Conley v. Lake Charles School Board Brief for Plaintiffs-Appellants

    IN THE
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE 
FIFTH CIRCUIT

11 NO. 30100

RICKEY DALE CONLEY, et al.,
plaint if fs-Appe Hants,

v.

LAKE CHARLES SCHOOL BOARD, et al..
Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 
Western District of Louisiana— Lake Charles Division

BRIEF FOR PLAINTIFFS-APPELLANTS

EDWARD G. GLASSCravath, Swaine & Moore 
One Chase Manhattan Plaza 
New York, New York 10005

JACK GREENBERG 
NORMAN J. CHACHKIN 
MARGRETT FORD10 Columbus Circle

New York, New York 10019
Attorneys for plaintiffs- 

Appellants

Of Counsel



I N D E X

Table of Authorities.....................................  1
Issues Presented for Review..............................  iv
Statement of the Case....................................  1
Statement of Facts.......................................  3
Argument

I. The District Court Erred in Approving a Desegregation Plan Based on the
Standards of the Orange County Decision.........  6

II. The District Court Erred in Not Ordering 
Into Effect the HEW Plan as an Effective, Constitutionally Mandatory and Workable 
Plan............................................  10

III. The School Board has Acted Unconstitutionally 
in Reducing the Proportion of Black Educators 
in the Calcasieu System........................... 14

Conclusion...........................................   16
Table of cases

Adams v. Mathews, 403 F.2d 181, 188 (5th Cir. 1968)......  8
Andrews v. City of Monroe, No. 2953 (5th Cir., April 23,

1970).......................   8
Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, 396 U.S.19 (1969)...........................................  6
Braxton v. Board of Public Instruction of Duval County,

402 F. 2d 900 (5th Cir., 1968).......................  8
Chambers v. Hendersonville Board of Education, 364 F.2d

189 (4th Cir. 1966).................................  15
Davis v. Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County,

393 F.2d 690, 694 (5th Cir., 1968)..................  8
Davis v. Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County,

No. 29332 (5th Cir., June 8, 1970).................... 9

PAGE



PAGE

Davis v. School District of the City of Pontiac,
No. 23292, (E.D. Mich., Feb. 17, 1970)...........  12, 13

Ellis v. Board of Public Instruction of Orange County,
423 F. 2d 203 (5th Cir. 1970).....................  2,6,7,9

Green v. County School Board of New Kent County,
Virginia, 391 U.S. 430 (1968)....................  6, 11

Hall v. St. Helena parish School Board, 417 F. 2d 801
(1969)...........................................  1

Henry v. Clarksdale Municipal Separate School District,
409 F.2d 682 (5th Cir., 1969)....................  8

Hightower v. West, No. 29933 (5th Cir., July 14, 1970). 9
Hill v. Franklin County Board of Education, 390 F.2d

583 (6th Cir. 1968).............................  15
Mannings v. Board of Public instruction of Hillsborough

County, No. 28643, (5th Cir., May 11, 1970)......  9
Moses v. Washington parish School Board, 276 F. Supp.

834, 848, 851 (E.D. La., 1967)............ ....... 13
North Carolina Teachers Association of Asheboro City

Board of Education, 393 F.2d 736 (4th Cir. 1968).. 15
Singleton v. Jackson Municipal Separate School District,

419 F. 2d 1211 (1969).............................  5, 15
Smith v. Board of Education of Morillton School District

No. 32, 365 F. 2d 770 (8th Cir., 1966)............  15
United States of America v. Board of Education of Baldwin

County, 423 F.2d 1013 (5th Cir. 1970)............  6
United States v. Board of Trustees of Crosby independent 

School District, No. 29286 (5th Cir., April 6,
1970)............................................  13

United States v. Choctaw County Board of Education,
No. 27297 (June 26, 1969)........................  8

United States v. Greenwood Municipal Separate School
Dist, 406 F. 2d 1086 (5th Cir. 1969)..............  8

United States v. Indianola Municipal Separate School
District, 410 F.2d 626 (1969).................... 8

ii



PAGE

Williams v. Kimbrough, 295 F. Supp. 578 (W.D.
La. 1969)....................................  15

Statute
42 U.S.C. A. §2000c-6, Civil Rights Act of 1964,

Section 407(a)(2)............................  13

iii



ISSUES PRESENTED FOR REVIEW

1. Whether the district court erred in applying the standards 
of the Orange County decision (geographic proximity and 
school capacity) to the facts of this action (racially 
segregated and geographically separated residential patterns).

