A three-judge District Court sustained the validity of a
Mississippi statutory program, begun in 1940, under which textbooks
are purchased by the State and lent to students in both public and
private schools, without reference to whether any participating
private school has racially discriminatory policies. The number of
private secular schools in Mississippi, with a virtually all-white
student population, has greatly increased in recent years.
Held:
1. Private schools have the right to exist and to operate,
Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.
S. 510, but the State is not required by the Equal
Protection Clause to provide assistance to private schools
equivalent to that it provides to public schools without regard to
whether the private schools discriminate on racial grounds. Pp.
413 U. S.
461-463.
2. Free textbooks, like tuition grants directed to students in
private schools, are a form of tangible financial assistance
benefiting the schools themselves, and the State's constitutional
obligation requires it to avoid not only operating the old dual
system of racially segregated schools but also providing tangible
aid to schools that practice racial or other invidious
discrimination. Pp.
413 U. S.
463-468.
3. Assistance carefully limited so as to avoid the prohibitions
of the "effect" and "entanglement" tests may be confined to the
secular functions of sectarian schools and does not substantially
promote the religious mission of those schools in violation of the
Establishment Clause. In this case, however, the legitimate
educational function of private discriminatory schools cannot be
isolated from their alleged discriminatory practices;
discriminatory treatment exerts a pervasive influence on the entire
educational process.
Brown v. Board of Education,
347 U. S. 483. The
Establishment Clause permits a greater degree of state assistance
to sectarian schools than may be given to private schools which
engage in discriminatory practices.
Everson v. Board of
Education, 330 U. S. 1, and
Board of Education v. Allen, 392 U.
S. 236, distinguished. Pp.
413 U. S.
468-470.
Page 413 U. S. 456
4. Proper injunctive relief can be granted without implying that
all the private schools alleged to be receiving textbook aid have
restrictive admission policies. The District Court can direct
appellees to submit for approval a certification procedure whereby
schools may apply for textbooks on behalf of pupils, affirmatively
declaring admission policies and practices, and stating the number
of their racially and religiously identifiable minority students,
and other relevant data. Certification of eligibility will be
subject to judicial re.view. Pp.
413 U. S.
470-471.
340
F. Supp. 1003, vacated and remanded.
BURGER, C.J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
STEWART, WHITE, MARSHALL, BLACKMUN, POWELL, and REHNQUIST, JJ.,
joined. DOUGLAS and BRENNAN, JJ., concurred in the result.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER delivered the opinion of the Court.
A three-judge District Court sustained the validity of a
Mississippi statutory program under which textbooks are purchased
by the State and lent to students in both public and private
schools, without reference to whether any participating private
school has racially discriminatory policies.
340 F.
Supp. 1003 (ND Miss.1972). We noted probable jurisdiction,
409 U. S.
839.
Page 413 U. S. 457
I
Appellants, who are parents of four school children in Tunica
County, Mississippi, filed a class action on behalf of students
throughout Mississippi to enjoin in part the enforcement of the
Mississippi textbook lending program. The complaint alleged that
certain of the private schools excluded students on the basis of
race and that, by supplying textbooks to students attending such
private schools, appellees, acting for the State, have provided
direct state aid to racially segregated education. It was also
alleged that the textbook aid program thereby impeded the process
of fully desegregating public schools, in violation of appellants'
constitutional rights.
Private schools in Mississippi have experienced a marked growth
in recent years. As recently as the 1963-1964 school year, there
were only 17 private schools other than Catholic schools; the total
enrollment was 2,362 students. In these nonpublic schools, 916
students were Negro, and 192 of these were enrolled in special
schools for retarded, orphaned, or abandoned children. [
Footnote 1] By September, 1970, the
number of private non-Catholic schools had increased to 155 with a
student population estimated at 42,000, virtually all white.
