Bell v. School City of Gary, Indiana, Civ. No. 3346.

• Decision Date: 29 January 1963
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 3346.
• Citation: 213 F. Supp. 819
• Parties: Rachel Lynn BELL, a minor, by Mrs. Odessa K. Bell, her mother and next friend, et al. v. SCHOOL CITY OF GARY, INDIANA.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Indiana

213 F. Supp. 819

Rachel Lynn BELL, a minor, by Mrs. Odessa K. Bell, her mother and next friend, et al. v. SCHOOL CITY OF GARY, INDIANA.

Civ. No. 3346.

United States District Court N. D. Indiana, Hammond Division.

January 29, 1963.

F. Laurence Anderson, Jr., Hilbert L. Bradley, Gary, Ind., Richard G. Hatcher, East Chicago, Ind., Charles Wills, South Bend, Ind., Robert L. Carter, Barbara A. Morris, New York City, for plaintiffs.

Orval W. Anderson, Albert H. Gavit, Gary, Ind., Edmond J. Leeney, Hammond, Ind., for defendant.

BEAMER, District Judge.

This is a declaratory judgment action brought by approximately 100 minor Negro children, enrolled in the public schools in Gary, Indiana. The action is brought by and on behalf of the plaintiffs and all others who are similarly situated, against the School City of Gary, Gary, Indiana.

The plaintiffs present three principal questions which they ask the Court to determine:

1. Whether the defendant, by assigning plaintiffs and the other members of the class to certain schools, by creating attendance zones, by controlling transfers from school to school, by controlling assignments from elementary to secondary schools and by the pattern of building new schools and enlarging others, maintain the Gary schools as a racially segregated school system in violation of the plaintiffs constitutional rights.

2. Whether the defendant is discriminating against the plaintiffs and the class they represent by providing inferior facilities in all respects, including but not limited to overcrowded and larger classes and unequal recreational and extra curricular facilities in violation of their constitutional rights, and

3. Whether the plaintiffs and other members of the class have a constitutional right to attend racially integrated schools and the defendant has a constitutional duty to provide and maintain a racially integrated school system.

The evidence shows that Gary, Indiana is a rapidly growing industrial city located in the northwest portion of Indiana. Geographically it is shaped much like the capital letter "T". Its north boundary line is the southern shore of Lake Michigan. The stem of the "T" extends approximately seven miles from near the shore of Lake Michigan to the southern boundary of the city and is approximately two miles wide. The cross-bar of the "T" is approximately four miles wide and extends east and west a distance of approximately ten and one-half miles. Steel mills and other heavy industrial establishments are located primarily along the shore of the lake. The remainder of the territory is devoted to commercial and residential areas although some industry is located near the east and west portions of the cross-bar of the "T".

The population of Gary, according to the United States Census, in 1950 was 133,911 which included 39,326 Negroes. In 1960, the population was 178,320, of which 69,340 were Negroes, The student population in the public schools for the 1951-52 school year was 22,770, of which 8,406 or approximately 37% were Negroes. In the 1961-62 school year there were 43,090 students in the public school system and 23,055 or approximately 53% were Negroes.

In 1951, the Gary School City maintained 20 school buildings. In 1961, the number of buildings had increased to 40. Additional schools had either been completed or were in the process of completion at the time of the trial of this case.

In the school year 1961-62, 10,710 of the students enrolled in the Gary school system attended fourteen schools which were 100% white; 16,242 students attended twelve schools which were populated from 99 to 100 per cent by Negroes; 6,981 students attended five schools which were from 77 to 95 per cent Negroes; 4,066 attended four schools which had a range from 13 to 37 per cent Negro; 5,465 attended five schools which had a Negro population from one to five per cent.

The schools in operation in the 1951-52 and 1961-62 school years, their total enrollment and percentage of Negro students are shown on the following chart.

