entered its supplemental 
findings on April 18, 1970.

Tested against the six criteria of Green v. County 
School Board of Neiv Kent County, 391 U.S. 430 (1968)— 
faculty, transportation, staff facilities, extracurricular ac­
tivities, and student body composition—and the end to be 
achieved as set out in Alexander v. Holmes County Board 
of Education, 396 U.S. 19 (1969)—that the school system 
no longer operate as a dual system based on race or color 
but as a “ unitary school system within which no person 
is to be effectively excluded from any school because of 
race or color”—we find the school board’s plan, as ap­
proved by the district court, to be deficient in student 
assignment in certain schools. In keeping with the ap­
proach of Ellis v. The Board of Public Instruction of 
Orange County, Florida, 5 Cir., 1970, 423 F. 2d 203; 
Mannings v. The Board of Public Instruction of Hills­
borough County, Florida, 5 Cir., 1970,------F. 2 d ------- - [No.
28,643, May 11, 1970]; we will review all the requisites of 
Green, supra, to make a final determination as to whether 
Pinellas County has been effectively converted into a uni­
tary system.

The Pinellas school system covers the whole of Pinellas 
County with a land area of 265 square miles. The student 
population of the system is approximately 80,000, of which 
12,700, or 16%, are Negro students. Approximately 9,500

1 The school hoard’s plan has been revised and amended through­
out the course of litigation. The figures used below are based 
on school population by race as of April 23, 1970.



A19

of these Negro students live in the City of St. Petersburg, 
in the southernmost part of the system.

Since 1964, when the original complaint in this case was 
filed up to the 1969-70 school year, there has been a gradual 
decrease in the percentage of students in all-Negro schools 
throughout the entire system. In the 1969-70 school year, 
there were 102 schools in operation—72 elementary, 19 
junior high, and 11 senior high schools. During the 1969-70 
school year, 12 elementary schools, one junior high and 
one senior high school served all-Negro or virtually all- 
Negro student bodies. Approximately 8,400, or 66%, of 
the 12,700 Negro students in the entire system at all levels 
attended all-Negro or virtually all-Negro schools.

Under the school board’s plan, the plan approved by 
the district court, there were to be 107 schools in opera­
tion—75 elementary, 20 junior high, and 12 senior high 
schools. At the elementary level, nine would remain all- 
Negro or virtually all-Negro. There would also remain 
the one all-Negro junior high and one all-Negro senior 
high school. Under this plan, 8,200 out of the 12,700 Negro 
students in the entire system at all grade levels, or 64%, 
would attend all-Negro or virtually all-Negro schools.

The school board’s plan does not change the already- 
existing majority-to-minority transfer policy, which dur­
ing the 1969-70 school year has resulted in the transfer 
of only 62 students.2 The plan also leaves intact two 
bi-racial committees operating in Pinellas County. We 
do not disapprove of either of these two features of the 
the school board’s plan.

F aculty  and S ta ff

The faculty and staff desegregation standard enunciated 
in Singleton v. Jackson Municipal Separate School Dis­

2 Fifty of these students, however, were Negroes transferring 
from all-Negro to predominantly white schools.



A20

trict, 5 Cir., 1969, 119 F. 2d 1211, requires assignment on 
a basis whereunder the ratio of Negro to white teachers 
and staff members in each school is substantially the same 
as each such ratio is to teachers and staff in the entire 
school system. This standard has been met in the Pinel­
las County school system. According to the school board’s 
“ Instructional Personnel Assignments’’ submitted to this 
court and dated July 15, 1970, each school system has a 
faculty composition which closely approximates the 87.5%- 
white —12.5%-Negro ratio in compliance with Singleton. 
The Board is O rdered to implement this faculty and staff 
assignment for its 1970-71 school year.

T ransportation , F a c il it ie s , and 
E xtracurricular  A ctiv ities

From the record, it appears that the Pinellas County 
transportation system is operated on a desegregated basis. 
The district court, through its approval of the school 
board’s Exhibits D-l, D-2, and D-3, found that the trans­
portation is equally available to both Negro and white 
students in Pinellas County.

The facts indicate that the extracurricular activities 
and facilities of the Pinellas County schools are also op­
erated on a desegregated basis. There is no complaint re­
garding transportation, extracurricular activities or fa­
cilities.

The district court is directed to enter an order requiring 
the continued desegregation of facilities and extracurricu­
lar activities and to include the requirements of Singleton 
v. Jackson, supra, as to transportation, school construc­
tion, and school site selection as a part of the order.