Appellees do not challenge the statement, which is fully documented
in appellants' brief, that
"the creation and enlargement of these [private] academies
occurred simultaneously with major events in the desegregation of
public schools. [
Footnote
2]"
This case does not raise any question as to the right of
citizens to maintain private schools with admission limited to
students of particular national origins, race, or religion or of
the authority of a State to allow such
Page 413 U. S. 458
schools.
See Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.
S. 510 (1925). The narrow issue before us, rather, is a
particular form of tangible assistance the State provides to
students in private schools in common with all other students by
lending textbooks under the State's 33-year-old program for
providing free textbooks to all the children of the State. The
program dates back to a 1940 appeal for improved educational
facilities by the Governor of Mississippi to the state legislature.
The legislature then established a state textbook purchasing board
and authorized it to select, purchase, and distribute free
textbooks for all school children through the first eight grades.
[
Footnote 3] In 1942, the
program was extended to cover all high school students, and, as
codified, the statutory authorization remains substantially
unchanged. Miss.Code Ann. § 6634
et seq. (1942).
Administration of the textbook program is vested in the
Mississippi Textbook Purchasing Board, whose members include the
Governor, the State Superintendent of Education, and three
experienced educators appointed by the Governor for four-year
terms.
Id. §§ 6634, 6641. The Board employs a full-time
administrator as its Executive Secretary. Textbooks may be
purchased only
"for use in those courses set up in the state course of study
adopted by the State Board of Education, or courses established by
special acts of the Legislature."
Id., § 6646. For each course of study, there is a
"rating committee" composed of appointed members,
id. §
6641(1)(d), and only those books approved by the relevant rating
committee may be purchased from publishers at a price which cannot
"be higher than the lowest prices at which the same books are being
sold anywhere in the United States."
Id., § 6646(1).
Page 413 U. S. 459
The books are kept at a central book repository in Jackson.
Id. § 6641(1)(f). Appellees send to each school district,
and, in recent years, to each private school [
Footnote 4] requisition forms listing approved
textbooks available from the State for free distribution to
students. The local school district or the private school sends a
requisition form to the Purchasing Board for approval by the
Executive Secretary, who in turn forwards the approved form to the
Jackson book repository where the order is routinely filled and the
requested books shipped directly to the school district or the
private school.
The District Court found that
"34,000 students are presently receiving state-owned textbooks
while attending 107 all-white, nonsectarian private schools which
have been formed throughout the state since the inception
Page 413 U. S. 460
of public school desegregation."
340 F. Supp. at 1011. [
Footnote
5] During the 1970-1971 school year, these schools held 173,424
books, for which Mississippi paid $490,239. The annual expenditure
for replacements or new texts is approximately $6 per pupil, or a
total of approximately $207,000 for the students enrolled in the
participating private segregated academies, exclusive of mailing
costs which are borne by the State as well.
In dismissing the complaint, the District Court stressed, first,
that the statutory scheme was not motivated by a desire to further
racial segregation in the public schools, having been enacted first
in 1940, long before this Court's decision in
Brown v. Board of
Education, 347 U. S. 483
(1954), and, consequently, long before there was any occasion to
have a policy or reason to foster the development of racially
segregated private academies. Second, the District Court took note
that providing textbooks to private sectarian schools had been
approved by this Court in
Board of Education v. Allen,
392 U. S. 236
(1968), and that
"[t]he essential inquiry, therefore, is whether we should apply
a more stringent standard for determining what constitutes state
aid to a school in the context of the Fourteenth Amendment's ban
against denial of the equal protection of the law than the Supreme
Court has applied in First Amendment cases."
340 F. Supp. at 1011. The District Court held no more stringent
standard should apply on the facts of this case, since, as in
Allen, the books were provided to the students, and not to
the schools. Finally, the District Court concluded that the
textbook loans did not interfere with or impede the State's
acknowledged duty to establish a unitary
Page 413 U. S. 461
school system under this Court's holding in
Green v. County
School Board, 391 U. S. 430,
391 U. S. 437
(1968), since
"[d]epriving any segment of school children of state-owned
textbooks at this point in time is not necessary for the
establishment or maintenance of state-wide unitary schools. Indeed,
the public schools which plaintiffs acknowledge were fully
established as unitary schools throughout the state no later than
19771, continue to attract 90% of the state's educable children.
