Motion as to Scheduling of Oral Argument and Apportionment for Time for Oral Argument

     [||ccd67d5f-91d4-4bef-8e02-afb4750675d9||] IN THE 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

OCTOBER TERM, 1970 

  

No. 444 

  

MRS. ROBERT LEE MOORE, ET AL, 

  

Appellants 

VS. 

CHARLOTTE -MECKLENBURG BOARD 

OF EDUCATION, ET AL, 

Appellees 
  

  

MOTION AS TO SCHEDULING OF ORAL ARGUMENT 
AND APPORTIONMENT OF TIME FOR ORAL ARGUMENT 

  

To the Honorable, the Chief Justice and the Associate Justices of the 

Supreme Court of the United States: 
  

  

NOW COME the appellants and respectfully show to the Court that: 

Cases Numbers 281, 349, 444 and 498 on the Court's Docket for   this October Term, 1970, all arise in the City of Charlotte and County of 

Mecklenburg, North Carolina. They center around certain orders, issued 

by the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, | 

relative to the assignment of children to the public schools of this City and 

County. 

The Court has set all these cases for ora. ar_,ument on October 12, 

1970, but, in numerical sequence, these cases are separc<i. by two other 

cases, Numbers 420 and 436, which come from Georgia and Alabama, 

respectively, and which are also set for argument on October 12, 1970. 

It is submitted that it would be to the interest of the Court and of 

all parties concerned if the four Charlotte-Mecklenburg cases were   
 



- 4 

  

consolidated for purposes of oral argument, instead of being separated, as 

they now are, by the intervening cases from Georgia and Alabama. It is 

believed that this would not be opposed by any of the parties in these cases. 

The sequence of argument and the apportionment of time for 

argument, in these Charlotte-Mecklenburg cases, are also matters to which 

the Court will undoubtedly wish to give consideration. 

Without regard to the respective docket numbers of the Charlotte - 

Mecklenburg cases, the basic positions represented in these cases may be 

classified into three principal groupings. One of these basic positions is 

that of the plaintiffs in the Moore case. They are contending, essentially, 

that under the compulsion of the orders issued by the United States District 

Court, the minor plaintiffs in Moore, and thousands of other children 

similarly situated, are being assigned to the public schools of Charlotte - 

Mecklenburg solely on the basis of race. The Moore plaintiffs are raising 

the direct and personal plea that such compulsion is violating rights 

guaranteed to them by the United States Constitution. They obtained a Court 

injunction against the compulsion, but the central and effective provisions of 

such injunction were successively set aside and ruled unconstitutional in the 

Courts below. 

Occupying another basic position, at the opposite end of the 

spectrum, are the plaintiffs in the case of Swann vs. Charlotte-Mecklenburg 
  

Board of Education. The Swann plaintiffs sought and obtained the compulsions 
  

of which the plaintiffs in the Moore case are complaining. The Swann 

plaintiffs are thus seeking to sustain in this Court what the Moore plaintiffs 

| are seeking to overturn in this Court. 

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education is in a somewhat       
 



      

middle position. It opposes a part of the compulsion of which the Moore 

plaintiffs complain, but also acquiesces in a part of such compulsion. The 

State of North Carolina opposes the action of one of the Courts below in 

invalidating a North Carolina statute, the central terms of which are the 

same as the terms of the injunction which the Moore plaintiffs originally held. 

The Moore plaintiffs are the only parties in the Charlotte- 

Mecklenburg SAE are before this Court pleading that their constitutional 

rights are being violated by the racial compulsions which have been imposed 

upon them. Moreover, there are compulsions here involved, such, for 

example, as have been proposed by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of 

Education and adopted by the United States District Court, which stand 

uncontested before this Court save for the opposition of the Moore plaintiffs. 

The Moore plaintiffs are the only parties in these cases who are resisting 

and seeking to overturn each and all of the compulsions based on race, 

which have been imposed, by whatever authority, during the litigation of 

these Charlotte-Mecklenburg cases. 

The Swann plaintiffs on the other hand, as has been noted, seek to 

sustain these compulsions in their entirety. The antithetical positions in all 

the Charlotte-Mecklenburg litigation are thus represented by the Moore 

plaintiffs, on the one hand, and by the Swann plaintiffs, on the other. 

It is submitted, therefore, that a reasonable and appropriate 

procedure in a consolidated argument of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg cases 

would be that argument be first presented by the Moore plaintiffs - and that 

such enlargement of time for argument be granted to the Moore plaintiffs 

as will give them time equal to that of the Swann plaintiffs and the 

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, respectively. 

  
 



      

WHEREFORE, these appellants respectfully pray the Court to 

direct that Cases Numbers 281, 349, 444 and 498 on the Court's Docket for 

this October Term, 1970, be consolidated for purposes of argument - that 

argument be first presented by the Moore plaintiffs - and that such 

expansion of time for argument be granted to the Moore plaintiffs as will 

give them time equal to that of the Swann plaintiffs and the Charlotte- 

Mecklenburg Board of Education, respectively. 

Respectfully submitted, 

; hy a AZ. Sf 
- ~D . / Vo ” theif tl A Ah eA 

Whiteford 5] Blakeney I 
North Carolina National Bank Building 

Charlotte, North Carolina 

  

Attorney for the Appellants 
  

Of Counsel:   

William H. Booe 

Law Building 

Charlotte, North Carolina [||ccd67d5f-91d4-4bef-8e02-afb4750675d9||]