S tu d e n t  A ssig n m e n t

We have examined the board’s proposed plan, and, 
on our own initiative, have considered various means 
of modifying the plan so as to eliminate all-Negro or



A21

virtually all-Negro student bodies while at the same time 
maintaining the neighborhood school concept of the school 
system. The Pinellas school board does not purport to 
use the strict neighborhood assignment system that was 
applicable in Ellis, supra, but rather employs attendance 
zones based on discretionary zone lines. We find that the 
situation can be greatly improved by pairing some schools 
located in close proximity to each other, as was done in 
Mannings, supra, by redrawing the zone lines in several 
instances, and by grouping several schools into a common 
attendance zone.

In the following pages of this opinion, we undertake 
to set out the modifications of the school board’s plan 
which will be necessary to achieve an assignment of 
students commensurate with a unitary system. The modi­
fications reduce the number of all-Negro or virtually all- 
Negro elementary schools from nine, as contemplated by 
the district court-approved board’s plan, to three. The 
modification will desegregate all junior and senior high 
schools in the system. Instead of 64% of the Negro 
students being assigned to all-Negro schools, as would be 
the case under the school board’s plan, the result under our 
modifications will be 14.2% (1,738 students instead of 
8,700). Every Negro child will attend an integrated school 
at some time during his educational career.

Attached as Appendix A is a chart depicting student 
body composition by school and race under the district 
court-approved board plan and the plan as modified by 
this court. The district court is directed to implement the 
board’s plan as herein modified before August 14, 1970.

The majority of the Negro population in the Pinellas 
school system is situated in a densely populated 40-square- 
block area in the middle of St. Petersburg. Nine of the 
11 schools which would remain all-Negro or virtually all- 
Negro under the board’s plan are located within this 
area— seven elementary, one junior high, and one senior



A22

high. Together, these nine schools enrolled 7,019, or 58% 
of the entire Negro student population in the school system, 
during the 1969-70 school year.

The other two all-Negro or virtually all-Negro schools 
remaining under the board’s plan are located in the urban 
area of the City of Clearwater in the northern sector of 
Pinellas County. Both are elementary.3

As for the two all-Negro schools in Clearwater, the 
board has paired Palmetto Elementary (formerly 331 
Negroes, 0 white) with Kings Highway (formerly 0 Negro, 
718 whites), which schools have contiguous attendance 
zones and are less than one mile apart. Such a pairing 
has resulted in an enrollment in the schools of 260 Negroes, 
650 whites as of the end of the 1969-70 school year. In 
light of these facts, we find that Palmetto has been effec­
tively desegregated under this pairing plan.

The remaining all-Negro school in the Clearwater area 
is Curtis Elementary (362 Negroes, 0 white). The board’s 
earlier attempt to desegregate this school by extending its 
attendance zone lines northward into the Dunedin attend­
ance zone has not effectively achieved this goal. There 
being no alternatives submitted by the parties, Curtis is 
O rdered to be paired with Dunedin Elementary (31 
Negroes, 849 whites) which is approximately two miles to 
the north. The relative capacities of the schools could 
be best utilized by housing in Curtis the fifth and sixth 
grades from both schools and in Dunedin the first through 
the fourth grades from both schools, though the ultimate 
grade levels and student assignments are to be made by

3 We find that the board’s plan for converting Union Academy 
into a special education center and distributing its Negro student 
body between Sunset Hills and Tarpon Springs and for imple­
menting a similar plan for Lincoln Heights, and for reassignment 
of students to desegregate Ridgecrest all are effective in desegre­
gating the three formerly all-Negro schools in the upper part of 
Pinellas County.



A23

the board. The resulting racial composition in the paired 
zone is 329 Negroes and 868 whites.

Turning to the nine schools in St. Petersburg which 
would remain all-Negro or virtually all-Negro under the 
school board’s plan, the district court found that as to 
these schools “ no feasible plan” of desegregation was 
shown other than the school board’s plan. On remand for 
supplemental findings, the district court found that no 
additional white students would be assigned to these nine 
schools if the attendance zone lines were changed so that 
a neighborhood school attendance policy (as set out in 
Ellis, supra) were followed.

We find that the all-Negro or virtually all-Negro junior 
high school and senior high school in St. Petersburg, as 
well as four of the seven elementary schools which would 
remain all-Negro or virtually all-Negro under the board’s 
plan, can be desegregated through pairing, grouping, and 
relocating of zone lines without creating impractical attend­
ance zones or inordinate transportation problems. In 
setting out our modifications below for the schools in St. 
Petersburg, we refer to the zone lines and attendance 
figures projected by the board for the 1970-71 school year. 
These lines slightly modify the 1969-70 attendance zone 
lines in that a small number of Negroes are zoned out of 
the 40-square-block area and into adjacent zones. How­
ever, the seven elementary, the junior high and the senior 
high schools remain all- or virtually all-Negro. We, there­
fore, Order implementation of the following modifications 
of these projected zones for the 1970-71 school year.