2. Whether the HEW Plan of pairing schools and busing students 
is effective, constitutionally permissible and workable as 
a program for racial integration in Lake Charles.

3. Whether the School Board has acted unconstitutionally in 
systematically reducing the proportion of black educators in 
the Calcasieu system as a "result" of the "desegregation" 
process.

IV



IN THE
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE 
FIFTH CIRCUIT 
NO. 30100

RICKEY DALE CONLEY, et al.,
Plaintiffs-Appellants, 

v .
LAKE CHARLES SCHOOL BOARD, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 
Western District of Louisiana--Lake Charles Division

BRIEF FOR PLAINTIFFS-APPELLANTS
Statement of the Case

This action is not new to this Court. It was initially 
included with other Louisiana school cases decided in sub nom 
Hall v. St. Helena parish School Board, 417 F.2d 801 (1969).
This Court at that time directed the School Board to confer with 
the Office of Education of the Department of Health, Education 
and Welfare ("HEW") to develop a new desegregation plan. There 
was, in fact, no common point of view. On July 5, 1969, two 
plans were filed; one by HEW and another by the School Board.



At a hearing held on July 21, 1969, the School Board 
presented testimony in opposition to the HEW plan. The HEW 
representative responsible for drawing the plan for Calcasieu 
Parish, Dr. A. T. Miller, testified in support of the HEW plan.
The District Court ruled from the bench that the Board's plan 
was inadequate--and on July 22, 1969, the Board filed an amended 
and substantially different plan, adopting a system of geographic 
zoning of elementary schools in the City of Lake Charles. The 
Board's plan was approved by the Court on July 24, 1969.

On March 11, 1970, plaintiffs filed a motion for further 
relief based largely on the results contained in a report filed 
by the School Board after the opening of the 1969-70 school year. 
Plaintiffs once again sought an order requiring the School Board 
to implement the HEW plan for the school year 1970-71. On March 18, 
1970, the School Board filed a zoning plan of junior and senior 
high schools in Lake Charles which it proposed to implement for the 
school year 1970-71. This plan closely followed the pattern of 
the elementary school plan of July 22, 1969. A hearing was held on 
April 14, 1970, at which school officials testified in favor of the 
School Board plan and in opposition to the HEW plan. The court 
below found the School Board deficient in certain respects and 
ordered the Board to draft a revised plan based on the criteria 
enumerated in Ellis v. Board of Public Instructions of Orange County, 
423 F.2d 203 (1970). A revised plan was submitted by the Board on

2



June 4, 1970, and approved by the court below in its Order of 
June 11, 1970. This appeal is taken from that order.

STATEMENT OS' Facts
The facts which provide the basis for this appeal will not 

make exciting reading. This Court tas seen them before -- in 
many cases —  and will see them aga^n until such time as a 
meaningfully integrated educational experience is available to 
every child within its jurisdiction.

In Calcasieu parish, blacks constitute approximately one-fourth 
of the student population. In the academic year 1969-70, only 
one-fourth of all black students attended significantly integrated, 
albeit predominantly white, schools. indeed, the School Board's 
report for that year showed seven all-black schools and six 
all-white schools.

The most important governmental unit within Calcasieu parish 
is the city of Lake Charles. Desegregation of the schools in Lake 
Charles (ward III of the parish) is the major problem in this case. 
Through the middle of Lake Charles runs Broad Street. To the north 
live the blacks, to the south, the whites (Tr. 45). This one fact 
is the essential fact in this action and it renders ineffective any 
"integration plan" based on neighborhoods, physical proximity or 
geographical zones.

1/ All Tr. citations herein
of the hearing of April 14, 
thereof.

refer to the original transcript 
1970, and to the pagination

3



The School Board has traditionally located schools specifically 
to serve one race or the other (Tr. 45), and appears to be 
continuing that practice: the one new high school in Lake Charles
presently under construction is well within a white suburb in 
southwest Lake Charles remote from the concentration of black 
people north of Broad Street. School officials concede that the 
new school is not located to enco_r ige desegregation. (Tr. 51).

The Board's most recent plan filed on June 4, 1970, creates
2/ 3/

in Lake Charles four all-black schools and eight all-white schools. 
And, of course, these statistics tend to hide the actual students 
behind them, such as the one thousand,four hundred and fifty-four 
black children in the Washington School who will be afforded the 
integrated experience fo going to school with thirty-eight whites.
(Exh. A to the Order of June 11, 1970). All of these schools have 
traditionally been maintained to serve only black students, and it 
must be anticipated that most or all of the white students assigned 
to the zones of these schools will flee sooner or later. (See Tr. 54- 
55) .

