Alabama State Teachers Association v. Alabama Public School and College Authority/Dissent Harlan

Mr. Justice HARLAN, dissenting.

Only two years ago, Moody v. Flowers, 387 U.S. 97, 101, 87 S.Ct. 1544, 18 L.Ed.2d 643 (1967), made it clear that a three-judge court need not be convoked whenever 'a state statute is involved but only when a state statute of general and statewide application is sought to be enjoined.' Although this holding was solidly grounded in precedent and in policy, the Court today abandons Moody without explanation by taking jurisdiction to affirm this judgment summarily.

The case before us does not involve a statute of 'general and statewide application.' Appellants are simply trying to prevent the construction of a single public college to be located in the City of Montgomery. Appellants merely attack a statute which 'authorize[s] the Alabama public school and college authority * *  * to issue *  *  * additional bonds in the *  *  * amount of $5,000,000 for the purpose of constructing *  *  * a four-year college at Montgomery under the supervision and control of the board of trustees of Auburn University.' Ala.Acts, No. 403 (1967). The fate of this one school, like the fate of a county-wide reapportionment plan, Moody v. Flowers, supra, or the affairs of a regional drainage district, Rorick v. Board of Commissioners, 307 U.S. 208, 59 S.Ct. 808, 83 L.Ed. 1242 (1939), is not to be decided by a special three-judge court. As Moody and Rorick teach, the bare fact that a state statute is involved is not enough to trigger 28 U.S.C. § 2281.

We do not deal here with a state statute which 'embodies a policy of statewide concern,' Spielman Motor Sales Co. v. Dodge, 295 U.S. 89, 94, 55 S.Ct 678, 79 L.Ed. 1322 (1935), but one which expresses a judgment that more educational facilities are needed in a particular locality. Indeed, appellants' constitutional attack on the statute is entirely based on the peculiar local situation existing in Montgomery. At present, there are two state-supported institutions of higher learning in the city. Alabama State is a four-year college which had traditionally been attended by Negroes. Alabama Extension Center, on the other hand, has a predominantly white enrollment, but does not at present grant degrees, offering its students a set of 'extension' courses. The Extension Center, however, will be enlarged to create Montgomery's new four-year college, while Negro Alabama State has been entirely ignored in the planning. Appellants contend that, at a minimum, the State's College Authority was constitutionally obliged to consider the possibility of coordinating the new college's operations with those of Alabama State before the Authority could properly embark on its present course.

This brief outline of the facts demonstrates that we are dealing with an essentially local dispute which could properly be heard first by a single District Judge and then by the Court of Appeals before it came to us on certiorari.

I would dismiss this appeal for want of jurisdiction.