E lem enta ry  S chools

Glenoak Elementary (490 Negroes, 7 whites) is bounded 
on the south by two predominantly white elementary 
schools—Lakewood Elementary (77 Negroes, 431 whites) 
and, further south, Bay Vista (7 Negroes, 482 whites)— 
which are one and one-half miles and two and one-half



A24

miles, respectively, by road from Glenoak. It is O rdered 
that Glenoak Elementary be desegregated by implement­
ing either of the following alternative plans:

(1) By pairing Glenoak and Lakewood, resulting in 
a racial composition in the new school zone of 567 
Negroes and 438 whites, or

(2) By grouping Glenoak, Lakewood and Bay Vista, 
resulting in a racial composition in the one zone in 
which these three schools are placed of 574 Negroes 
and 920 whites.

Under either alternative, the school facilities are to be 
employed in such a manner that will best utilize the school’s 
capacities and as will prove, in the opinion of the board, 
to be the most educationally sound.

Lakeview Elementary (704 Negroes, 4 whites) is 
bordered on the south by a new school, Maximo Elemen­
tary (78 Negroes, 552 whites), and one mile further south 
is Bay Point Elementary (3 Negroes, 452 whites). Maxi­
mo and Bay Point are two and three miles, respectively, 
from Lakeview. It is O rdered that Lakeview Elementary 
be desegregated by implementing either the following 
alternative plans:

(1) By pairing Lakeview and Maximo, resulting in 
a racial composition in the new school zone of 782 
Negroes and 556 whites, or

(2) By grouping Lakeview, Maximo and Bay Point, 
resulting in a racial composition in the one zone in 
which the three schools are placed of 785 Negroes and 
1008 whites.

Again, the manner in which the grade levels and enroll­
ment figures are to be allotted in each school under either 
alternative must best utilize the schools’ capacities and 
prove, in the opinion of the board, to be most educationally 
sound.



A25

Wildwood Elementary (752 Negroes, 1 white) is in the 
northwestern part of the 40-square-block area. It is 
Ordered that this school be desegregated in the following 
manner: The Forest Hills zone line is to be extended into 
the southeast corner of the Bear Creek zone so as to pick 
up 50 white elementary students and bring that school 
down to its capacity. The western zone line of the Fair- 
mount Park zone is to be moved westward in to the Forest 
Hills zone so as to pick up 100 white elementary students, 
bringing both Forest Hills and Fairmount Park (with one 
relocatable placed on the Fairmount Park site) close to 
their relative capacities. The West Central zone line is to 
be extended into the southeastern corner of the Mt. Vernon 
zone so as to take into the West Central zone 100 white ele­
mentary students which it can accommodate by placing two 
relocatables on the West Central site. These zone lines hav­
ing been thus redrawn, the three schools, Fairmount Park 
(66 Negroes, 282 whites), West Central (147 Negroes, 432 
whites), and Wildwood (752 Negroes, 1 white), all of which 
have contiguous attendance zones and are approximately 
one and one-half miles equi-distant from each other, are 
O rdered to be grouped, with the grade levels and enroll­
ments in each of the three schools to be allotted in the 
same manner described in the two preceding paragraphs. 
The racial composition resulting from such a grouping is 
965 Negroes and 715 whites.

Campbell Park (701 Negroes, 0 white) is in the north­
eastern section of the 40-square-block area, and is bordered 
on all sides by desegregated schools—West Central (147 
Negroes, 432 whites), Euclid (180 Negroes, 53 whites), and 
Roser Park (165 Negroes, 141 whites)—or all-Negro 
schools Jordan and Melrose to the southwest. However, 
approximately one mile further north, there are four all- 
white schools. Campbell Park is Ordered to be desegre­
gated in the following manner: The zone lines of Wood- 
lawn are to be extended into the Norwood attendance zone 
so as to pick up 100 white elementary students. The east-



A26

emmost part of the Woodlawn zone, east of Ninth Street 
N., is to be zoned into the Euclid zone (approximately 50 or 
more white elementary students). The Euclid zone is then 
to be extended further north into the southern part of the 
North Shore zone to pick up another 50 white elementary 
students. While this rezoning leaves Norwood and North 
Shore short of capacity (42 and 85 students, respectively), 
it brings both Woodlawn and Euclid—both formerly under­
capacity—to full capacity. The zone lines of North Ward 
Elementary are to be extended northward into the southern 
part of the North Shore zone so as to pick up 50 white 
elementary students, bringing North Shore below capacity 
and requiring full capacity at North Ward, with two re- 
locatables being situated on that site. Having thus re­
drawn these zone lines, the four schools, Woodlawn (4 
Negroes, 320 whites), Euclid (180 Negroes, 153 whites), 
North Ward (2 Negroes, 348 whites), and Campbell Park 
(701 Negroes, 0 white), are Ordered to be grouped with 
the grade levels and enrollments in each school to be 
allotted by the school board in the same manner as set 
forth in the preceding paragraphs. The fourth through 
the sixth grades in the four zones could be housed in Camp­
bell Park and Euclid, while the first through the third 
grades could be housed in Woodlawn and North Ward, 
though such allocation is only one of many ways in which 
the school board could effectuate this grouping. Such a 
grouping would involve no more distant traveling than two 
and one-half miles (the greatest distance among the schools 
being only two miles) and would result in a racial composi­
tion in the one zone in which the four schools are placed of 
887 Negroes and 821 whites.