2/ Accepting the statistical fact that 5% or less integration
is no integration reflecting the practical reality that, as 
the Superintendent of Schools of Calcasieu Parish testified, 
projected whites sometimes do not materialize in predominantly 
black schools (Tr. 54-55), for example:

________1966-1969______________
Board

projected____Actual__________
School W B W B__
Carver 19 250 4 250
Cherry 12 588 0 588

The four schools are Cherry Street, Opelousas/jackson,
Mill Street and Washington.

Brentwood, College Oaks, Dolby, Fourth ward, Henry Heights, 
Walsh/La Grange, Oak park Elementary and F. K. White.

- 4 -
3/



In the faculty a^aa, the School Board came nowhere near

achieving the ratio mandated in Singleton v. Jackson Municipal 
Separate School District, 419 F.2d 1211 (1969) (the proportion of 
black teachers to white teachers in each school must reflect 
their proportion in the whole system). In the academic year 1969- 
1970, sixteen schools had all-white faculties, nine schools had 
only one black teacher and seven schools had all-black faculties.

Since the desegregation process began, the School Board has 
systematically reduced the proportion of black teachers employed 
in Calcasieu parish. In 1969-68, the Board employed 1,255 white 
teachers and 390 black teachers; in 1968-69, the Board increased 
the number of white teachers to only 417; during the past academic 
year, the Board increased the number of white teachers again to 
1,426.7 while drastically reducing the number of black teachers to 
397.5. At the hearing on April 14, the school officials testified 
that the reduction in black teachers was the direct result of the 
closing of black schools because of desegregation. (Tr. 84, 98-99) 
The Board made no showing that the qualifications of the black 
teachers not re-employed had been compared with the qualifications 
of other teachers throughout the system as required by the 
Jefferson decree and now the Singleton decision.

5



THE DISTRICT COURT ERRED IN APPROVING 
A DESEGREGATION PLAN BASED ON THE 
STANDARDS ON THE ORANGE COUNTY DECISION.

The Court below, at p. 2 of its order d-'ted June 11, 1970, 
concluded that "that the [original] plan presented by the Board 
at the [April 14] hearing does not convert the Calcasieu parish 
School System to a unitary ou^ w:thin the meaning of the Supreme 
Court decisions in Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education,
396 U.S. 19 (1969); Green v. County School Board of New Kent 
County, Virginia, 391 U.S. 430; United States of America v. Board 
of Education of Baldwin County, 423 F.2d 1013 (5th Cir. 1970) and 
the decision of the Fifth Circuit in Ellis v. Orange County (1970)."

The Court goes on to discuss the failure of that plan to
achieve the substantive criteria of a unitary system (see, for
example, p. 3 of its order); however, in discussing the necessary
revisions to that plan the Court shifts focus from those substantive

4/criteria to the formal standards of the orange County decision. In 
stating its approval of the Board's revised plan of June 4, 1970, 
the Court relies primarily on the revised plan's compliance with 
the program described in Orange County. The error made in the use 
of Orange County is that it speaks not of ends but merely of one

47 Plaintiffs suggest that Orange County is aberrational and
cannot be squared with the long line of decisions requiring 
that zone lines be drawn to promote or maximize desegregation 
regardless of neighborhood patterns. Orange County was, in a 
sense, an advisory opinion since the district court had not 
considered the theory advanced for the first time by the court 
on appeal and had not made all the necessary findings. we 
understand that further proceedings are taking place in the 
district court.

6



set of means which may produce the constitutionally required end 
in the limited situation presented by the facts in Orange County.
To focus solely on those means as the Court below has done is to 
ignore the required end and under the facts herein to render that 
end unobtainable.

All plans which the School Board has submitted and which the 
court below has approved -- including the most recent plan -- have 
been based on physical proximity between the student and the 
school and the capacity of the schools. In the most recent plan 
this was done in accordance with the decision in Orange County.
And, indeed, the School Board has engaged in no trickery, no devices, 
no gerrymandering in designing this plan. The reason for that is 
simple enough: such a plan, even if perfectly designed, as applied
in a city with the residential pattern of Lake Charles is inherently 
ineffective. The conclusion is unavoidable: in order to crease a
truly unitary school system in Lake Charles, there must be a 
school plan based on racial integration and not on geography. in 
Lake Charles, geography means segregation, not integration. indeed, 
the Superintendent of Schools testified on April 14, 1970, in 
reference to the Board's zone plan:

"There is no way that you could draw those 
zones with the residental pattern [in. Lake 
Charles] that would bring about mixing. . . . "
(Tr. 73).

