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  • Case Files, Green v. New Kent County School Board Working files. Draft Brief, 1967. 889d5c49-6d31-f011-8c4e-002248226c06. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/af34eb49-aace-4d5f-86d5-1d281ac03df3/draft-brief. Accessed July 09, 2025.

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possess or upon reaching such age limit will possess all 

qualifications and satisfy all requirements for admission 

to, said public schools. 

3. Adult plaintiffs are Negroes, are citizens of the 

Fa 2 

United States and are residents and taxpayers of and domi- 

ciled in the Commonwealth of Virginia and the above mentioned 

political subdivision thereof. Each adult plaintiff who is 

named in the caption as next friend of one or more of the 

infant plaintiffs is a parent, guardian or person standing in 

loco parentis of the infant or infants indicated. 
  — 

4. The infant plaintiffs and their parents, guardians 

  

and persons standing in loco parentis bring this action in 

their own behalf and, there being common questions of law 

and fact affecting the rights of all other Negro children 

attending public schools in the Commonwealth of Virginia and, 

particularly, in the said political subdivision, similarly 

situated and affected with reference to the matters here 

involved, who are so numerous as to make it impracticable 

to bring all before the Court, and a common relief being 

sought as will hereinafter more fully appear, the infant 

plaintiffs and their parents, guardians and persons stand- 

ing in loco parentis also bring this action, pursuant to 

Rule 23(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, as a 

D & a Pgs ner hahal€ Af all arthar Necrae children attend- 
C lass action on behalf of all other Negro cniidren acena- 

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i ng or wno hereafter will attend public SChNOOL! 

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5. Further, the adult plaintiffs bring this action 

pursuant to Rule 23(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 

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as a class action on behalf of those of the citizens and tax- 

payers of said political subdivision who are Negroes; the tax 

raised contribution of persons of that class toward the 

establishment, operation and maintenance of the schools con- 

trolled by the defendant school board being in excess of 

$10,000.00, The interests of said class are adequately 

represented by the plaintiffs. 

111 

6. The Commonwealth of Virginia has declared public 

education a state fumction. The Constitution of Virginia, 

Article IX, Section 129, ‘provides: 

"Free schools to be maintained. The General 

Assembly shall establish and maintain an effi- 

cient system of public free schools throughout 

the State." 

Pursuant to this mandate, the General Assembly of Virginia 

has established a system of public free schools in the Common- 

wealth of Virginia according to a plan set out in Title 22, 

Chapters 1 to 15, inclusive, of the Code of Virginia, 1950. 

The establishment, maintenance and administration of the pub- 

lic school system of Virginia is vested in a State Board of 

Education, a Superintendent of Public Instruction, Division 

Superintendents of Schools, and County, City and Town School 

 



  

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7. The defendant School Board exists pursuant to the 

Constitution and laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia as an 

administrative department of the Commonwealth, discharging 

governmental functions, and is declared by law to be a body 

corporate. Said School Board is empowered and required to 

establish, maintain, control and supervise an efficient system 

of public free schools in said pelitical subdivisiom, to pro- 

vide suitable and proper school buildings, furniture and 

equipment, and to maintain, manage and control the same, tO 

determine the studies to be pursued and the methods of teach- 

ing, to make local regulations for the conduct of the schools 

and for the proper discipline of students, to employ teachers, 

to provide for the transportation of pupils, to enforce the 

school laws, and to perform numerous other duties, activities 

and functions essential to the establishment, maintenance 

and operation of the public free schools in said political 

gubdivision. (Constitution of Virginia, Article IX, Section 

133; Code of Virgimia, 1950, as amended, Title 22.) The 

names of the individual members of the defendant School Board 

are as stated in the caption and they are made defendants 

herein in their individual capacities. 