The district court is directed to incorporate any other 
additional elementary facilities which have heretofore not 
been in operation into the system on a desegregated basis 
and as will be consistent with the above modifications.



A27

J u n io r  H ig h  S chools

The board plan leaves one all-Negro junior high school, 
Sixteenth Street Junior High (1,573 Negroes, 0 white). 
Its attendance zone lines are nearly co-extensive with the 
40-square-block Negro concentration in St. Petersburg. 
Of the four contiguous junior high school attendance zones, 
that of Disston to the west is the zone in which the school 
itself is closest to Sixteenth Street School. Disston Junior 
High (29 Negroes, 971 whites) is approximately three miles 
from Sixteenth Street Junior High. All of the other con­
tiguous junior high attendance zones are more expansive 
and the junior high schools therein are more distant.

Having considered the capacities of the schools, the dis­
tances to be traveled, and the alternatives involving the 
other junior high schools in St. Petersburg, Disston Junior 
High is Ordered to be paired with Sixteenth Street Junior 
High within their present 1969-70 attendance zones.4 The 
resulting proportion of Negroes to whites in the new zone 
would be 1,602 Negroes and 971 whites.

S e n io r  H ig h  S chools

Likewise, one senior high school, Gibbs Senior High 
School (992 Negroes, 1 white) would remain all-Negro 
under the board plan. Its attendance zone boundaries are 
exactly co-extensive with the 40-square-block area, and all 
three contiguous senior high school attendance zones ex­
tend outward covering more than twice the area of the 
Gibbs zone. Two of the three contiguous zones have the 
high schools situated in relatively close proximity to 
Gibbs—St. Petersburg Senior High (128 Negroes, 1,082 
whites) being one and one-half miles away, and Boca

4 Since the capacity of Sixteenth Street Junior High is twice that 
of Disston Junior High, a feasible pairing plan would assign one 
of the three grades of these “ middle schools” to Disston, and 
assign the other two grades to Sixteenth Street.



A28

Ciega Senior High (65 Negroes, 1,873 whites) being two 
miles distant. Desegregation of Gibbs must be accom­
plished by either of the two following methods:

(1) Extend the zone lines of the Boca Ciega attend­
ance zone into the southwestern section of the Gibbs 
zone so as to incorporate 200 Negroes into the Boca 
Ciega zone. Then draw a new zone line running north 
to south between Gibbs Senior High and St. Peters­
burg Senior High so as to divide the remaining 800 
Negroes in the Gibbs zone and the 1,082 whites in the 
St. Petersburg High zone equally between St. Peters­
burg Senior High and Gibbs Senior High. The result­
ing proportion of Negro to white in these three re­
drawn zones would be: Boca Ciega—265 Negroes, 
1,873 whites (the additional 200 Negroes in the Boca 
Ciega facility would still leave that facility short of 
capacity); St. Petersburg—528 Negroes, 541 w hites; 
Gibbs—400 Negroes, 541 whites.

(2) An alternative for the desegregation of Gibbs 
Senior High is to close the present Gibbs facility and 
redraw the zone lines of the three contiguous high 
school zones so as to incorporate in equal numbers the 
Negro students in the present Gibbs zone. The district 
court is O rdered to give consideration to the views of 
the school board and the advice given the school board 
by the bi-racial committees as to the choice between 
the alternatives. The school facilities in the three 
contiguous high school zones are large and would not 
be strained by the influx of the additional 330 Negro 
students.

In conclusions, we feel that the modifications herein 
ordered to be implemented before the September Term of 
the 1970-71 school year effectively convert the Pinellas 
County student body composition into a unitary school 
system. It is noted that these modifications, while leaving



A29

three all-Negro elementary schools in the center of St. 
Petersburg, reduce from 64% to 14.2% the percentage of 
Negroes attending all-Negro schools, and all these Negroes 
will later attend desegregated junior high and senior high 
schools.

The district court is further directed to order that a bi- 
racial committee similar in function to that established in 
Ellis, supra, be implemented and that the majority to 
minority transfer policy be made available to all students. 
See pages 10-11 of Mobile, supra, slip opinion, as to the 
operational correlation between these two features of the 
school plan for the 1970-71 school year.

D e fic ie n c ie s  To Be R emedied

We conclude that only one of the six elements which go 
to make up a unitary school system is deficient—student 
body composition. This deficiency must be remedied not 
later than August 14, 1970, as heretofore set out.