                      TABLE SHOWING COMPARISON OF NEGRO AND WHITE YOUTH ENROLLED*
                            IN GARY PUBLIC SCHOOLS YEAR 1951 and YEAR 1961
                ________________________________________________________________________________
                                               1951 — 1952                     1961 — 1962
                                  _________________________________________________________
                                     Total                           Total
                                   Enrollment    No. of            Enrollment    No. of
                      Schools                   Negroes      %                  Negroes       %
                ________________________________________________________________________________
                AETNA                  —          —         -      1,095          —       -
                AMBRIDGE                190       —         -         350         —       -
                BANNEKER               —          —         -        877          876     99
                BETHUNE                —          —         -      1,011        1,001     99.01
                BEVERIDGE              465          69       14.8      470          392     83.4
                BRUNSWICK              —          —         -      1,039          —       -
                CARVER                 893         893      100    1,196        1,196    100
                CHASE                  —          —         -        467          171     36.8
                DOUGLASS               —          —         -      1,051        1,050     99.9
                DREW                   —          —         -        978          974     99.59
                DUNBAR                 —          —         -      1,343        1,342     99.92
                EDISON               1,339        —         -      1,358           27      1.9
                EMERSON              1,896         179        9.44   2,184          276     12.64
                FRANKLIN               482        —         -        756          —        -
                FROEBEL              2,260       1,266       56      2,109        2,004     95
                GARNETT                —          —         -      1,272        1,272    100
                GLEN PARK              474        —         -        293          —        -
                IVANHOE                108        —         -        678           89     13.12
                JEFFERSON              701           8      1.14     773           35      4.9
                KUNY                   —          —         -        375          —        -
                LINCOLN                754         744        98.67      1,418        1,413     99.64
                LOCKE                  —          —         -      1,094        1,093     99.9
                MANN                 2,115        —         -      1,602            1       .99
                MARQUETTE              —          —         -        707          —        -
                MELTON                 —          —         -        701          —        -
                MILLER                 212        —         -        196          —        -
                NOBEL                  —          —         -        626          —        -
                NORTON                 —          —         -      1,660        1,466     88.31
                PITTMAN SQUARE         —          —         -   507          —       -
                PULASKI              1,671       1,646       98.52   1,719        1,714     99.7
                PYLE                   —          —         -        868          836     96.3
                RILEY                  313                  -        725          —        -
                ROOSEVELT            3,676       3,676      100      3,202        3,200     99.00
                TOLLESTON            1,698          74        4.3    1,898        1,455     76.65
                VOHR                   —          —         -        801           11      1.37
                WALLACE              2,384        —         -      2,726          —        -
                WASHINGTON             344          30        8.72     676          162     23.96
                WEBSTER                —          —         -        547          —        -
                WILLIAMS               —          —         -        881          881    100
                WIRT                   795        —         -      1,034            2      1.9
                SPECIAL SCHOOLS
                  DUNELAND             —          —         -         74           35     47.29
                  LUTHERAN CHURCH      —          —         -         62           45     72.58
                  NORTON PARK          —          —         -         45           34     77.3
                  TEENETTES            —          —         -          9            2      2.2
                _________________________________________________________________________________
                TOTAL                22,770      8,406        36.5   43,090      23,055     53.5
                

The Negro population in Gary is concentrated in what is generally called the "Central District" which occupies roughly the south half of the cross-bar of the "T" from east to west and is bounded on the north by the Wabash Railroad and on the south by the city limits and the Little Calumet River. The expansion of the Negro population within the Gary city limits has been largely from east to west within the Central District. Approximately 70,000 Negroes including the 23,000 Negro school children live in this District which comprises about one-third of the area of the city.

Gary, which is a relatively new city having been organized in 1906, developed a rather unique school system commonly known as the Wirt System, so named after the superintendent of schools who was its architect. It was originally laid out in eight school districts and, as the school population demanded, one large school was built in each of the eight districts. Each of these schools handled the education of the public school population within its area, from kindergarten through high school. The original eight schools comprising this system were Edison, Tolleston, Mann, Froebel, Roosevelt, Wallace, Emerson and Wirt. Only Emerson remains a kindergarten through twelve school.

As the school population expanded, additional elementary schools were built. These were generally schools serving children from kindergarten through the sixth grade. Some of these elementary schools serve students from only one of the original eight districts and others accommodate elementary students from two or three such districts.

As these elementary schools were built, attendance zones were...