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8, The defendant Division Sup 

whose name as such is stated in the caption, holds office 

- = gm go Im mn f wd feagded sows 1 a po = i ™ ved vores 2 1 4 4 ; 

pursuant to the Constitution and laws of the Commonwealth of 

73 emery 4 4a g £3 ad fans stranded oy ~nFEd mn an Es nn pang la 1 £ ~ 4 

virginia as an administrative QOIiricer OI Lhe PULLLL 1T€ Fy 

arnhamnl <7 SL anf Udvroidni:z {§ as ov 3 § he pa $ " v4 2a > : 

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He is under the authority, supervision and control of 

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acts pursuant to the orders, policies, practices, customs and 

herein as an individual and in his official capacity. 

9, A Virginia statute, kmown as the Pupil Placement 

k b £3 5 4 ~) 3 METER ml { Pa £ Pe f= Bom oo 1 & 

Act, first enacted as Chapter 70 of the Acts of the 1956 

. > ed 2 . ; 3 L's - - [8 = hh 1 3 ! 3 7 H 1 : 

Extra Session of the General Assembly, viz, Article 1.1 of 

Chapter 12 of Title 22 (Sections 22-232.1 through 22-232.17) 

of the Code of Virginia, 1950, as amended, confers or pur- 

ports to confer upon the Pupil Placement Board all power of 

enrollment or placement of pupils in the public schools im 

Virginia and to charge said Pupil Placement Board to per- 

form numercus duties, activities and functions pertaining to 

the enrollment or placement of pupils in, and the determina- 

tion of school attendance districts' for, such public schools, 

except in those counties, cities or towns which elect to be 

bound by the provisions of Article 1.2 of Chapter 12 of Title 

22 (Sections 22-232.18 through 22-232,31) of the Code of 

Virginia, 1950, as amended. 

10. Plaintiffs are informed and believe that in 

executing its power or purported power of enrollment or 

placement of pupils in and determination of school districts 

for the public schools of said political subdivision, the Pupil 

>lacement Board will follow and approve the recommendations 

of the defendant School Board unless it appears that such 

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11. The procedures provided by the Pupil Placement 

Act do not provide an adequate means by which the plaintiffs 

may obtain the relief here sought. 

Vv 

12. Notwithstanding the holding and admonitions in 

Brown v. Boerd of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) and 349 U.S. 
      

294 (1955), the defendant School Board maintains and operates 

a biracial school system in which certain schools are desig- 

nated for Negro students only and are staffed by Negro per- 

sonnel and none other, and certain schools are designated for 

white students or primarily for white students and are staffed 

by white personnel and none other. This pattern continues 

unaffected except in the few instances, if any there are, in 

which individual Negroes have sought and obtained admission 

to one or more of the schools designated for white students. 

The defendants have not devoted efforts toward initiating 

nonsegregation in the public school system, neither have they 

made a reasonable start to effectuate a transition to a 

racially nondiscriminatory school system, as under paramount 

law it is their duty to do. Deliberately and purposefully, 

and solely because of race, the defendants continue to re- 

quire or permit all or virtually all Negro public school 

children to attend schools where none but Negroes are en- 

rolled and none but Negroes are employed as principal or 

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teacher or administrative assistant and to require all white 

public school children to attend school where no Negroes, or 

at best few Negroes, are enrolled and where no Negroes teach 
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or serve as principal or administrative assistant 

 



  

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\. Heretofore, petitions signed by several persors 

milarly situated and conditioned as are the plaintiffs with 

respect to race, citizenship, residence and status as tax- 

payers, were filed with the defendant School Board, asking the 

School Board to end racial segregation in the public school 

system and urging the Becard to make announcement of its pur- 

pose to do so at its next regular meeting and promptly there- 

after to adopt and publish a plan by which racial discrimina- 

tion will be terminated with respect to administrative 

personnel, teachers, clerical, custodial and other employees, 

transportation and other facilities, and the assignment of 

pupils to schools and classrooms. 