It is well-established law in the Fifth Circuit that an 
integration plan must have integration, not geography, as its

7



primary purpose. Un ited States v . mdianola Municipal Separate

School District, 410 F.2d 626 (1969); Davis v. Board of School 
Cornmissjoners of Mobile County, 393 F.2d 690, 694 (5th Cir. 1968) ;
Henry v . Clarksdale Municipal Separate School District, 4C9 F.2d 
682 (5th Cir. 1969); United Staves v. Greenwood Municipal Separate 
School District, 406 F.2d 1086 (5th Cir. 1969) ; United States v. 
Choctaw County Board of Education, No. 27297 (June 26, 1969);
Braxton v. Board of Public Instruction of Duval county, 402 F.2d 
900 (5th Cir. 1968).

The Board's approved geographic plan is projected to create
four all-black and eight all-white schools. All of these schools
were built to serve black or white students and have been identified
through the years as "black" or "white" schools. They are in "black"
or "white" neighborhoods. A geographic plan can never change thi^
racial makeup in any meaningful respect. The Board's failure to
integrate these schools is consitutionally impermissible. See Adams
v. Mathews, 403 F.2d 181, 188 (5th Cir. 1968):

"If in a school district there are still 
all-Negro schools, or only a small fraction 
of Negroes in white schools, or no 
substantial integration of faculties and 
school activities then, as a matter of law, the existing plans fail to meet constitutional 
staandards as established in Green."

That a zoning system is only a method and not a constitutional 
end has been recognized by this Court before. in Andrews v. City of 
Monroe, No. 2953 (5th Cir., April 23, 1970), this Court stated 
"Orange County does not say that a 'neighborhood' system of student 
assignment per se is a unitary system." (Slip opinion, p. 5). To

8



the same effect are the cases of Mannings v. Board of Public

Instruction of Hillsborough County, No. 28643 (lifth Circuit;
May 11, 1970) and Davis v. Board of School Commissioners of Mobile
County, No. 29332 (5th Cir., June 8, 1970).

One feature of the Board's plan should not go without men«_^on. 
That plan contains, consistent with Orange County, a majonty-to- 
minority transfer provision. In theory this provisions permits any 
student whose race is that of the majority in his (or her) school 
to transfer to a school where that race is in the minority. For 
three reasons, this is a wholly meaningless, and unlawful, 
provision. It is unlawful because it places the entire burden of 
integration on the black. If the black student merely goes to 
school he remains in a segregated world; only if he makes the 
effort to transfer does education become integrated. An integrated 
education is his right to have and the state's duty to provide. It 
is unlawful and meaningless because the black who chooses to 
transfer may end up paying the cost of transportation. Certainly 
the School Board at the time of the April 14 hearing had no 
intention of paying for his transportation. (Tr. 60). To what 
extent the Board would voluntarily comply with an order to provide 
such transportation remains to be seen; indeed, the exception set 
forth in footnote 8, p. 14 of this Court's recent decision in 
Hightower v. West, No. 29933 (th Cir., July 14, 1970) provides 
a tempting "out" for the Board. Lastly, it is meaningless because 
of the capacity requirement. (Tr. 59). Obviously, if majority

9



white schools are full, there will be no place to which a black 
student in a majority black school may transfer. And, indeed, if 
there are two places and four applicants, what criteria shall be 
used to select among the black candidates?

It is abundantly clear then that the majority-to-minority 
transfer provision is a largely meaningless gesture. It adds 
nothing to the unfortunately segregated system that the Board's 
approved Plan will maintain. A geographic zone plan as was used 
in Orange County, Florida, does not, in Calcasieu parish, Louisiana, 
achieve the integrated educational system to which every child is 
entitled and which the Constitution demands.

II
THE DISTRICT COURT ERRED IN NOT ORDERING INTO EFFECT THE HEW PLAN 
AS AN EFFECTIVE, CONSTITUTIONALLY 
MANDATORY AND WORKABLE PLAN.

There is a plan which will achieve this constitutionally 
mandatory end —  a unitary educational system. The HEW plan filed 
July 5, 1969, adequately desegregates all the schools here in 
question. The HEW plan provides for the pairing of schools based 
on grade structure, capacity and the existing racial make-up of 
the student body. Two selected schools will divide their grade 
structure between them (iê ., in the case of two elementary schools, 
one would serve grades 1-3, the other 4-6); the total student body 
for each three-grade unit would then go to one school. Where 
necessary, the transportation would be provided by the School Board.

