Barefoot Sanders
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Harold Barefoot Sanders Jr. (born 1925, Dallas, Texas) was a longtime United States District Judge and counsel to President Lyndon B. Johnson. He is best known for overseeing the lawsuit to desegregate the Dallas Independent School District.
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[edit] Early Years & Education
Sanders graduated from North Dallas High School in 1942. He served in the United States Navy from 1943 until 1946.
Sanders received an A.B. degree from the University of Texas in 1949, and a J.D. in 1950 from the University of Texas School of Law. He was in private practice with the Dallas law firm of Clark, West, Keller, Sanders and Butler from 1950 through 1961 and from 1969 until 1979.
[edit] Career Highlights
[edit] Service in the Texas House of Representatives
Sanders served in the Texas House of Representatives from 1952 through 1958. During his tenure in the Texas Legislature, he sponsored several major pieces of legislation including the Texas Securities Act, the Texas Probate Code, the Texas Mental Health Code, and legislation creating the Trinity River Authority.
[edit] United States Attorney
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed Sanders United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, a position he held until 1965.
[edit] Kennedy Assassination
During his time as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District (in Dallas), Sanders played a minor role in the transition of power between Presidents Kennedy and Johnson following Kennedy's assassination in Dallas on November 23, 1963. Sanders was, according to an interview[1], tasked with finding Federal District Judge Sarah T. Hughes to administer the oath of office to Johnson:
"LBJ called Irving Goldberg from the plane and asked, 'Who can swear me in?' Goldberg called me, and I said, 'Well, we know a federal judge can.' Then I got a call from the president's plane, with the command 'Find Sarah Hughes.' Coincidentally, Judge Hughes, Jan [Judge Sanders's wife], and I were supposed to go to Austin that night for a dinner for President Kennedy. I reached her at home and said, 'They need you to swear in the vice president at Love Field. Please get out there.' She said, 'Is there an oath?' I said, 'Yes, but we haven't found it yet.' She said, 'Don't worry about it; I'll make one up.' She was very resourceful, you know. By the time she got to the airplane, someone had already called it into the plane. We quickly realized that it is in the Constitution."[2]
[edit] Service in the Johnson Administration
From 1965 to 1967, Sanders served as Assistant Deputy Attorney General and Assistant Attorney General in the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington and was instrumental in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson appointed him Legislative Counsel to the President to manage the White House legislative program.
[edit] Run for United States Senate
In 1972, Sanders sought the Democratic Party's nomination for United States Senate from Texas. His chief opponent in the Democratic Primary was former U.S. Senator Ralph Yarborough. Yarborough and Sanders ended up in a runoff and, in spite of the fact that Yarborough had led Sanders in the primary, Sanders won the primary runoff and became the Democratic Party nominee. Sanders opposed U.S. Senator John Tower in the 1972 general election, and was defeated after a contentious campaign.
[edit] Tenure As A Federal Judge
In 1979, Sanders was appointed United States District Judge for the Northern District of Texas by President Jimmy Carter. Sanders served as Chief Judge of the Northern District of Texas from 1989 until 1995.
During his tenure as a federal district judge, Sanders held many positions on committees related to the function of the judiciary. He has served as Chair of the Judicial Conference Committee on the Judicial Branch (1994-97); as a member of the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (1992-2000); and as Chair, National Conference of Federal Trial Judges, American Bar Association (1988-89).
Sanders announced he would step down from the bench (after earlier having taken Senior Status) on July 7, 2006 [3].
[edit] Role In Dallas ISD Desegregation Lawsuit
Though Sanders handled thousands of civil and criminal cases during his tenure as a Federal Judge, he is best known in Texas for his role as judge in the Tasby litigation brought against Dallas Independent School District in the 1970s, in which plaintiff Sam Tasby charged that the DISD was still a segregated school district.
The litigation began before Sanders became a federal judge, but he took over the case until its conclusion in 2003, and had oversight of many Dallas ISD activities related to racial balance until that time.
Though the Tasby litigation was not the first desegregation lawsuit against DISD, it is the most famous.
Until 1961, Dallas was the largest city in the South with a segregated school system [4]. That same year, the DISD school board implemented a desegration plan—the so-called "Stairstep Plan"—under order of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. In september of that year, 18 black students started first grade classes in what had been whites-only institutions.
In spite of tremendous dissatisfaction with DISD and continual complaints by the Dallas NAACP, DISD declared itself desegregated in 1967.
Litigation that continued for three more decades proved that declaration inappropriate.
Sam Tasby filed a lawsuit against DISD charging discrimination prohibited under Brown v. Board of Education on October 6, 1970. Federal Judge William M. Taylor presided over a trial of the case from July 12 to July 16, 1971, and ordered the school district to come up with a new desegregation plan, which the district published on July 23, 1971.
Four years later, in July, 1975, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rejected several parts of the plan and ordered a new desegregation plan implemented by January 1976. Other parties, including the NAACP, were added to the suit.
On February 2, 1976, Judge Taylor presided over a second desegregation trial, and by April, a new desegregation plan was issued. The Fifth Circuit rejected most of this plan as well. The most controversial part of this plan centered around busing, and Judge Taylor held an additional hearing on the case. Taylor removed himself from the case on March 21, 1981 to "avoid any further possibility that a desegregation plan might be overturned [5]," and the case was assigned to Judge Sanders.
After additional hearings, Sanders ruled that DISD continued to show signs of racial segregation, but concluded that busing would not solve the problem. He ordered parties to submit new desegregation plans, and then issued his own, ordering [6]:
"This Judgment constitutes the Desegregation Plan for the Dallas Independent School District ("DISD" or "the District") and is rendered pursuant to, and is to be construed in the light of and consistent with, (1) the Court’s Memorandum Opinion dated August 3, 1981; (2) the Stipulation dated December 1, 1981, and approved by the Court on December 2, 1981; and (3) the Court’s Memorandum Opinions and Orders dated December 7, 1981; December 21, 1981; January 4, 1982; and February 1, 1982. This Judgment supersedes the final judgment rendered by this Court in 1976. All programs provided for in this Judgment must be initiated by the beginning of the DISD 1982-83 school year, or sooner if feasible, unless otherwise herein provided."
The school district fought Sanders decision until August, 1983, when the Fifth Circuit upheld Sanders' plan; at that time, the DISD board of trustees unanimously accepted the court's decision.
DISD remained under Sanders' oversight until he declared it desegregated.
Decades of oversight finally came to an end in 2003, when Sanders ruled that DISD was no longer subject to his oversight and was desegregated[7]:
"The segregation prohibited by the United States Constitution, the United States Supreme Court and federal statutes no longer exists in the DISD..."
[edit] Personal Information
Judge Sanders is married to the former Jan Scurlock. He and his wife have four children and nine grandchildren. His oldest daughter, Janet, is a Superior Court Judge in Massachusetts.
