MсNEESE ET AL. v. BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR COMMUNITY UNIT SCHOOL DISTRICT 187 CAHOKIA, ILLINOIS, ET AL.
No. 480
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 23, 1963. - Decided June 3, 1963.
373 U.S. 668
Howard Boman and Robert H. Reiter argued the cause and filed a brief for respondents.
Alex Elson filed a brief for the American Civil Liberties Union, as amicus curiae, urging reversal.
This suit, which invokes the jurisdiction of the District Court under the Civil Rights Act, is brought to vindicate the rights of plaintiffs who are Negro students in the Illinois public school system. The complaint alleges that Chenot School, St. Clair County, was built and its attendance area boundaries drawn in 1957 so as to make it exclusively a Negro school. It alleges that due to overcrowded conditions in an adjacent school, Centreville, whiсh is in the same school district, all fifth and sixth grade classes in that school (containing 97% white students) were transferred to Chenot and kept segregated there. It alleges that enrollment at Chenot consists of 251 Negroes and 254 whites, all of the whites being in the group transferred from Centreville. It alleges that Negro-students, with the exception of the eight transferred from Centreville, attend classes in one part of the school, separate and apart from the whites, and are compelled to use entrances and exits separate from the whites‘. It alleges that Chenot school is a segregated
Respondents moved to dismiss the complaint on the ground, inter alia, that the plaintiffs had not exhausted the administrative remedies provided by Illinois law. The District Court granted the motion. 199 F. Supp. 403. The Court of Appeals affirmed. 305 F. 2d 783. The case is here on a petition for a writ of certiorari which we granted. 371 U. S. 933.
The administrative remedy, which the lower courts held plaintiffs must first exhaust, is contained in the Illinois School Code.
Respondents, while saying that Illinois law does not require the Superintendent to refuse to certify claims for state aid if he finds the particular school board practices segregation, contends that the Superintendent would have
We have previously indicated that relief under the Civil Rights Act may not be defeated because relief was not first sought under state law which provided a remedy. We stated in Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167, 183:
“It is no answer that the State has a law which if enforced would give relief. The federal remedy is supplementary to the state remedy, and the latter need not be first sought and refused before the federal one is invoked.”
The cause of action alleged here1 is pleaded in terms of
“Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.”
That is the statute that was involved in Monroe v. Pape, supra; and we reviewed its history at length in that case. 365 U. S., at 171 et seq. The purposes were several-
We would defeat those purposes if we held that assertion of a federal claim in a federal court must await an attempt to vindicate the same claim in a state court. The First Congress created federal courts as the chief—though not always the exclusive—tribunals for enforcement of federal rights. The heads of jurisdiction of the District Court, at the start limited,2 are now numerous. In the beginning the main concern was the security of commercial intercourse, which “parochial prejudice” might endanger.3
“Maritime commerce was then the jugular vein of the Thirteen States. The need for a body оf law applicable throughout the nation was recognized by every shade of opinion in the Constitutional Convention. From this recognition it was an easy step to entrust the development of such law to a distinctive system of courts, administering the same doctrines, following the same procedure, and subject to the same nationalist influences.”4
As the beneficiaries of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments became articulate and the nationalist needs multiplied, the heads of jurisdiction of the District Courts
Where strands of local law are woven into the case that is before the federal court, we have directed a District Court to refrain temporarily from exercising its jurisdiction until a suit could be brought in the state court. See Railroad Comm‘n v. Pullman Co., 312 U. S. 496; Thompson v. Magnolia Co., 309 U. S. 478; Harrison v. NAACP, 360 U. S. 167. Thus we have stayed the hands of a Federal District Court when it sought to enjoin enforcement of a state administrative order enforcing state law, since any federal question could be reviewed when the case came here through the hierarchy of state courts. Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U. S. 315. The variations on the theme have been numerous.5
Moreover, it is by no means clear that Illinois law provides petitioners with an administrative remedy suffiсiently adequate to preclude prior resort to a federal court
“If he so determines [that the allegations of the complaint are substantially correct], he shall request the Attorney General to apply to the apрropriate circuit court for such injunctive or other relief as may be necessary to rectify the practice complained of.” (Emphasis added.)
The Superintendent himself apparently has no power to order corrective action. In other words, his “only function . . . is to investigate, recommend and report. . . . [He] can give no remedy. . . . [He] can make no controlling finding of law or fact. . . . [His] recommendation need not be followed by any court . . . or executive officer.” United States Alkali Export Assn. v. United States, 325 U. S. 196, 210. It would be anomalous to conclude that such a remedy forecloses suit in the federal courts when the most it could produce is a state court action that would have no such effect. See Lane v. Wilson, supra, at 274-275; Monroe v. Pape, supra.