14. Representatives of the plaintiff class forwarded 

said petitions to the defendant School Board with a letter, 

copy of which was sent to each member of the defendant School 

Board, part of which is next set forth: 

"# %* In the light of the following and other 
court decisions, your duty [to promptly end 
racial segregation in the public school sys- 
tem] is no longer open to question: 

Brown v. Bd. of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) 
Brown v. Bd. of Education, 349 U.S. 294 (1955) 
Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1 (1958) 
Bradley v. Schoel Bd. of the City of Richmond, 

317 F 2d 429 (4th Cir. 1963) 
Bell v. Co. School Ed. of Powhatan Co., 321 

F 2d 494 (4th Cir. 1963) 

  

  

  

  

We call to your attention the fact that im the 
last cited case the unyielding refusal of the 
County School Board of Powhatan County, Virginia, 
to take any initiative with regard to its duty to 
desegregate schools resulted in the board's be- 
ing required to pay costs of litigation including 

compensation to the attorneys for the Negro school 
children and their parents. We are advised that 
upon a showing of a deliberate refusal of indivi- 
dual school board members to perform their cleax 

 



  

duty to desegregate schools, the courts may 

require them as individuals to bear the ex- 

pense of the litigation. 

"In the case of Watson v. City of Memphis, 

373 U.S. 526 (1963) the Supreme Court of the 

United States expressed its unanimous dis- 

satisfaction with the slothfulness which has 

followed its 1955 mandate in Brown v. Board 

of Education, saying: 'The basic guaranties 

of our Constitution are warrants for the here 

and now and, unless there is an overwhelmingly 

compelling reason, they are to be promptly 

fulfilled.'" 

  

  

15. More than two regular meetings of the defendant 

School Board have been held since it received the petitions 

and letter above referred to, Neither by word or dead has 

the defendant School Board indicated its willingness to end 

racial segregation in its public school system. 

Vi 

16. In the following and other particulars, plaintiffs 

suffer and will continue to suffer irreparable injury as a 

result of the persistent failure and refusal of the defaend= 

ants to initiate desegregation and to adopt and implement a 

plan providing for the elimination of racial discrimination 

in the public school system, 

17. Negro public school children are yet being edu- 

cated in inherently unequal separate educational facilities 

specially sited, built, equipped and staffed as Negro schools, 

in violation of their liberty and of their right to equal 

protection of the laws. 

18. Negro adult citizens are yet being taxed for the 

support and maintenance of a biracial school system the very 

existence of which connotates a degrading classification of 

the citizenship status of persons of the Nagro race, in vio- 

lation of the Fourteenth Amendment tn the Conatitution. 

“8 

 



  

19. Public funds are being spent and will be spent by 

the defendants for the erection of schools and additioms to 

schools deliberately planned and sited so as to insure or 

facilitate the continued separation of Negro children in the 

public school system from others of similar age and qualifi- 

cation solely because of their race, contrary to the pro- 

visions of the Fourteenth Amendment which forbid govermental 

agencies, whether acting ingeniously or ingenuously, to make 

any distinctions between citizens based on race. 

20. This action has been necessitated by reason of 

the failure and refusal of the individual members of the 

defendant School Board to execute and perform their official 

duty, which since May 31, 1955 has been clear, to initiate 

desegregation and to make and execute plans to bring about 

the elimination of racial discrimination in the public school 

system. 

VII 

WHEREFORE, plaintiffs respectfully pray: 

A. That the defendants be restrained and enjoined 

from failing and retusing £0 adopt and forthwith implement 

a plan which will provide for the prompt and efficient elimi- 

nation of racial segregation in the public schools operated 

by the defendant School Board, including the elimination of 

any and all forms of racial discrimination with respect to 

administrative personnel, teachers, clerical, custodial and 

other employees, transportation and other facilities, and 

the assignment of pupils to schools and classrooms. 

a 

 



  

B. That pending the Court's approval of such plan the 

defendants be enjoined and restrained from initiating or pro- 

ceeding further with the construction of any school building 

or of any addition to an existing school building or the pur- 

chase of land for either purpose to any extent not previously 

approved by the Court. 

C. That the defendants pay the costs of this action 

including fees for the plaintiffs’ attorneys in such amounts 

as to the Court may appear reasonable and proper and that 

the plaintiffs have such other and further relief as may be 

just. 

\ 

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—————tet———————— << 

Of Counsel for Plaintiffs 
  

  
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