Boston's Children First v. City of Boston, Civ.A. 99-11330-NG.
| Decision Date | 10 August 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. Civ.A. 99-11330-NG.,Civ.A. 99-11330-NG. |
| Citation | 62 F.Supp.2d 247 |
| Parties | BOSTON'S CHILDREN FIRST, Ann F. Walsh, President, Nicholas Anderson, a minor by his parent and next friend, Ellen Dowd, Ellen Dowd, Michael Gattozzi, a minor, by his parents and best friends Joseph Gattozzi, Patrice Gattozzi, John K. O'Toole, Jr., a minor, by his parents and next friends John O'Toole, Sr., Rose O'Toole, Kathleen McCoy, a minor, by her parents and next friends, Carol McCoy, John McCoy, Plaintiffs, v. CITY OF BOSTON, Thomas Menino, Mayor of the City of Boston Thomas Payzant, Superintendent of the Boston Public Schools Boston School Committee Elizabeth Reilinger, Dr., Boston School Committee Chairperson, Alfred J. Harris, School, Committee Vice-Chairperson Felix D. Arroyo, School Committee Member, Robert Gittens, School Committee Member, Susan Naimark, School Committee Member, Marchelle Raynor, School Committee Member, William Spring, School Committee Member, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts |
Chester Darling, Boston, MA, for plaintiffs.
Frances S. Cohen, Diane Dilanni, Hill & Barlow, Boston, MA, Merita A. Hopkins, City of Boston Law Department, Boston, MA, for defendants.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. BACKGROUND .................................................. 249
A. The Parties .............................................. 249
B. The Breadth of Plaintiffs' Claims ........................ 249
C. The Plan ................................................. 251
D. The Timing of the Law Suit ............................... 253
II. LEGAL ANALYSIS ............................................. 253
A. Laches ................................................... 254
1. Unreasonable Delay .................................... 254
2. Prejudice ............................................. 256
B. Preliminary Injunctive Relief ............................ 257
1. Likelihood of Success on the Merits ................... 257
C. Balance of Potential Harms ............................... 261
D. Public Interest .......................................... 261
III. CONCLUSION ................................................ 262
This case raises critical issues, issues which have rocked this city, and indeed this nation, for the past twenty-five to thirty years. The Plaintiffs challenge the constitutionality of the Defendants' use of race in its student assignment plan, the Controlled Choice Student Assignment Plan ("the Plan"). They seek broad emergency relief, barring the use of race as a factor in any way in student assignments for the 1999-2000 school year.1 In the light of the evolving law of equal protection, their challenge is a fair one. But rather than bringing this case at a time when it could have been carefully litigated, Plaintiffs have brought it at the eleventh hour, weeks before the first day of class is scheduled to begin. The settled expectations of the children of Boston about where they will attend elementary school, the longstanding commitments of working parents to childcare arrangements, and the academic plans of the faculty hang in the balance.
If the law were clear and the remedy obvious, I would not hesitate to order the relief the Plaintiffs have requested, no matter what the cost, just as courts have done when these issues were raised years ago by minority Plaintiffs. But this case is different — at least in its preliminary stages: While the law has been changing in the past decade, while race preferential remedies have been questioned more and more, essential issues have not been resolved. Nor is this Plan the product of a renegade group of officials proceeding willy-nilly to implement their personal biases. Whether one agrees with the Plan or not, whether it will ultimately be seen as constitutional or not, it is clear that it emerged from the efforts of men and women of good will trying to steer a course between what seemed to be conflicting constitutional obligations.
It is precisely because of the significance of these issues, their complexity, not to mention the substantial disruption that the proposed injunction will cause to the children of Boston, that preliminary relief is entirely inappropriate. After careful review of the motion, the opposition thereto, the arguments of counsel at the hearing in open court, and the entire record, undeveloped as it is, I find that this motion for preliminary relief must be DENIED.2
Plaintiffs consist ofour individuals, together with a non-profit organization.3 The four individual Plaintiffs are the parents of white Boston school-aged children:
1. Ellen Dowd is the mother of Nicholas Anderson who is eight years old and enrolled in the 3rd Grade at the Taylor School. He has been a student at Taylor since his initial assignment in 1997-98 and has not applied for a transfer for 1999-2000.