There is no showing that any child enrolled in private school, if
deprived of free textbooks, would withdraw from private school and
subsequently enroll in the public schools."
340 F. Supp. at 1013.
II
In
Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.
S. 510 (1925), the Court held that a State's role in the
education of its citizens must yield to the right of parents to
provide an equivalent education for their children in a privately
operated school of the parents' choice. In the 1971 Term, we
reaffirmed the vitality of
Pierce, in
Wisconsin v.
Yoder, 406 U. S. 205,
406 U. S. 213
(1972), and there has been no suggestion in the present case that
we alter our view of
Pierce. Yet the Court's holding in
Pierce is not without limits. As MR. JUSTICE WHITE
observed in his concurring opinion in
Yoder, Pierce
"held simply that, while a State may posit [educational]
standards, it may not preempt the educational process by requiring
children to attend public schools."
Id. at
406 U. S.
239.
Appellees fail to recognize the limited scope of
Pierce
when they urge that the right of parents to send their children to
private schools under that holding is at stake in this case. The
suggestion is made that the rights of parents under
Pierce
would be undermined were the lending of free textbooks denied to
those who attend private
Page 413 U. S. 462
schools -- in other words, that school children who attend
private schools might be deprived of the equal protection of the
laws were they invidiously. classified under the state textbook
loan program simply because their parents had exercised the
constitutionally protected choice to send the children to private
schools.
We do not see the issue in appellees' terms. In
Pierce,
the Court affirmed the right of private schools to exist and to
operate; it said nothing of any supposed right of private or
parochial schools to share with public schools in state largesse,
on an equal basis or otherwise. It has never been held that, if
private schools are not given some share of public funds allocated
for education, that such schools are isolated into a classification
violative of the Equal Protection Clause. It is one thing to say
that a State may not prohibit the maintenance of private schools,
and quite another to say that such schools must, as a matter of
equal protection, receive state aid.
The appellees intimate that the State must provide assistance to
private schools equivalent to that which it provides to public
schools without regard to whether the private schools discriminate
on racial grounds. Clearly, the State need not. Even as to
church-sponsored schools whose policies are nondiscriminatory, any
absolute right to equal aid was negated, at least by implication,
in
Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602
(1971). The Religion Clauses of the First Amendment strictly
confine state aid to sectarian education. Even assuming, therefore,
that the Equal Protection Clause might require state aid to be
granted to private nonsectarian schools in some circumstances --
health care or textbooks, for example -- a State could rationally
conclude as a matter of legislative policy that constitutional
neutrality as to sectarian schools might best be achieved by
withholding all state assistance.
See San Antonio Independent
School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S.
1 (1973). In the same way, a
Page 413 U. S. 463
State's special interest in elevating the quality of education
in both public and private schools does not mean that the State
must grant aid to private schools without regard to
constitutionally mandated standards forbidding state supported
discrimination. That the Constitution may compel toleration of
private discrimination in some circumstances does not mean that it
requires state support for such discrimination.
III
The District Court's holding therefore raises the question
whether and on what terms a State may -- as a matter of legislative
policy -- provide tangible assistance to students attending private
schools. Appellants assert, not only that the private schools are,
in fact, racially discriminatory, but also that aid to them in any
form is in derogation of the State's obligation not to support
discrimination in education.
This Court has consistently affirmed decisions enjoining state
tuition grants to students attending racially discriminatory
private schools. [
Footnote 6] A
textbook lending program is not legally distinguishable from the
forms of state assistance foreclosed by the prior cases. Free
textbooks, like tuition grants directed to private school
Page 413 U. S. 464
students, are a form of financial assistance inuring to the
benefit of the private schools themselves. [
Footnote 7] An inescapable educational cost for
students in both public and private schools is the expense of
providing all necessary learning materials. When, as here, that
necessary expense is borne by the State, the economic consequence
is to give aid to the enterprise; if the school engages in
discriminatory practices, the State, by tangible aid in the
Page 413 U. S. 465
form of textbooks thereby gives support to such discrimination.