Once the orders and directions have been effectuated 
in accordance with the standards heretofore set forth, 
the district court must retain jurisdiction for a reasonable 
time to insure that the system is operated in a constitu­
tional manner. As the Supreme Court stated in Green, 
supra, “ . . . whatever plan is adopted will require evalua­
tion in practice, and the court should retain jurisdiction 
until it is clear that the state-imposed segregation has been 
completely removed”. 391 U.S. 439.

This court, having modified the opinion of July 1, 1970, 
subject to such modifications, the appellees’ petition for 
rehearing is D e n ie d .



A30

School
Elementary

Anona Elem. 
Azalea Elem.
Bay Point Elem. 
Bay Vista Elem. 
Bear Creek 
Belcher Elem. 
Belleair 
Blanton 
Campbell Park 
Childs Park 
Clearview Ave. 
Cross Bayou 
Curtis Elem. 
Dunedin Elem.

Euclid
Fairmount Park 
Fifty-Fourth Ave. 
Forest Hills 
Fuguitt 
Glenoak 
Gulf Beaches 
Gulfport 
Harris Elem.
High Point Elem. 
Jordan Elem. 
Kings Highway

Lakeview

APPENDIX “ A ”
Projected Student 

Projected Student Enrollment Under 
Enrollment Modifications

Under Board’s Ordered by
Proposed Plan this Court

Negroes Whites Negroes Whites

120 520 120 520
0 831 0 831
1 724 See Opinion
0 725 See Opinion
0 370 1 354
1 779 1 779

70 680 70 680
0 610 0 610

730 0 See Opinion
200 190 200 190

0 568 0 568
0 580 0 580

325 0 329 868
37 792 Paired with 

Curtis Elem.
180 53 See Opinion
70 195 See Opinion
0 643 0 643
0 224 1 161
0 740 92 595

356 4 See Opinion
0 377 0 377
6 504 6 504
0 194 0 194
0 605 0 605

463 0 487 0
0 760 Paired with 

Palmetto
1,090 6 See Opinion



A31

Projected Student 
Enrollment 

Under Board’s 
Proposed Plan

Projected Student 
Enrollment Under 

Modifications 
Ordered by 
This Court

School Negroes Whites Negroes Whites
Lakewood See Opinion
Largo Central 1 659 81 478
Lealman Ave. 0 487 0 487
Lincoln Heights 0 0 0 0
Lynch Elem. 0 934 0 934
Madeira Beach Elem. 0 553 0 553
Maximo 78 552 See Opinion
Melrose 644 0 636 0
Mildred Helms 0 850 116 681
Mt. Vernon 0 445 0 364
North Shore 0 570 0 449
North Ward-Clw. 170 280 170 280
North Ward-S.P. 14 306 See Opinion
Northwest 0 385 0 385
Norwood 0 292 0 292
Oakhurst 0 900 133 787
Oldsmar 8 317 8 317
Orange Grove 0 370 0 370
Ozona 0 205 0 205
Palm Harbor 0 225 0 225
Palmetto 331 0 260 650
Pasadena 0 500 0 500
Perkins 694 0 615 0
Pinellas Park 0 708 0 708
Plumb 0 675 0 675
Ponce de Leon 0 775 0 775
Ridgecrest 380 0 64 416
Rio Vista 0 481 0 481
Roser Park 150 107 150 107
Safety Harbor Elem. 97 422 229 729
San Jose 20 714 20 714
Seminole Elem. 1 639 1 639



A32

Projected Student 
Enrollment 

Under Board’s 
Proposed Plan

Projected Student 
Enrollment Under 

Modifications 
Ordered by 
this Court

School Negroes Whites Negroes Whites
Seventy-Fourth St. 0 520 0 520
Shore Acres 0 651 0 651
Skycrest 64 535 64 535
Skyview 0 700 0 700
South Ward 45 515 45 515
Starkey 0 950 0 950
Sunset Hills 32 290 90 322
Sunshine 0 205 0 205
Tarpon Springs 60 574 154 620
Tyrone Elem. 0 680 0 680
Union Academy 139 0 0 0
West Central 215 357 See Opinion
Westgate 0 714 0 714
Wildwood 836 0 See Opinion
Woodlawn 31 269 See Opinion
Elementary “ A ” 68 585 68 585
Elementary “ D ” 0 652 0 652

Junior High

Azalea Jr. 0 1275 0 1275
Bay Point Jr. 0 950 0 950
Clw. Comprehensive 100 250 100 250
Disston Jr. 20 980 Paired with 

Sixteenth St.
Dunedin Jr. 150 1016 150 1016
Kennedy Jr. 219 1081 219 1081
Largo Jr. 200 1400 200 1400
Lealman Jr. 0 875 0 875
Madeira Beach Jr. 1 1015 1 1015
Meadowlawn Jr. 77 1173 77 1173
Oak Grove Jr. 0 1350 0 1350



A33

School
Palm Harbor Jr. 
Pinellas Park Jr. 
Riviera Jr.
Safety Harbor Jr. 
Seminole Jr. 
Sixteenth St. Jr. 
Southside Jr. 
Tarpon Springs Jr. 
Tyrone Jr.