■\

10



The HEW plan, moreover, achieves the required goal of a 
unitary system in an educationally sound manner, as established 
by the testimony of Dr. A. T. Miller at the heading on July 21,
1969. Dr. Miller noted intiaily that because most of the 
traditionally black schools are located very close together in Lake
Charles, a zoning plan cannot adequately desegregate these schools 
and "pairing" must be used. Dr. Miller also noted the educational 
advantages of pairing —  e .£., more teachers are concentrated in 
fewer grades, so that team teaching can be used; books, equipment 
and educational materials can be concentrated to serve children 
within narrow age groups; and with a more homogeneous age group, 
better ability grouping and educational experimentation can take
place.

Given this obvious and feasible alternative to the Board’s 
plan, the Board's retention of the identifiably black schools is 
constitutionally impermissible. Cf. Green v. County School Board 
of New Kent County. Virginia, 391 U.S. 430 (1968).

The Court below (at pp. 11-12 of its Order) details what it 
finds to be the practical difficulties of the HEW plan. Apart 
from the obvious, that "practical difficulties" of this nature 
may not stand in the way of a Constitutional mandate (compare, for 
example, the Supreme Court decision in Gideon v. WainwrightJ , these 
"practical difficulties" are in fact well-established practices in 
Lake Charles. For example, all students attending the Opelousas

11



school, an all-black school, are bused, and 2S3 of- 282 children 
attending Fairview, an overwhelmingly white school, are bused.
On the junior high and high school level busing is used much more 
extensively than on the elementary level: theri, approximately
50% of the total number are bused to school. The Board's estimate 
as to the extent or cost of busing under the HEW plan is 
exaggerated. Indeed the pre-existing busing program can be readily 
expanded and redirected to fit the needs of the new program. As 
Dr. Miller testified at the hearing on July 21, 1969, there are 
many ways of minimizing the number of new buses and costs involved, 
and, of course, plaintiff has not had an opportunity to test by 
cross-examination the Board's figures submitted after the April 14 
hearing.

While it may prove true that the HEW plan would require that 
more students in the City of Lake Charles be transported over longer 
distances than they are now being transported, the requirement of 
additional busing is not only lawful, but in this case is a

vconstitutional necessity.
The School Board itslef has built schools through the years,

6/and especially since 1954, in locations which serve to perpetuate 
residential and school segregation rather than facilitate integration. 
That Board must now be directed to use its resources to counteract 
the school locations and housing patterns it has created. See Davis

5/ It is admitted that at the same time several parish routes
could be suspended (Tr. 61-62).

6/ The dates of construction of the schools and additions to
the schools are set forth in the building information portion 
of the HEW plan filed July 5, 1969.

12



V. School District of the City of Pontiac, No. 23292 (E.D. Mich.,
Feb. 17, 1970). If busing is required in order to integrate the 
schools which the School Board actively maintained as segregated 
schools, there is no legal impediment to ordering busing. Cf.
United States v . Board of Trustees of Crosby Independent School 
District, No. 29286 (5th Cir., April 6, 1970). 42 U.S.C. Section
2000c-6, Civil Rights Act of 1964, Section 407(a)(2) is not to the 
contrary.

Any increase in the cost of operating the system because of 
additional busing is directly traceable to the School Board's 
rigid adherence to the segregated system through the years, when 
it could have been placing new construction so as to facilitate 
integration rather than perpetuate segregation. Indeed, any

yeffective desegregation plan will involve new expense at this point. 
It is no answer to say that compliance with constitutional standards 
must be achieved at no cost to the system which has for so long 
operated in disregard to the rights of Negro school children to an 
integrated eduation.

As the earlier discussion made clear, only a pairing of schools 
and transporting children will effectively integrate these schools. 
The Superintendent of Schools for Calcasieu parish spoke, in 
opposition to pairing, of a child's loyalty to its school, of the

7/ It is difficult to imagine a more costly and burdensome
pupil assignment plan than freedom of choice —  but school 
boards, including this one, have willingly agreed to paying 
that price in order to maintain substantially segregated 
schools. Cf. Moses v. Washington parish School Board, 276 
F. Supp. 834, 848, 851 (E.D. La., 1967).