Racial discrimination in state-operated schools is barred by the
Constitution and
"[i]t is also axiomatic that a state may not induce, encourage
or promote private persons to accomplish what it is
constitutionally forbidden to accomplish."
Lee v. Macon County Board of Education, 267 F.
Supp. 458, 475-476 (MD Ala.1967).
We do not suggest that a State violates its constitutional duty
merely because it has provided any form of state service that
benefits private schools said to be racially discriminatory.
Textbooks are a basic educational tool and, like tuition grants,
they are provided only in connection with schools; they are to be
distinguished from generalized services government might provide to
schools in common with others. Moreover, the textbooks provided to
private school students by the State in this case are a form of
assistance readily available from sources entirely independent of
the State unlike, for example, "such necessities of life as
electricity, water, and police and fire protection."
Moose
Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, 407 U. S. 163,
407 U. S. 173
(1972). The State has neither an absolute nor operating monopoly on
the procurement of school textbooks; anyone can purchase them on
the open market.
The District Court laid great stress on the absence of a showing
by appellants that
"any child enrolled in private school, if deprived of free
textbooks, would withdraw from private school and subsequently
enroll in the public schools."
340 F. Supp. at 1013. We can accept this factual assertion; we
cannot and do not know, on this record at least, whether state
textbook assistance is the determinative factor in the enrollment
of any students in any of the private schools in Mississippi. We do
not agree with the District Court in its analysis of the legal
consequences of this uncertainty, for the Constitution
Page 413 U. S. 466
does not permit the State to aid discrimination even when there
is no precise causal relationship between state financial aid to a
private school and the continued wellbeing of that school. A State
may not grant the type of tangible financial aid here involved if
that aid has a significant tendency to facilitate, reinforce, and
support private discrimination.
"[D]ecisions on the constitutionality of state involvement in
private discrimination do not turn on whether the state aid adds up
to 51 percent or adds up to only 49 per cent of the support of the
segregated institution."
Poindexter v. Louisiana Financial Assistance
Comm'n, 275 F.
Supp. 833, 854 (ED La.1967). [
Footnote 8]
The recurring theme of appellees' argument is a sympathetic one
-- that the State's textbook loan program is extended to students
who attend racially segregated private schools only because the
State sincerely wishes to foster quality education for all
Mississippi children, and, to that end, has taken steps to insure
that no sub-group of school children will be deprived of an
important educational tool merely because their parents have chosen
to enroll them in segregated private schools. We need not assume
that the State's textbook aid to private schools has been motivated
by other than a sincere interest in the educational welfare of all
Mississippi children. But good intentions as to one valid objective
do not serve to negate the State's involvement in violation of a
constitutional duty. "The existence of a permissible purpose cannot
sustain an action that has an impermissible effect."
Wright v.
Council of City of Emporia, 407 U. S. 451,
407 U. S. 462
(1972). The Equal Protection Clause would
Page 413 U. S. 467
be a sterile promise if state involvement in possible private
activity could be shielded altogether from constitutional scrutiny
simply because its ultimate end was not discrimination but some
higher goal.
The District Court offered as further support for its holding
the finding that Mississippi's public schools
"were fully established as unitary schools throughout the state
no later than 1970-71 [and] continue to attract 90% of the state's
educable children."
340 F. Supp. at 1013. We note, however, that overall state-wide
attendance figures do not fully and accurately reflect the impact
of private schools in particular school districts. [
Footnote 9] In any event, the constitutional
infirmity of the Mississippi textbook program is that it
significantly aids the organization and continuation of a separate
system of private schools which, under the District Court holding,
may discriminate if they so desire. A State's constitutional
obligation requires it to steer clear, not only of operating the
old dual system of racially segregated schools, but also of giving
significant aid to institutions that practice racial or other
invidious discrimination.
