Coit v. Green

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Coit v. Green
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 9, 1971 Reargued December 8, 1971 Decided December 20, 1971
Full case name: Coit v. Green Citations: 404 U.S. 997; 404 U.S. 997, 92 S.Ct. 564, 30 L.Ed.2d 550 (1971) Prior history: Judgment for plaintiffs, aff'd per curiam sub nom. 92 S.Ct. 564, 30 L.Ed.2d 550 (D. Col. 1971) Subsequent history: Judgment explained in Bob Jones University v. Simon, 416 U.S. 725, 740, n. 11, 94 S.Ct. 2038, 2047, 40 L.Ed.2d 496 (1974), that this affirmance lacks precedential weight because no controversy remained in Green by the time the case reached this Court.
Holding
Using federal tax funds to finance private schools for purposes of segregation of students in segregation academies violates the IRS public tax fund rules, as well as the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, because discrimination coupled with segregation is inherently unequal. District of Columbia district court affirmed.
Court membership
Chief Justice: Warren E. Burger Associate Justices: William O. Douglas, William J. Brennan, Jr., Potter Stewart, Byron White, Thurgood Marshall, Harry Blackmun, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., William Rehnquist
Case opinions
Majority by: Burger Joined by: Unanimous
Laws applied
Section 501(c)(3) of IRC

Contents 1 Introduction 2 Historical Background 3 Summary of Findings 4 See also 5 References

[edit] Introduction

See Green v. Kennedy, 309 F.Supp. 1127 (DC 1970), later decision reported sub nom. Green v. Connally, 330 F.Supp. 1150, summarily aff'd sub nom. African-Americans "need not be required to plead and show that, in the absence of illegal governmental encouragement, private institutions would not "elect to forgo 'favorable tax treatment, and that this will' result in the availability to complainants of services previously denied". See McGlotten v. Connally, 338 F.Supp. 448 (DC 1972); Pitts v. Wisconsin Dept. of Revenue, 333 F.Supp. 662 (ED Wis.1971). "As perusal of these reported decisions reveals, the lower courts have not assumed that such allegations and proofs were somehow required by Article_Three_of_the_United_States_Constitution. See Simon v. Eastern Kentucky Welf. Rights. Org. 426 U.S. at 64 (1976)

[edit] Historical Background

Several cases floundered after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) desegregation case. Ideas of free labor at the demise of the Lochner era caused federal lawyers in the Civil Rights Section to attempt to create a labor-infused civil rights framework, which the "all deliberate speed" of Brown v. Board of Education stood upon as a means to progress constutional law that swamped Plessy v. Ferguson. Coit v. Green developed the framework for later cases such as Prince Edward School Foundation v. U.S., 450 U.S. 944 (1981), Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737 (1984), and Doe and Rabago v. Kamehameha Schools/Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate, et al. (2007). All of these cases involve a post-civil war lawsuit banning racial exclusion in public buildings and facilities, as well as contracts, known as the Black Codes.

It is notable that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Lafayette Black, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan resigned from the Supreme Court Friday, September 17, 1971 after a debilitating stroke. He died eight days later. He was replaced by Warren E. Burger whereby this particular session of Burger_court extended from Saturday, September 18, 1971 to January 6, 1972 when new Justices were appointed;^[1] thus dismantling the Hugo_Black formed Warren Courts as John_Marshall_Harlan_II disbanded, and Rehnquist and Justice_Powell joined.

Coit v. Green became the foundation for other Constitutional_law cases such as the following:

-Granting of state tax exemptions to private charitable foundation held sufficient to establish State action under the Equal_protection_clause of the Fourteenth_Amendment

-Jackson v. Statler Foundation (2nd. Cir 1974).

[edit] Summary of Findings

In Green v. Connally, 330 F.Supp. 1150 (D.D.C.) aff'd sub nom. Coit v. Green, 404 U.S. 997 (1971), the court declared that neither IRC 501(c)(3) nor IRC 170 provided for tax-exempt status or deductible contributions to any organization operating a private school that discriminates in admissions on the basis of race. Since this time, if a school has adopted and announced a racially non-discriminatory admissions policy and has not taken any overt action to discriminate in admissions, the Service concludes that the school has a racially non-discriminatory admissions policy. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, specifically did not rule on the hypothetical possibility of a school which discriminated against minorities for religious reasons.

In the interim, the IRS took steps to implement the nondiscrimination requirement including Revenue Ruling 71-447, 1971-2 C.B. 230, Revenue Procedure 72-54, 1972-2 C.B. 834, Revenue Procedure 75-50, 1975-2 C.B. 587, and Revenue Ruling 75-231, 1975-1 C.B. 158. Without comment, the Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia at the end of 1971 for the families in this case.

Throwing off the shackles of Plessy_v._Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), the long-term effect of Coit v. Green is for Desegregation to be inclusive of all schools. Desegregation was never intended to be just for public schools or justify private façades.

[edit] See also

• United States Supreme Court cases during the Burger Court

[edit] References

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954)
Prince Edward School Foundation v. U.S., 450 U.S. 944 (1981)
Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737 (1984)
Doe and Rabago v. Kamehameha Schools/Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate, et al. (2007)
IRS. (1982). Update on Private Schools.
Goluboff, R. L. (2000). "The Thirteenth Amendment and the Lost Origins of Civil Rights." Duke Law Journal, 50 Paper was presented at the 2000 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Legal History. p. 1609.

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Supreme Court of the United States

The Burger Court Chief Justice: Warren Earl Burger (1969–1986) 1969-1970: H. Black | Wm. O. Douglas | J.M. Harlan II | Wm. J. Brennan | P. Stewart | B. White | T. Marshall 1970–1971: H. Black | Wm. O. Douglas | J.M. Harlan II | Wm. J. Brennan | P. Stewart | B. White | T. Marshall | H. Blackmun 1972–1975: Wm. O. Douglas | Wm. J. Brennan | P. Stewart | B. White | T. Marshall | H. Blackmun | L.F. Powell, Jr. | Wm. Rehnquist 1975–1981: Wm. J. Brennan | P. Stewart | B. White | T. Marshall | H. Blackmun | L.F. Powell, Jr. | Wm. Rehnquist | J.P. Stevens 1981–1986: Wm. J. Brennan | B. White | T. Marshall | H. Blackmun | L.F. Powell, Jr. | Wm. Rehnquist | J.P. Stevens | S.D. O'Connor

Persondata
NAME	Burger, Warren Earl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Chief Justice of the United States from 1969 to 1986
DATE OF BIRTH	September 17, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH	Saint Paul, Minnesota
DATE OF DEATH	June 25, 1995, age 87
PLACE OF DEATH	Washington, DC