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08.07.29

On July 24, 2008, the district court issued a lengthy opinion and order denying the motions to dismiss filed by the defendants and scheduling briefs on plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment.

To view the document, please go to the Orders section of the Lynch v. Alabama page.

08.06.10

See the Lynch v. Alabama page for briefs supporting and opposing defendants' motions to dismiss.

To view the document, please go to the Lynch v. Alabama page.

08.04.15

On April 14, 2008, the plaintiffs in Lynch v. Alabama filed a motion for summary judgment and supporting brief contending that the State of Alabama should be bound by the property tax findings of fact Judge Murphy made in Knight-Sims v. Alabama.

To view the document, please go to the Lynch v. Alabama page.

08.03.20

Public school children and their parents have filed a new lawsuit in the same federal court that in Knight v. Alabama made findings of fact that the property tax restrictions in the Alabama Constitution are racially motivated.

The then judge in Knight v. Alabama declined to consider whether these racially discriminatory provisions should be struck from the state constitution because property taxes are used to fund K-12 education, not higher education.

This new lawsuit, which names the State of Alabama, Governor Riley and the Revenue Commissioner as defendants, asks for relief on behalf of black and white Alabama citizens who go to public K-12 schools. The defendants have 20 days to respond to our complaint after they have been served.

To view the document, please go to the new Lynch v. Alabama page.

08.02.11

We have posted on a new page links to the annual reports that ACHE and the historically white universities are required to post by February 1 of each year, pursuant to the December 2006 settlement agreements.

To view the links, please go to the Post Settlement Reports page.

07.06.28

On June 25, 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court denied our petition for a writ of certiorari in the property tax challenge. That does not mean the Supreme Court approved the decisions of the district court and court of appeals; it means only that they did not accept the case for review. That is not unusual in light of the fact that the Supreme Court accepts less than 100 of more than 3,000 cert. petitions filed each year.

This ends our challenge to the racially discriminatory property tax provisions in the Alabama Constitution, at least in the Knight-Sims higher education desegregation case. We are disappointed, but we have not given up. We will consult many others before we decide whether to accept the invitations of the lower courts to refile our challenge in a lawsuit seeking relief from the racially discriminatory effects of these property tax restrictions on funding for K-12 education.

These sections of the Alabama Constitution were found by Judge Murphy to be remnants of slavery and Jim Crow designed to prevent white property owners from paying for the education of blacks. There is little likelihood they will be removed through the political process, and judicial action may be the only recourse black Alabamians have to get rid of these racist parts of the state constitution.

07.04.26

Today the Knight-Sims plaintiffs filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to review the decisions of the Court of Appeals and District Court. Download the PDF file here.

Even though less than 3% of the cert. petitions filed each year are granted, we are hopeful that the importance of this issue to all citizens of Alabama, African Americans especially, will get the Supreme Court's attention. It may be October of 2007 before we find out.

07.02.07

On January 31, 2007, the Court of Appeals upheld the district court's decision that, notwithstanding the undisputed racially motivated property tax provisions in the Alabama Constitution and their continued racially discriminatory effects, it is an issue that should not be addressed in this lawsuit dealing with higher education. We will not let the matter rest there. We are considering our next legal steps aimed at forcing the courts to confront this clear violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

13.12.06

On December 12, 2006, Judge Murphy issued a final judgment approving all the settlement agreements and dismissing all other aspects of the Knight-Sims v. Alabama lawsuit, except for our pending appeal of the property tax issues, which has been severed and assigned a new civil action number. See the Final Orders page for the final judgment and other final orders.

The lawsuit now has been closed, and we begin a new phase of the historical project of eliminating vestiges of segregation from Alabama's system of higher education. Over the next five years, we will be heavily engaged out of court implementing all the settlement agreements, which will be monitored and enforced through the political process. This web site will remain active to report developments with implementation of the settlement agreements.

28.10.06

On October 27, 2006, Judge Murphy signed an order giving preliminary approval to all the proposed settlement agreements between the Knight-Sims plaintiffs and the defendants. A hearing to determine the fairness of the settlement agreements has been scheduled for Tuesday, December 5, 2006, at 10:00 am CST in the Federal Courthouse, Birmingham. Any objections by members of the plaintiff class must be submitted in writing to the Clerk's office no later than November 27, 2006.