Page 413 U. S. 468
That the State's public schools are now fully unitary, as the
District Court found, is irrelevant.
IV
Appellees and the District Court also placed great reliance on
our decisions in
Everson v. Board of Education,
330 U. S. 1 (1947),
and
Board of Education v. Allen, 392 U.
S. 236 (1968). In
Everson, we held that the
Establishment Clause of the First Amendment did not prohibit New
Jersey from
"spending tax raised funds to pay the bus fares of parochial
school pupils as a part of a general program under which it pays
the fares of pupils attending public and other schools."
330 U.S. at
330 U. S. 17.
Allen, following
Everson, sustained a New York
law requiring school textbooks to be lent free of charge to all
students, including those in attendance at parochial schools, in
specified grades.
Neither
Allen nor
Everson is dispositive of
the issue before us in this case. Religious schools "pursue two
goals, religious instruction and secular education."
Board of
Education v. Allen, supra, at
392 U. S. 245.
And, where carefully limited so as to avoid the prohibitions of the
"effect" and "entanglement" tests, States may assist church-related
schools in performing their secular functions,
Committee for
Public Education v. Nyquist, post at
413 U. S. 774,
413 U. S. 775;
Levitt v. Committee for Public Education, post at
413 U. S. 481,
not only because the States have a substantial interest in the
quality of education being provided by private schools,
see
Cochran v. Louisiana Board of Education, 281 U.
S. 370,
281 U. S. 375
(1930), but more importantly because assistance properly confined
to the secular functions of sectarian schools does not
substantially promote the readily identifiable religious mission of
those schools and it does not interfere with the free exercise
rights of others.
Like a sectarian school, a private school -- even one
Page 413 U. S. 469
that discriminates -- fulfills an important educational
function; however, the difference is that in the context of this
case the legitimate educational function cannot be isolated from
discriminatory practices -- if such in fact, exist. Under
Brown
v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483
(1954), discriminatory treatment exerts a pervasive influence on
the entire educational process. The private school that closes its
doors to defined groups of students on the basis of
constitutionally suspect criteria manifests, by its own actions,
that its educational processes are based on private belief that
segregation is desirable in education. There is no reason to
discriminate against students for reasons wholly unrelated to
individual merit unless the artificial barriers are considered an
essential part of the educational message to be communicated to the
students who are admitted. Such private bias is not barred by the
Constitution, nor does it invoke any sanction of laws but neither
can it call on the Constitution for material aid from the
State.
Our decisions under the Establishment Clause reflect the
"internal tension in the First Amendment between the Establishment
Clause and the Free Exercise Clause,"
Tilton v.
Richardson, 403 U. S. 672,
403 U. S. 677
(1971). This does not mean, as we have already suggested, that a
State is constitutionally obligated to provide even "neutral"
services to sectarian schools. But the transcendent value of free
religious exercise in our constitutional scheme leaves room for
"play in the joints" to the extent of cautiously delineated secular
governmental assistance to religious schools, despite the fact that
such assistance touches on the conflicting values of the
Establishment Clause by indirectly benefiting the religious schools
and their sponsors.
In contrast, although the Constitution does not proscribe
private bias, it places no value on discrimination as
Page 413 U. S. 470
it does on the values inherent in the Free Exercise Clause.
Invidious private discrimination may be characterized as a form of
exercising freedom of association protected by the First Amendment,
but it has never been accorded affirmative constitutional
protections. And even some private discrimination is subject to
special remedial legislation in certain circumstances under § 2 of
the Thirteenth Amendment; Congress has made such discrimination
unlawful in other significant contexts. [
Footnote 10] However narrow may be the channel of
permissible state aid to sectarian schools,
Nyquist, supra;
Levitt, supra, it permits a greater degree of state assistance
than may be given to private schools which engage in discriminatory
practices that would be unlawful in a public school system.
