Blocker v. Board of Education of Manhasset, New York
| Decision Date | 24 January 1964 |
| Docket Number | No. 62-C-285.,62-C-285. |
| Citation | 226 F. Supp. 208 |
| Parties | Ralph BLOCKER, a minor, by Mr. and Mrs. Albert W. Knox, his guardians and next friend, et al., Plaintiffs, v. The BOARD OF EDUCATION OF MANHASSET, NEW YORK, Dr. Raymond L. Collins, Superintendent of Schools of the Board of Education of Manhasset, New York, Mrs. Daniel S. Brock, President, Board of Education of Manhasset, New York, Dr. Erwin W. Bard, William F. X. Geoghan, Jr., Walter W. Jeffers and Henry N. Patterson, Members of the Board of Education of Manhasset, New York, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York |
Robert L. Carter, Jawn A. Sandifer and Maria L. Marcus, New York City, for plaintiffs.
Robert S. Blanc, Jr., New York City (Casey, Lane & Mittendorf, Samuel M. Lane and William E. Kelly, New York City, of counsel), for defendants.
This is a class action instituted by several Negro minors who reside within Union Free School District No. 6, Manhasset, New York (the District), against the Board of Education of the District (sued herein as The Board of Education of Manhasset, New York), its members and its Superintendent of Schools. The plaintiffs allege that they and the members of their class are discriminated against by the defendants by being racially segregated in the use and enjoyment of the public schools of the District; that the defendants are denying them their rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States1 and the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 and 1983.2 They seek a declaratory judgment to the effect that the rules, regulations and procedures of the Board are unconstitutional because they require, permit or sanction racially segregated public schools. They seek, further, a permanent injunction restraining the defendants from continuing to enforce these rules, regulations and procedures; from assigning them to a racially segregated school; requiring the defendants to eliminate patterns of racial segregation; to submit a desegregation plan and to delineate and maintain new school attendance areas for the purpose of creating and perpetuating positive racial integration patterns. Jurisdiction is invoked pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1343(3).3
The Manhasset School District, comprising an area of approximately five and one half square miles, is shown on the following map:
It is situated along the north shore of Long Island, approximately 30 miles from and within commuting distance of New York City. The major portion of the District is at the base of Manhasset Peninsula in the Town of North Hampstead, Nassau County, New York. The southwest corner of the District extends into a part of the base of the Great Neck Peninsula. These two peninsulas form the eastern and western shores of Manhasset Bay. A small stream runs from Whitney Lake northwardly through a valley into the Bay. The District is bisected by a four lane, heavily trafficked, main arterial highway, Northern Boulevard, which runs northeastwardly and southwestwardly through the lower third of the District.
One Junior High School and one Senior High School, indicated at point 1 on the map, serve the entire District. The District is divided into three elementary school attendance areas, within each of which there is a school for kindergarten through the sixth grade. Children living within each attendance area must attend the elementary school situated within that area; the transfer of a child living in one area to an elementary school within another area is not permitted. The Plandome Road School, indicated at point 2 on the map, serves an area of approximately three square miles. The Valley School, indicated at point 3 on the map, serves an area of approximately one-half square mile. The Munsey Park School, indicated at point 4 on the map, serves an area of approximately two square miles.
From the inception of the District during the early 1800's until 1928, all elementary school children attended one school situated on the site of the present Plandome Road School. At that time, most of the present Munsey Park and Plandome attendance areas were undeveloped. From approximately 1921 until an elementary school was erected in the present Valley area, some elementary grade classes were held for children residing in this section of the District in a rented store. It was in response to the demands of the residents of what is now known as the Valley area that the electors of the District approved an elementary school site on Spinney Hill (within that area) by a vote of 92 to 2 at a District meeting held May 11, 1928. At a meeting held February 18, 1929, they authorized the expenditure of $200,000 to erect an elementary school on this site. At a District meeting of the electors held May 7, 1929, the Board announced that it had fixed the attendance area lines for this school. No alteration of this attendance area has ever been made by the Board. The boundaries remain today as they were when first established, except for the fact that a small portion of this area was acquired by eminent domain for park purposes. The Valley attendance area is shown on the above map as lying within the heavy black lines at the southwest corner of the District.
From approximately 1929 on, other sections of the District developed steadily as luxurious residential neighborhoods. By 1939, the Munsey Park area had developed to such an extent that a third elementary school area was carved out of the original District wide elementary school area and thus, by 1939, the District contained three elementary school areas. Certain modifications of the boundary line between the Munsey Park and Plandome Road attendance areas were made as the residential development of these two sections of the District progressed. These modifications are not material to the issues in this case. The Munsey Park attendance area lies within the heavy black lines drawn on the map through the eastern portion of the District. The Plandome Road attendance area lies between the other two. The undeveloped portion of the Plandome Road area is situated in the southerly portion thereof. It comprises the Whitney estate, an area of 600 acres — 150 of which are within a 2 acre zoning use district; 450 acres of which are in a one-third acre zoning use district. If, as and when this estate is developed for residential purposes, it is estimated that it will have a capacity of approximately 1,075 one-family residences.
During the early 1920's, the Valley area was populated by seventy to eighty families, five of which (7%) were Negro. By 1933, the percentage of the Negro population had risen to between 30% and 40%; to 50% by 1940; 90% by 1950 or 1951. Although the record is silent as to the present percentage of Negro residents in the Valley area, the percentage of Negro students in the Valley School as of October 1, 1962 is indicative. Of the total of 166 children attending the Valley School all but 10 or approximately 94% are Negro.
No Negro children attend either the Plandome Road or Munsey Park Schools. At various times in the past, the only circumstance under which any Negro child attended these two schools was while his parents were live-in domestics in the employ of residents of one of these areas. The total elementary school population of the entire District, as of October 1, 1962, was distributed as follows:
Percentage
of
Attendance Enrollment Total
Area Oct. 1, 1962 Enrollment
Valley 166 12.38%
Plandome Road 600 44.78%
Munsey Park 574 42.84%
_____ _________
1,340 100.00%
Of the 1,340 elementary school children in the District, 1,174 or 87.62% attend two all-white schools. All of the Negro children of the District attend the Valley School. The 10 white children attending the Valley School represent only 8/10ths of one per cent of the total white elementary school population of the District. Thus, 99.2% of the white children of the District attend two all-white schools, while 100% of the Negro children attend a separate school.
To argue, as do the defendants, that Negro residents have come to the Valley voluntarily and segregated themselves is to ignore the actualities. The greater part of the District is populated by families whose incomes far exceed the national average. The majority of its residents are in the upper middle to high socioeconomic class. Only a small minority, the residents of the Valley, are in the low socioeconomic class. They are foreclosed from the Plandome Road and Munsey Park areas by reason of economic necessity.
The wide gap between the socioeconomic level of the Valley residents and that of the residents in the two other attendance areas is evidenced by the differences in residential development as well as parental occupation. The Munsey Park and Plandome Road areas of the District contain within their boundaries all or portions of several of the most attractive, desirable and expensive residential communities within the Town of Hempstead. It is apparent from personal inspection and expert testimony that only persons of considerable means can afford to purchase or lease and maintain the homes in these communities.
The Valley area is at the bottom of the real estate value scale. The most significant aspects of housing in this area are Spinney Hill Homes, a low-rent public housing project of the North Hempstead Housing Authority completed in December 1951 at a cost of $1,800,000, and Pond View Homes, another such project now under...
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