Brice v. Landis, 51805.

• Decision Date: 08 August 1969
• Docket Number: No. 51805.,51805.
• Parties: George BRICE et al., Plaintiffs, v. John B. LANDIS et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of California

314 F. Supp. 974

George BRICE et al., Plaintiffs, v. John B. LANDIS et al., Defendants.

No. 51805.

United States District Court, N. D. California.

August 8, 1969.

Chas. Stephen Ralston and Oscar Williams, San Francisco, Cal., for plaintiffs.

Richard Sanders, Pittsburg, Cal., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

SWEIGERT, District Judge.

This is a civil rights suit brought by plaintiffs, parents of children in the Pittsburg Unified School District on behalf of themselves and those similarly situated to enjoin the District from failing to adopt and implement a comprehensive plan for the desegregation of all schools within the District within the meaning of Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U.S. 294, 75 S.Ct. 753, 99 L.Ed. 1083 (1954).

Upon allegations that the District's present plan involving the closing of one of its schools, the Martin Luther King School, would result in continuing racial discrimination, this court issued its temporary restraining order enjoining the sale or lease of the Martin Luther King School to Contra Costa County.

On August 1, 1969, after hearing on defendants' motion to dismiss the suit and to dissolve the restraining order, the court issued its preliminary injunction enjoining the sale or lease until August 8th pending further consideration by the court.

The case is now before the court on the issue of further preliminarily enjoining the sale or lease of the school and on defendants' motion to dismiss this suit.

It appears from the record that the School District consists of seven elementary schools, two junior high schools and one high school; that the racial composition of school children in the District is approximately 28% black and 21% brown, i. e., 49% minority; that the high school is integrated but that certain elementary schools and junior high schools were racially imbalanced in the 1968-69 school year, e. g., among elementary schools, the Martin Luther King 99% negro; Heights 3.6% negro; Highlands 3.10% negro, Parkside 7.7% negro.

In March, 1968, the District decided on a plan for racial integration of its schools. Under this plan, effective September, 1969, the Martin Luther King School is to be closed (as far as elementary school purposes are concerned), and its pupils, 99% negro, are to be enrolled in and bussed to and from the Parkside, Heights and Highlands Schools which are within about two miles from Martin Luther King. The integration of the two junior high schools is to be implemented over a three year phase-in commencing September, 1969.

Eight of the fourteen class rooms of the Martin Luther King School are to be leased by the District to Contra Costa County for use in training mentally retarded children, 40% expected to be black. The remaining six class rooms are to be retained by the District but will be used only for educating pre-school age children, most of whom are "expected" to be white. There is no showing, however, that either retarded children or preschool age children are not now being cared for at other places or that there is any urgent reason for moving them into the King School.

According to defendant this plan has been formulated with the assistance and approval of a representative of the Bureau of Inter-Group Relations, State Department of Education. Further planning for integration, according to defendants, will be assisted by an Advisory Committee of black and white citizens.

The gist of plaintiffs' complaint is that the plan, although purporting to bring about racial integration in the schools, will in fact continue racial discrimination because the bussing of negro children, enrolled until recently in the Martin Luther King School, between their predominantly negro neighborhood and the Highlands, Heights and Parkside Schools located in predominantly white neighborhoods, will place the entire burden of the so-called integration on negro children and their parents while children of the predominantly white neighborhood schools will entirely avoid the necessity for transfer and bussing to other schools.

In addition to the present plan, three alternative plans were considered but all of them involved the closing out of Martin Luther King. Two of them would have transferred the King pupils to Highlands and the Highlands pupils to Village, one on a compulsory and the other on a voluntary basis, in order to make room for the King pupils transferred to Highlands. The other plan would have transferred the King pupils, together with all other elementary pupils, to Highlands, Parkside, Heights and Village under the so-called Princeton plan under which all pupils would be assigned to Parkside, Heights and Highlands according to grade level, i. e., grades 1-2 in one school, grades 3-4 in another and grades 5-6 in the third.

The plan selected, however, was the one to close out King and bus its pupils back and forth to the three other schools without involving the transfer or bussing of the pupils in the predominantly white neighborhood schools.

Plaintiffs allege that the Trustees of the District, under pressure to correct racial imbalance, selected and adopted the proposed plan, involving the closing of the King School because of opposition of the white community to bussing white children out of their neighborhood schools to a predominantly negro neighborhood school. This opposition, according to plaintiffs, was indicated in certain newspaper, telephone and PTA polls showing that over 75% of parents with white children were opposed to bussing their children to Martin Luther King while 100% of parents with children in Martin Luther King were in favor of two-way bussing, i. e., bussing arrangements that will fairly include both negro and white children.

Defendants allege, however, that these polls were taken in July, 1969, many months after an earlier decision of the District to close Martin Luther King; that in July the District merely refused to change that decision and that these polls played no part in the matter.

Defendants allege that the "primary" reason for the District's decision to close Martin Luther King as an elementary school is economic, stating that the cost of education per pupil there is twice as much higher than in any other school in the District, e. g., $200 more per pupil than at Highlands, because low enrollment per grade level at King requires the hiring of twice as many teachers as would otherwise be required and that the District will save $120,000 to $150,000 per year in teacher and administrator salaries by closing Martin Luther King.

A more reasonable inference from the record is that the unusually large number of teachers and other employees at King has been caused, not so much by low enrollment per grade, but by the more intensive instruction generally required for educating an all-minority, often underprivileged student body.

In any event, the claimed economic saving under defendants' plan implied (although defendants do not so allege) that at least half of the teachers, administrators and other employees presently at the King School can be and will be dismissed as no longer necessary.

How this can be done without...