V
At oral argument, appellees expressed concern over the process
of determining the scope of relief to be granted should appellants
prevail on the merits. That aspect of the case presents problems,
but the procedural details need not be fully resolved here. The
District Court's assumption that textbook loans were permissible,
even to racially discriminating private schools, obviated any
necessity for that court to determine whether some of the private
schools could properly be classified as "racially discriminatory"
and how that determination might best be made. We construe the
complaint as contemplating an individual determination as to each
private school in Mississippi whose students now receive
textbooks
Page 413 U. S. 471
under the State's textbook loan program; relief on an assumption
that all private schools were discriminating, thus foreclosing
individualized consideration, would not be appropriate.
The proper injunctive relief can be granted without implying a
finding that all the private schools alleged to be receiving
textbook aid are in fact, practicing restrictive admission
policies. Private schools are not fungible and the fact that some
or even most may practice discrimination does not warrant blanket
condemnation. The District Court can appropriately direct the
appellees to submit for approval a certification procedure under
which any school seeking textbooks for its pupils may apply for
participation on behalf of pupils. The certification by the school
to the Mississippi Textbook Purchasing Board should, among other
factors, affirmatively declare its admission policies and
practices, state the number of its racially and religiously
identifiable minority students and such other relevant data as is
consistent with this opinion. The State's certification of
eligibility would, of course, be subject to judicial review.
This school-by-school determination may be cumbersome but no
more so than the State's process of ascertaining compliance with
educational standards. No presumptions flow from mere allegations;
no one can be required, consistent with due process, to prove the
absence of violation of law.
The judgment of the District Court is vacated and the case is
remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
MR. JUSTICE Douglas and MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN concur in the
result.
[
Footnote 1]
App. 441.
[
Footnote 2]
Brief for Appellants 9.
[
Footnote 3]
See Norwood v. Harrison, 340
F. Supp. 1003, 1007 (ND Miss.1972).
[
Footnote 4]
The regulation for distribution of state-owned textbooks from
1940 through 1970 provided as follows:
"For the distribution of free textbooks, the local control will
be placed in the hands of the County Superintendent of Education.
All requisitions for books shall be made through him and all
shipments of books shall be invoiced through him. At his
discretion, he may set up certain regulations governing the
distribution of books within the county, such regulations not to
conflict with the regulations adopted by the State Textbook Board
or provisions of the Free Textbook Act."
This regulation was revised on October 14, 1970, to read as
follows:
"
Public Schools. The administration of the textbook
program in the public schools shall be the responsibility of the
administrative heads of the county units, consolidated districts,
and municipal separate districts set up by the Legislature. All
textbook transactions between the public schools and the State
shall be carried on through them. It shall be the duty of these
local custodians to render all reports required by the State; to
place orders for textbooks for the pupils in their schools. . .
."
"
Private Schools. Private and parochial school programs
shall be the responsibility of the State Textbook Board. All
textbook transactions will be carried out between the Board and the
administrative heads of these schools. Their duties shall be the
same as outlined above for public schools."
[
Footnote 5]
The variation in the figures as to schools and students is
accounted for by the District Court's omission of particular kinds
of schools in making the findings. The earlier and higher figures
are found in the briefs, and are not disputed.
[
Footnote 6]
Brown v. South Carolina Board of
Education, 296 F.
Supp. 199 (SC),
aff'd per curiam, 393 U.
S. 222 (1968);
Poindexter v. Louisiana Financial
Assistance Comm'n, 275 F.
Supp. 833 (ED La.1967),
aff'd per curiam, 389 U.
S. 571 (1968).
See Wallace v. United States,
389 U. S. 215
(1967),
aff'g Lee v. Macon County Board of
Education, 267 F.
Supp. 458, 475 (MD Ala.). Mississippi's tuition grant programs
were invalidated in
Coffey v. State Educational Finance
Comm'n, 296 F.