2. Joseph and Patrice Gattozzi are the parents of Michael Gattozzi who is six years old and is enrolled in 1st Grade at the Roosevelt School. Michael selected this school as his first choice school for K2 in 1998-99, and has not applied for transfer for 1999-2000. Patrice Gattozzi is also one of the co-founders of the organizational plaintiff, Boston's Children First.
3. Carol and John McCoy are the parents of Kathleen McCoy who is presently enrolled in private school. She has not applied for assignment to any public school for 1999-2000.
4. John and Rose O'Toole are the parents of John O'Toole Jr. John is four years old and is presently on the waiting list for placement in K1 for 1999-2000.
The organizational plaintiff is Boston's Children First ("BCF"), directed by Ann Walsh. BCF is a non-profit advocacy and membership organization whose stated purpose and activities include quality of education issues and obtaining equality in student assignment within the Boston Public Schools without regard to race, color, creed or national origin. Members of the organization have school-aged children attending, or seeking to attend, public school within the city of Boston.
The Defendants in this case include the City of Boston, Mayor Thomas M. Menino, School Superintendent Thomas Payzant, and the Boston School Committee members: Elizabeth Reilinger, Alfreda Harris, Felix Arroyo, Robert Gittens, Susan Naimark, Marchelle Raynor and William Spring.
Plaintiffs' challenge is extraordinarily broad. They seek to eliminate the use of race as a factor in the assigning of students to individual schools in any aspect of the Plan, at any stage.4 They would prohibit not only methods that may be dubbed "race preferential" — giving preference to members of one race over another — but also any methods that are simply "race conscious" — official action that takes into account the impact on minorities. They challenge the way in which the Defendants have divided up the school zones, from which the children apply for schools, ostensibly to maximize diversity. They seek to delete any reference to race or ethnicity in school assignments, including "the software programs, or any other process utilized for the assignment of students by the defendants."5
Plaintiffs claim that their chances of winning are so strong (the "likelihood of success on the merits" test) and the harm that would accrue to them if injunctive relief is not granted so dramatic (the "irreparable harm" test), that I must order the relief they seek immediately.
Defendants argue, first, that emergency relief is precluded by the doctrine of laches. The Plaintiffs, they claim, have unreasonably delayed seeking this relief until the very eve of the new school year and that, as a result, they are profoundly disadvantaged. They cannot properly defend against the Plaintiffs' challenges, which raise complex issues, and if relief is granted, settled expectations and plans of the school children of Boston, their parents, the faculty, will be disrupted. Nor, Defendants claim, can the Plaintiffs establish that they would likely succeed on the merits of their claim because the Plaintiffs, they allege, do not have standing to sue at all.6
The Controlled Choice Student Assignment Plan had its origins in the challenges to Boston's segregated public school system and the remedial court orders that followed. In 1974, the district court held that the City of Boston, through the Boston School Committee, was operating and maintaining a dual education system which segregated students by race, in violation of the U.S. Constitution. See Morgan v. Hennigan, 379 F.Supp. 410 (D.Mass.1974), aff'd, Morgan v. Kerrigan, 509 F.2d 580 (1st Cir.1974). To rectify these violations, the district court issued a number of orders focusing on, among other things, student assignments.7
After 1982, the district court found that the Boston schools had made progress towards the goal of "unitary status" in certain areas (i.e. that schools were no longer segregated by race) but not in the area of student assignment. See Morgan v. Nucci, 831 F.2d 313, 316 (1st Cir.1987) (). In 1985, the court issued "final orders" setting out binding requirements and standards. See id. The School Committee was required, for an indefinite period of time, to maintain specific racial mixes in the city's schools, much like those it had been required to achieve during the prior years of court supervision. See id. at 317.
In 1987, after twelve years of court supervision, the First Circuit vacated the orders addressing the student assignment process on three grounds: "(a) BSC's proven commitment to [and good faith effort in] eliminating racial discrimination; (b) its success in dismantling virtually all the one-race schools the system had once maintained; and (c) its...
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