According to the Tennessee Code Annotated, the local board of education is a policy-making legislative body, and its members are classified as officials of the state.
In a position funded by Title One money from the federal government, intended to aid lower income students, Hatton served as fourth-grade homeroom teacher, instructor of health and physical education, and social studies, and as a part-time librarian at the school.
[5] Learning that the Board had hired non-tenured white teachers for other positions after she was discharged, Hatton filed a suit in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee for protection under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, seeking reinstatement and back pay.
In addition, white non-tenured teachers had been hired after Hatton was discharged, although the District had claimed not to have funds for any position that she might fill.
[5] In February 1970 the United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit ruled against the Maury County Board of Education.