Supp. 1389 (SD Miss.1969);
Coffey v. State Educational
Finance Comm'n, SD Miss., CA No. 2906, decided Sept. 2, 1970
(unreported). The latter case involved a statute which provided for
tuition loans, rather than tuition grants.
See Green v.
Connally, 330 F.
Supp. 1150 (DC),
aff'd sub nom. Coit v. Green, 404
U.S. 997 (1971).
[
Footnote 7]
Appellees misperceive the "child benefit" theory of our cases
decided under the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment.
See,
e.g., Cochran v. Louisiana Board of Education, 281 U.
S. 370 (1930), and
Board of Education v. Allen,
392 U. S. 236
(1968). In those cases, the Court observed that the direct
financial benefit of textbook loans to students is "to parents and
children, not to schools,"
id. at
392 U. S. 244,
in the sense that parents and children -- not schools -- would in
most instances be required to procure their textbooks if the State
did not. But the Court has never denied that "free books make it
more likely that some children choose to attend a sectarian
school,"
ibid., just as in other cases involving aid to
sectarian schools we have acknowledged that the various forms of
state assistance
"surely aid these [religious] institutions . . . in the sense
that religious bodies would otherwise have been forced to find
other sources from which to finance these services."
Tilton v. Richardson, 403 U. S. 672,
403 U. S. 679
(1971). Plainly, religion benefits indirectly from governmental aid
to parents and children; nevertheless,
"[t]hat religion may indirectly benefit from governmental aid .
. . does not convert that aid into an impermissible establishment
of religion."
Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602,
403 U. S. 664
(1971) (opinion of WHITE, J.).
The leeway for indirect aid to sectarian schools has no place in
defining the permissible scope of state aid to private racially
discriminatory schools.
"State support of segregated schools through any arrangement,
management, funds, or property cannot be squared with the
[Fourteenth] Amendment's command that no State shall deny to any
person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the
laws."
Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U. S. 1,
358 U. S. 19
(1958). Thus, MR. JUSTICE WHITE, the author of the Court's opinion
in
Allen, supra, and a dissenter in
Lemon v. Kurtzman,
supra, noted there that in his view, legislation providing
assistance to any sectarian school which restricted entry on racial
or religious grounds would, to that extent, be unconstitutional.
Lemon, supra, at
403 U. S. 671
n. 2.
See 413 U. S.
infra.
[
Footnote 8]
Accord, Griffin v. State Board of
Education, 296 F.
Supp. 1178, 1181 (ED Va.1969), superseding
Griffin v. State
Board of Education, 239 F.
Supp. 560 (ED Va.1965);
Brown v. South Carolina Board of
Education, supra.
[
Footnote 9]
In Tunica County, for example, where appellants reside, in
response to
Green v. Connally, supra, and
Alexander v.
Holmes County Board of Education, 396 U. S.
19 (1969), all white children were withdrawn from public
schools and placed in a private academy housed in local church
facilities and staffed by the principal and 17 high school teachers
of the county system, who resigned in mid-year to accept jobs at
the new academy.
See United States v. Tunica County School
District, 323 F.
Supp. 1019 (ND Miss.1970),
aff'd, 440 F.2d 377 (CA5
1971). As of the time of the filing of this lawsuit, the successor
Tunica Institute of Learning enrolled 495 students, all white, and
would not attest to an open enrollment policy. Similar historics of
Holmes County, Canton Municipal Separate School District, Jackson
Municipal Separate School District, Amite County, Indianola
Municipal Separate School District, and Grenada Municipal Separate
School District are recited, without challenge by appellees, in
Brief for Appellants 14-19.
[
Footnote 10]
See, e.g., Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U. S.
88 (1971);
Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co.,
392 U. S. 409
(1968); 42 U.S.C. § 2000a
et seq. (barring discrimination
in public accommodations); 42 U.S.C. § 2000e
et seq.
(barring discrimination in private employment); 42 U.S.C. § 3601
et seq. (barring discrimination in private housing
transactions).