While allowing attorneys to revise the case, a federal judge issued a ruling this week that indicated skepticism about key parts of a potential class-action lawsuit alleging state discrimination against Florida A&M University.
U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle on Monday dismissed a version of the lawsuit filed in January, though he gave attorneys for a group of students until July 3 to file a revised case.
Hinkle, however, said the attorneys will have to provide more evidence to show that the alleged discrimination can be traced to segregation.
“The first amended complaint (the version dismissed Monday) alleges differences between FAMU and other public universities, including in funding, quality of faculty, graduation rates, and mission statements, but the first amended complaint is short on facts tying these differences to the segregated-by-law system,” Hinkle wrote.
Hinkle focused, in part, on allegations that FAMU, the state’s only historically Black public university, has suffered because of duplication of programs with nearby Florida State University and other schools.
But Hinkle pointed to the massive growth in Florida since passage of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, an anti-discrimination law at issue in the case.
“When Title VI was adopted, Florida’s population was about 5.7 million, and the state had only three public universities — two white and one black,” Hinkle wrote. “Florida now has 12 public universities serving a population of over 22 million. Of course there are duplicated programs at the 12 universities, but the assertion they were created to maintain segregation, rather than to accommodate the enormous population increase, is implausible.”
As an example of duplication, attorneys for the plaintiffs have cited a joint engineering program shared by FAMU and Florida State.
Also, they have pointed to a FAMU law school that was closed in the 1960s and revived decades later at an Orlando campus. The closure of the original FAMU law school came as a Florida State law school opened.
But Hinkle’s ruling raised doubts about the arguments.
“The first amended complaint addresses colleges of law and engineering but does so inconsistently — apparently asserting FSU and FAMU should have neither separate colleges (as in law) nor a joint college (as in engineering),” he wrote. “Either way, the first amended complaint does not adequately allege that the current situation is a vestige of the segregated-by-law system.”
Hinkle questioned attorneys about such issues during a June 1 hearing but did not formally rule until this week.
Attorneys for six FAMU students filed an initial version of the lawsuit in September and an amended version in January. They have sought an injunction against state practices that they say violate the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution and Title VI.
An important issue in the case is whether state decisions are “traceable” to de jure segregation — segregation sanctioned by law.
“Throughout its history and up to the present, Florida has intentionally and consistently engaged in racial discrimination by maintaining a dual and unequal system of higher education, including by providing disparate funding and duplicating non-core FAMU programs, that has and continues to perpetuate de jure segregation in Florida’s higher education system and has prevented FAMU from achieving parity with Florida’s public traditionally white institutions,” the January version of the lawsuit said.
But attorneys for the state have disputed such arguments.
“The challenged policy or practice must not only be traceable to de jure segregation, it must also have continuing segregative effects,” attorneys for the state wrote in a February motion to dismiss the case. “Here, plaintiffs have not sufficiently alleged that the challenged policies are traceable to de jure segregation or that they have segregative effects.”