13



need for a continuity in oho child-school relationship —  and 
above all of tradition (Tr. 18-40. 66). To the contrary, the 
experience in all growing cities since World war n  has been one 
of transferring students -  new suburbs mean new schools; family 
mobility means new schools; new educational techniques (language 
laboratories and the like) mean new schools -  that has been the 
experience of cities like Houston rod Atlanta —  and no doubt has 
been true to some extent of Lake Charles. Pairing for reasons 
other than integration presently exists in Lake Charles (Tr. 52-53) 
The many items that Superintendent Hanchey enumerated are either 
of minimal importance or unaffected by pairing (e,a .. a student's 
record and teacher's reports can easily precede him to the new 
school where he won't be an unknown quantity to his new teacher). 
There is only one tradition which pairing is aimed at destroying.

It is abundantly clear that pairing and transportation as 
provided for in the HEW plan are the only real method for achieving 
the constitutionally mandated integrated educational experience 
for ail the children of Lake Charles and Calcasieu parish.

Ill
THE SCHOOL BOARD HAS ACTED 
UNCONSTITUTIONALLY IN REDUCING THE PROPORTION OF BLACK EDUCATORS IN THE CALCASIEU SYSTEM.

the
page

The School Board of Calcasieu Parish has systematically reduced 
proportion of black teachers employed in the school systam. See 
five , supra. For the past school year, the Board increased

14



the number of white teachers from 1379 to 1426.7„ while drastically
reducing the number of black teachers from 417 to 397.5. As the 
school officials have testified, the reduction in the ranks of 
black teachers was the result of closing blac* schools because of 
desegregation. (Tr. 93-99). This practice is constitutionally 
impermissible. See, e .£., North Carolina Teachers Association v. 
Asheboro City Board of Education.- 393 F.2d 736 (4th Cir., 1968); 
Chambers v. Hendersonville Board of Education, 364 F.2d 189 (4th 
Cir., 1966); Hill v. Franklin County Board of Education, 390 F.2d 583 
(6th Cir., 1968); Smith v. Board of Education of Morillton School 
District No. 32, 365 F.2d 770 (8th Cir., 1966); Williams v.
Kimbrough, 295 F. Supp. 578 (W. D. La., 1969).

The School Board did not even pretend to comply with the 
teacher qualification requirement of the Jefferson decree. This 
same requirement is now reflected in the Singleton decision 
protecting teachers against dismissal or demotion on the ground of 
race.

Because of the blatantly unlawful decimation of the ranks of 
black teachers, injunctive relief is appropriate. The Board should 
be enjoined from further reducing the number or proportion of black 
teachers and should be specifically ordered to take affirmative action 
to recruit and hire black teachers from all available sources so that 
the ratio of black teachers to white teachers in the school system 
for 1970-71 shall be not less than the ratio which prevailed before 
the Board began eliminating black teachers in the desegregation

15



§/process. This may easily be achieved this year because, as Dr.
Moses testified at the hearing on April 14, the Board will be 
hiring as many as 400 new teachers for the next school year (Tr. 116). 
Accordingly, it will be no hardship to hire an increased number of 
black teachers so as to restore a proper racial balance and right the 
constitutional wrong which the Board has perpetrated on black 
eduators.

CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated above, because a geographic plan cannot 

integrate a residentially segregated city, because housing and 
pairing can readily and at a reasonable cost effectively integrate 
this city and because black educators are being unconstitutionally 
deprived of their jobs, the decree of the District Court should be 
reversed and this case should be remanded to that Court with 
instructions to institute forthwith the HEW plan and to take affir­
mative action to hire and place black educators.

Respectfully submitted.

MARGRETT FORD10 Columbus Circle 
New York, New York 10019 

EDWARD G. GLASSCravath, Swaine & Moore One Chase Manhattan plaza 
New York, New York 10005

Attorneys for plaintiffs-Appellants

87 Plaintiff suggests that it is appropriate to require the
Board to restore the ratio which prevailed in 1967-68 
(approximately 76.3% white and 23.7% black).

16



CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

I hereby certify that on this 25th day of July, 1970
copies of the foregoing Brief for Plaintiffs-Appellants were
served on the attorney for the defendant-appellees by United
States mail, air mail, postage prepaid, addressed to:

Frank T. Salter, Jr., Esquire 
District Attorney 
Henry L. Yelverton, Esquire Assistant District Attorney 
Calcasieu parish Court House Lake Charles, Louisiana

. . <-y > dhAttorney fort/plaintiffs-Appellants

17 -