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Case Info

This lawsuit, which began in Montgomery in 1981, and which has been pending in federal court in Birmingham since 1983, is concerned with eliminating vestiges of historical, state enforced, racial segregation and other forms of official racial discrimination against African Americans in Alabama’s system of public universities.

The plaintiffs’ claims and the federal court’s orders are aimed at changing institutional conditions at all the historically white four-year state universities and at the two historically black state universities, Alabama State University and Alabama A&M University, which continue to deny African Americans an equal opportunity to the full benefits of public higher education and which discourage both white and black students from attending all of the state universities.

The court has pursued these objectives with the philosophy that positive aspects of the history and traditions of each state university, even those developed during the eras of slavery and segregation, cannot and should not be repressed and forgotten, and that each institution should build on that positive history to create conditions that are genuinely hospitable to faculty, students and citizens of all the racial and cultural communities of Alabama.

For example, with respect to the historically black universities, the court has written:

Only through the aggressive efforts of the leadership of the universities, the boards of trustees, and administrations, staffs and the student body can a critical mass of other-race students be actively pursued so that each University shall be recognized as an integrated higher educational institution.
This is expected by the Court without in any way limiting the tradition or diminishing the importance of each University as an historically black institution of higher learning, a bastion of black culture in America and a birthplace of the civil rights movement.

The major opinions and remedial decrees issued by the court in this longstanding lawsuit, which is due to continue at least until 2005, can be accessed through this web site.
The 1991 opinion contains a lengthy narrative of Alabama’s history of discrimination against African Americans in higher education, which should be particularly valuable reading for anyone interested in race relations in Alabama and in the United States.

The court’s principal decrees in 1991 and 1995 mandate a wide variety of reforms affecting all the historically white and historically black universities and the citizens of Alabama in general.

These institutional reforms range from efforts to increase the representation of African Americans on the faculties and administrations of the historically white universities, to providing new academic programs, new and improved facilities and endowment funds for the historically black universities, to unification of the agricultural extension and research functions of Alabama’s historically white land grant college, Auburn University, and the state’s historically black land grant college, Alabama A&M University.

But the federal court’s injunction is broad and extends to all aspects of Alabama’s system of public higher education which perpetuate historical racial discrimination or which impede efforts to desegregate their student bodies, faculties, administrations and programs.

The court has refused, however, to entertain the claims of individuals that they have been discriminated against on the basis of race at one of the state universities.

Such claims must be pursued through the appropriate federal agencies and/or through separate lawsuits.

Neither does this lawsuit concern Alabama’s system of Postsecondary Education, that is, the community and technical colleges, with the limited exception of Athens State College and Calhoun Community College and their impact on efforts fully to desegregate Alabama A&M University.

The presiding judge is the Hon. Harold Murphy, who sits in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Rome, Georgia.

He has appointed a Court Monitor and an Oversight Committee to monitor and to assist in implementing the institutional changes called for by the court’s remedial decrees.

Lawyers for the Knight-Sims plaintiffs and plaintiff class can be contacted at:
info@knightsims.com

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