Senior High

Boca Ciega Sr. 
Clearwater Sr. 
Dixie Hollins Sr. 
Dunedin Sr.
Gibbs Sr.
Lakewood Sr.
Largo Sr.
Northeast Sr.
St. Petersburg Sr. 
Seminole Sr. 
Tarpon Springs Sr.

Projected Student 
Enrollment 

Under Board’s 
Proposed Plan

Negroes Whites
0 217
0 1450
0 1310

70 468
110 890

1600 0
475 225
145 455

0 1205

162 2228
150 2150
15 2385

175 1325
1075 38

201 1149
125 1750

0 2200
160 1064

1 1524
75 635

Enrollment Under 
Modifications 
Ordered by 
this Court

Projected Student
Negroes Whites

0 217
0 1450
0 1310

70 468
110 890

1602 971
475 225
145 455

0 1205

265* * 1873
150 2150

15 2385
175 1325
400** 541
124** 1136
125 1750

0 2200
528** 541

1 1524
75 635

** The figures given are the results achieved if the first alterna­
tive for senior high schools is adopted. Figures resulting if the 
second alternative is adopted are:

N W N W
Boca Ciega 395 1873 Lakewood 509 955
Gibbs 0 0 St. Petersburg 458 1082



A34

APPENDIX B

DISTRICT COURT JUDGMENT FOLLOWING 
REMAND

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA 
TAMPA DIVISION

No. 64-98-Civ. T.

L eon  W. B radley, Jr., a  m in o r , b y  L eon  W. B radley, Sr. 
h is  f a th e r  a n d  n e x t  f r ie n d ,  e t  a l, Plaintiffs,

v.
B oard of P u blic  I n str u c tio n  of P in ella s  C o u n t y , 

F lorida, e t  a l, Defendants.

F in a l  Order

On August 4, 1969, this Court entered a Final Order 
approving Defendant School Board’s Revised Plan, as 
amended, for desegregation of the Pinellas County School 
System and concluded that said plan effectively “ converted 
the old dual system to a unitary system in which racial 
discrimination is eliminated.” On September 12, 1969, 
Plaintiffs filed a Notice of Appeal from this Order to the 
United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and, after 
oral argument, the Fifth Circuit requested supplemental 
findings of fact. Pursuant to this order, supplemental 
findings of fact were filed by this Court on April 28, 1970.

On July 1, 1970, the Fifth Circuit reversed the August 
4, 1969, Order of this Court and remanded this cause with 
certain directions. Bradley  v. Board of Public Instruc­
tion of Pinellas County, Florida, et al, No. 28639, — F.2d 
— (5th Cir., July 1, 1970). However, in light of subse­
quent changes made by the School Board in attendance



A35

zones and enrollment figures, and in order to incorporate 
into the Pinellas County School System new schools not 
shown in the original record, the Fifth Circuit withdrew 
its July 1, 1970, decision and substituted in lieu thereof a 
decision dated July 29, 1970. Bradley v. Board of Public 
Instruction of Pinellas County, Florida, et al, No. 28639, 
— F.2d — (5th Cir., July 29, 1970).

The Circuit Court tested the Pinellas County School Sys­
tem against the six criteria enumerated in Green v. 
County School Board of New Kent County, 391 U.S. 
430 (1968) i.e., faculty, transportation, staff, facilities, 
extracurricular activities and student body composition, 
and the end to be achieved as set out in Alexander v. Holmes 
County Board of Education, 396 U.S. 19 (1969) that the 
school system no longer operate as a dual system based 
upon race or color but as a “ unitary school system within 
which no person is to be effectively excluded from any 
school because of race or color” , and made the following 
conclusions:

F aculty  and S ta ff

The faculty and staff desegregation standard enunciated 
in Singleton v. Jackson Municipal Separate School District, 
419 F.2d 1211 (5th Cir. 1969) requires assignment on a 
basis whereunder the ratio of Negro to white teachers and 
staff members in each school is substantially the same as 
each such ratio is to teachers and staff in the entire school 
system. The Fifth Circuit concluded that this standard has 
been met in the Pinellas County School System in light 
of the Board’s “ Instructional Personnel Assignments” 
dated July 15, 1970, which indicated that each school 
system has a faculty composition which closely approxi­
mates the 87.5% white -12.5% Negro ratio in compliance 
with Singleton.



A36

T ra n sportation , F a c il it ie s  and E xtracurricular  
A ctiv ities

After an examination of the record, the Circuit Court 
concluded that the Pinellas County transportation system 
is being operated on a desegregated basis and is equally 
available to both Negro and white students in Pinellas 
County.