This order is posted on the Settlement Agreements page.

Unless there are valid objections, we expect Judge Murphy to give final approval to the settlement agreements shortly after the December 5 hearing. Plaintiffs' counsel then will ask the Presidents to schedule meetings on every campus at which the settlement agreements can be explained and implementation can begin.

16.10.06

The Knight-Sims plaintiffs have now entered into final settlement agreements with all the named defendants in this 26 year-old lawsuit. They are all posted on the Settlement Agreement page.

These agreements are designed to provide a transition from federal court oversight of the desegregation of Alabama's system of higher education to continued progress through the political process. If Judge Harold Murphy approves the settlement agreements, most of the lawsuit will be dismissed. Implementation of the settlement agreements will proceed without court oversight, and we will rely primarily on negotiation, mediation and the political process to enforce full enforcement of the agreements.

The term of the settlement agreements is five years, after which legally mandated desegregation will have been completed. That does not mean that all the problems of historical racial discrimination in higher education will have been corrected. It simply means that the torch that John F. Knight, Jr., Alease S. Sims and the other named plaintiffs have carried for a quarter century will pass to a new generation and to their renewed efforts in the pursuit of equal access to higher education for all Alabamians.

This web site will publish the notice to the plaintiff class that Judge Murphy is expected to approve in the next week or so. At that time, he will also likely schedule a date for a fairness hearing to be held at the federal courthouse in Birmingham. Only after that fairness hearing will he consider giving final approval to the settlement agreements.

11.02.05

The settlement discussions trying to resolve the end-of-decree issues have broken down. See the attached news article:

09.04.05

On August 2, 2005, Governor Riley signed the historic bill, passed by the Legislature in its July 2005 Special Session, that unifies the Agricultural Extension Services of Alabama A&M and Auburn Universities.

With passage of Act No. 2005-304, Alabama becomes the first state in U.S. history to give the President of the historically black land grant university, established under the 1890 Morrill Act, joint responsibility with the President of the historically white land grant university, established under the 1862 Morrill Act, for appointing the director of the state's agricultural extension system. All other programmatic and personnel functions will be governed by an Operational Procedures Manual jointly agreed to by both AAMU and AU.

Congratulations to Rep. Laura Hall of Huntsville, President Virginia Caples of AAMU and President Ed Richardson of AU for leading the effort to produce this historic achievement.

09.04.05

The Knight & Sims web site has been redesigned.
We hope you like the new look.

05.26.05

Seven Alabama professors have filed a friend of the court brief in the Court of Appeals supporting the Knight-Sims plaintiffs' appeal.

For further information please see the following file, available for download as a pdf file:

05.19.05

The Knight-Sims plaintiffs have filed their initial brief in the Court of Appeals.

For further information please see the following file, available for download as a pdf file:

05.09.05

Judge Murphy has extended the termination date of the Remedial Decrees to September 30, 2005, and has encouraged the plaintiffs and defendants to continue negotiations on a settlement agreement to replace the court's decree.

For further information please see the following file, available for download as a pdf file:

03.08.05

Judge Murphy makes detailed findings of racially discriminatory motives behind the property tax provisions in the Alabama Constitution, but he denies relief in this case. The Knight-Sims plaintiffs filed a notice of appeal on March 4, 2005.

For further information please see the following files, available for download as pdf files:

01.25.04

New section and relevant pdf files detailing the Property Tax Challenge is now posted.

We also have the following news articles available for download as pdf files:

11.15.03

Now posted on the Document Download page are the responses of each of the historically white universities to plaintiffs’ discovery request.

Also posted are the oppositions to plaintiffs’ "critical mass" motion recently filed by the State defendants and jointly by all the historically white universities.
The defendants claim that the recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions in the Michigan affirmative action cases have no bearing on the constitutional duty of Alabama’s system of higher education to eradicate vestiges of segregation from their faculties and administrations.
Plaintiffs have filed a reply, also posted on this web site, which argues that the Michigan case, Grutter v. Bollinger, requires Alabama’s historically white institutions to adopt critical mass standards to measure their compliance with the duty to desegregate imposed by the Constitution.

10.10.03

Please check back here on a regular basis for updates on the case.

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