Griffin v. County School Board

363 F.2d 206 (4th Cir. 1966)

Purchase the Printed Copy at bsmsphd.com

Nature of the Case

To access this section all you need to do is click here and register.

Facts

An injunction commanded D and the State not to pay out further funds in tuition grants while the public schools of Prince Edward County remained closed. The grants had been used for the support of Prince Edward County Educational Foundation, a privately organized corporation conducting a school for white children only. By June 25, 1964, D was to open and maintain the public schools on a nondiscriminatory basis, beginning with the 1964 fall term. In obedience D arranged to open the public schools, voted appropriations for them and voted also a larger sum for 1964-65 session tuition grants. On June 29, 1964, Ps moved the District Court to enjoin permanently the processing of tuition grants and to require D to augment the sums available for public schools. With the schools now open, on July 1, 1964, the State Board of Education authorized the reimbursement of parents, to the extent of the tuition grants enjoined for the 1963-64 session, for the amounts they had paid for their children's school attendance in private schools during that session. P then obtained a temporary injunction barring the payment retroactively of any tuition grants until the hearing on the motion for the permanent injunction, then set for July 9, 1964. D agreed to a permanent injunction of the proposed reimbursement of 1963-64 grants. However, the Court declined to enjoin future grants, and an appeal was noted on July 17, 1964, to this refusal. The Chief Judge requested the Clerk to ask the Board of Supervisors to stipulate that no tuition grants would be paid pending the appeal. On August 4, 1964, the Clerk transmitted this message to the office of the Attorney General of Virginia. In reply, the Clerk was told 'during the late evening of August 4', that D would not make the stipulation. The next morning the Clerk explained that a satisfactory stipulation would be an agreement that the grants would not be paid before the normal time for processing and paying grants, that is not until after the private schools opened in September 1964. During the night of August 4 and early morning of August 5, 1964 D met and decided to enlarge substantially the tuition grants for the session 1964-65, and ordered that payment of one-half of the total grants be made before September 1, 1964. That night white parents were notified of D’s action. Checks totaling about $180,000 were distributed before 9 A.M., and most of them cashed at that hour, August 5, 1964. Ps then moved to cite D for contempt of this court and for an order restoring the money distributed during the night and morning of August 4-5, 1964. After argument of the appeal in regular course, the District Court was directed to enjoin the Board from paying any tuition grants to send children to private schools so long as these schools remained segregated. The District Judge was authorized to consider also the charge of the appellants that the defendants had in effect paid 1963-64 grants retrospectively, by authorizing and paying increased amounts for 1964-65, and thus were in contempt of the District Judge's order of July 9, 1964. The District Court on February 8, 1965, cited the individual members of the Board of Supervisors to show cause, if any, why they should not be held in contempt of the District Court for failure to comply with its injunction of July 9, 1964 against the retroactive payment of the 1963-64 grants.