The same was found to be true concerning the extracur­
ricular activities and facilities of the Pinellas County 
schools.

S t u d e n t  A ssig n m e n t

With respect to student assignment, the Circuit Court 
concluded that the Board’s Plan, as approved by this Court, 
was deficient. Accordingly, they considered various means 
of modifying the plan so as to eliminate all-Negro or vir­
tually all-Negro student bodies while at the same time at­
tempting to maintain the neighborhood school concept 
and found that by pairing, redrawing zone lines, and by 
grouping several schools into a common attendance zone, 
the situation could be greatly improved. The Circuit 
Court found that these modifications will reduce the num­
ber of all-Negro or virtually all-Negro elementary schools 
from nine to three and will eliminate St. Petersburg Six­
teenth Street Junior High School and. Gibbs Senior High 
School from being all-Negro.

The Fifth Circuit also found that instead of 64% of 
Negro students being assigned to all-Negro schools, the 
situation under the School Board’s Plan, the result under 
their modification would be 14.2%. Further, every Negro 
student would attend an integrated school at some time 
during his educational career.

In their decision the Circuit Court provided alternative 
plans for the desegregation of Glenoak Elementary, Lake- 
view Elementary and Gibbs Senior High Schools. In ref­



A37

erence to Gibbs Senior High, the Circuit Court directed 
this Court to give consideration to the views of the School 
Board and the advice given the Board by the bi-racial 
committees before selecting one of the alternatives.

A hearing was held before this Court on August 5, 1970, 
at which time Defendant filed a Response to the Fifth Cir­
cuit’s decision of July 29, 1970. In this Response, the De­
fendant Board concluded that the most educationally sound 
plan would be to group Glenoak Elementary with Lake- 
wood and Bay Vista, and further that Lakeview be de­
segregated by grouping Lakeview, Maximo and Bay Point. 
Concerning Gibbs Senior High, the Bi-Racial Advisory 
Committee recommended to the Defendant Board that the 
present Gibbs facility be closed and zone lines for the 
three contiguous high schools be redrawn so as to incor­
porate those Negro students in the present Gibbs zone. 
Further, the Committee recommended that when Gibbs 
reopens it do so as a comprehensive high school. Plaintiffs’ 
counsel did not object to the Defendants’ conclusions con­
cerning the Glenoak and Lakeview Elementary Schools, nor 
did he object to the Bi-Racial Committee’s suggestion con­
cerning Senior High School.

In its Response, Defendant Board also requests the 
approval by this Court of certain proposed grade assign­
ments not specifically decided by the Circuit Court’s Order. 
Plaintiffs’ counsel voiced no objections to these requests.

The Court has otherwise considered the Fifth Circuit’s 
directive, the Response filed by the Defendant Board, and is 
fully advised in the premises. It is therefore, upon con­
sideration,

Ordered and D ecreed  :

1. That the Defendant School Board’s Plan, as amended 
and revised by the United States Fifth Circuit Court of 
Appeals in the decision of Bradley v. Board of Public



A38

Instruction of Pinellas County, Florida, No. 28639, — F.2d 
— (July 29, 1970), be, and the same is hereby A pproved 
and A dopted  by this Court, and the Defendant School Board 
is directed to put said plan into operation forthwith and by 
August 14, 1970, for conduct of its school system for the 
1970-1971 school year.

2. That the Defendant School Board is ordered to im­
plement its “ Instructional Personnel Assignments” which 
pertains to faculty and staff assignment for its 1970-1971 
school year.

3. That the Defendant School Board is directed and 
ordered to maintain the continued desegregation of facil­
ities and extracurricular activities.

4. That the transportation system shall be completely 
re-examined regularly by the Superintendent, his staff, and 
the School Board. Bus routes and the assignment of stu­
dents to the buses will be designed to insure the trans­
portation of all eligible pupils on a non-segregated and 
otherwise non-discriminatory basis.

5. That all future school construction, school consolida­
tion, and site selection (including the location of any tem­
porary classi’ooms) in the system shall be done in a manner 
which will prevent the recurrence of the dual school struc­
ture.

6. That Curtis Elementary be paired with Dunedin Ele­
mentary, located approximately two miles to the north. 
Curtis Elementary will consist of kindergarten and grades 
5 and 6. Dunedin Elementary will have a kindergarten and 
also grades 1, 2, 3 and 4.

7. That Glenoak Elementary be desegregated by group­
ing Gflenoak, Lakewood and Bay Vista, resulting in a racial 
composition in the one zone in which these three schools 
are placed of 574 Negroes and 920 whites. Glenoak will



A39

serve kindergarten and grades 5 and 6; Lakewood will serve 
kindergarten and grades 1, 2, 3 and 4; and Bay Vista, kin­
dergarten and grades 1, 2, 3 and 4.