Respondents urge, however, that prior resort to the Superintendent is necessary because by
Reversed.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, dissenting.
In Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U. S. 315, 317-318, this Court said:
“Although a federal equity court does have jurisdiction of a particular proceeding, it may, in its sound discretion, whеther its jurisdiction is invoked on the ground of diversity of citizenship or otherwise, ‘refuse to enforce or protect legal rights, the exercise of which may be prejudicial to the public interest‘; [citing United States v. Dern, 289 U. S. 352, 360] for it ‘is in the public interest that federal courts of equity should exercise their discretionary power with proper regard for the rightful independence of state governments in carrying out their domestic policy.’ . . . [Citing Pennsylvania v. Williams, 294 U. S. 176, 185.] Assuming that the federal district court had jurisdiction, should it, as a matter of sound equitable discretion, have declined to exercise that jurisdiction here?”
This wise approach has been followed by the lower federal courts in “school segregation” cases (see, e. g., Carson v. Board of Education, 227 F. 2d 789; Carson v. Warlick, 238 F. 2d 724; Covington v. Edwards, 264 F. 2d 780; Holt v. Raleigh City Board of Education, 265 F. 2d 95; Parham v. Dove, 271 F. 2d 132; Shepard v. Board of Education, 207 F. Supp. 341), and more than once this Court has refused to interfere (see Carson v. Warlick, supra, cert. denied, 353 U. S. 910; Holt v. Raleigh City Board of Education, supra, cert. denied, 361 U. S. 818).1 For several reasons I think the present case is peculiarly one where, as was said in Burford (at p. 334), “a sound respect for the independence of state action rеquires the federal equity court to stay its hand.”
1. It is apparent on the face of the complaint that this case is quite atypical of others that have come before this Court, in that the Chenot School‘s student body includes both white and Negro students—in almost equal numbers—and in that none of the petitioners (or others whom they purport to represent) has been refused enrollment in the school. The alleged discriminatory practices relate, rather, to the manner in which this particular school district was formed and to the way in which the internal affairs of the school are administered. These are matters in which the federal courts should not initially become embroiled. Their exploration and correction, if need be, are much better left to local authority in the first instance.
2. There is nothing that leaves room for serious doubt as to the efficacy of the administrative remedy which Illinois has provided. (The text of the statute is set forth in the Appendix to this opinion.) The fact that the Superintendent of Public Instruction himself possesses no corrective power and that he can only “request” the Attor-
Nor can this administrative remedy otherwise be regarded as deficient. The fact that it takes a minimal number of school district residents to initiate a complaint before the Superintendent can hardly be deemed an untoward or unduly burdensome requirement. And the proceeding surely finds a strong practicаl even though “indirect sanction” (ante, p. 676) in the power of the Superintendent at least to make it more difficult for a school, guilty of racial discrimination, to obtain state financial aid—either by revoking “recognition” of the school district (ante, p. 675) or, as suggested to us by respondents’ attorneys, by refusing to certify such a school for state aid.2
I would affirm.
Upon the filing of a complaint with the Superintendent of Public Instruction, executed in duplicate and subscribed with the names and addresses of at least 50 residents of a school district or 10%, whichever is lesser, alleging that any pupil has been excluded from or segregated in any school on account of his color, race, nationality, religion or religious affiliation, or that any employee of or applicant for employment or assignment with any such school district has been questioned cоncerning his color, race, nationality, religion or religious affiliation or subjected to discrimination by reason thereof, by or on behalf of the school board of such district, the Superintendent of Public Instruction shall promptly mail a copy of such complaint to the secretary or clerk of such school board.
The Superintendent of Public Instruction shall fix a date, not less than 20 nor more than 30 days from the date of the filing of such complaint, for а hearing upon the allegations therein. He may also fix a date for a hearing whenever he has reason to believe that such discrimination may exist in any school district. Reasonable notice of the time and place of such hearing shall be mailed to the secretary or clerk of the school board and to the first subscriber to such complaint.
The provisions of the “Administrative Review Act“, approved May 8, 1945, and all amendments and modifications thereof and the rules adopted pursuant thereto shall apply to and govern all proceedings for the judicial review of any final decision rendered by the Superintendent of Public Instruction pursuant to this Section.