8. It is ordered that Lakeview Elementary be desegre­
gated by grouping Lakeview, Maximo and Bay Point, re­
sulting in a racial composition in the one zone in which 
the three schools are placed of 785 Negroes and 1,008 
whites. Lakeview will consist of kindergarten and grades 
5 and 6; Maximo, grades 1, 2, 3 and 4; and Bay Point of 
kindergarten and grades 1, 2, 3 and. 4.

9. It is ordered that Wildwood Elementary School be 
desegregated in the following manner: The Forest Hills 
zone line is to be extended into the southeast corner of the 
Bear Creek zone so as to pick up 50 white elementary stu­
dents and bring that school down to its capacity. The 
Western zone line of the Fairmount Park zone is to be 
moved westward into the Forest Hills zone so as to pick 
up 100 white elementary students, bringing both Forest 
Hills and Fairmount Park (with one relocatable placed 
on the Fairmount Park site) close to their relative capac­
ities. The West Central zone line is to be extended into 
the southeastern corner of the Mt. Vernon zone so as to 
take into the West Central zone 100 white elementary stu­
dents which it can accommodate by placing two relocatables 
on the West Central site. These zone lines having been 
thus redrawn, the three schools, Fairmount Park (66 Ne­
groes, 282 whites), West Central (147 Negroes, 432 whites), 
and Wildwood (752 Negroes, 1 white), all of which have 
contiguous attendance zones and are approximately one 
and one-half miles equidistant from each other, are ordered 
to be grouped. The racial composition resulting from 
such a grouping is 965 Negroes and 715 whites. Under this 
plan West Central will serve kindergarten and grades 1 
and 2; Wildwood will serve kindergarten and grades 3, 4 
and 5; and Fairmount Park will serve kindergarten and 
grade 6.



A40

10. Campbell Park is ordered to be desegregated in the 
following manner: The zone lines of Woodlawn are to be 
extended into the Norwood attendance zone so as to pick up 
100 white elementary students. The easternmost part of 
the Woodlawn zone, east of Ninth Street North, is to be 
zoned into the Euclid zone (approximately 50 or more white 
elementary students). The Euclid zone is then to be ex­
tended further north into the southern part of the North 
Shore zone to pick up another 50 white elementary students. 
While this rezoning leaves Norwood and North Shore short 
of capacity (52 and 85 students, respectively), it brings 
both Woodlawn and Euclid—both formerly under capacity 
—to full capacity. The zone lines of North Ward Ele­
mentary are to be extended northward into the southern 
part of the North Shore zone so as to pick up 50 white 
elementary students, bringing North Shore below capacity 
and requiring full capacity at North Ward, with two re- 
locatables being on that site. Having thus redrawn these 
zone lines, the four schools, Woodlawn (4 Negroes, 320 
whites), Euclid (180 Negroes, 153 whites), North Ward 
(2 Negroes, 348 whites), and Campbell Park (701 Negroes, 
0 whites), are ordered to be grouped. Under this plan, 
North Ward will serve grades 1 and 2; Euclid will serve 
kindergarten and grade 3; Woodlawn will serve kinder­
garten and grades 1 and 2; and Campbell Park will serve 
kindergarten and grades 4, 5 and 6.

11. Disston Junior High is ordered to be paired with 
Sixteenth Street Junior High within their present 1969-70 
attendance zones. Grades 8 and 9 will attend Sixteenth 
Street Junior High, and grade 7 will attend Disston.

12. That Gibbs Senior High School be desegregated by 
closing the present Gibbs facility and redrawing the zone 
lines of the three contiguous high school zones so as to in­
corporate in equal numbers the Negro students in the 
present Gibbs zone.



A41

13. That a bi-racial committee of the type described in 
Ellis v. Board of Public Instruction of Orange County, 
Florida, 423 F.2d 203 (1970) be established, if this has not 
already been done. This committee shall serve in an ad­
visory capacity to the School Board in the areas of the 
operation of the majority to minority transfer rule, the 
promulgation and maintenance of zone lines, and in school 
site location.

14. That the school district shall permit any student 
attending a school in which his race is in the majority to 
choose to attend another school where his race is in the 
minority. Further, all transferring students must be given 
transportation, if  they desire it, and transferees are to be 
given priority for space. Davis v. Board of School Com­
missioners of Mobile County, — F.2d — (5th Cir., No. 
29332, June 8, 1970).

15. That this Court retains jurisdiction of this cause for 
the entering of such further orders as may be necessary 
or advisable in the enforcement of this Order and to insure 
that the Pinellas County School System is operated in a 
constitutional manner.

D one  and Ordered at Tampa, Florida, this 6th day of 
August, 1970.

/ s /  J o seph  P. L ieb

United States D istrict Judge