Clark v. Board of Directors of Little Rock School Dist., LR-64-C-155.

• Decision Date: 16 July 1971
• Docket Number: No. LR-64-C-155.,LR-64-C-155.
• Citation: 328 F. Supp. 1205
• Parties: Delores CLARK et al., Plaintiffs, v. The BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF the LITTLE ROCK SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Defendants. Grover Richardson et al., and mothers similarly situated as a Committee to Save Horace Mann School, Intervenors, Dr. George Lay et al., Parents of children, pupils in the Little Rock School District, Intervenors.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Arkansas

328 F. Supp. 1205

Delores CLARK et al., Plaintiffs, v. The BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF the LITTLE ROCK SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Defendants.

Grover Richardson et al., and mothers similarly situated as a Committee to Save Horace Mann School, Intervenors,

Dr. George Lay et al., Parents of children, pupils in the Little Rock School District, Intervenors.

No. LR-64-C-155.

United States District Court, E. D. Arkansas, W. D.

July 16, 1971.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

John W. Walker and Philip E. Kaplan, Little Rock, Ark., for plaintiffs.

Herschel H. Friday, Robert V. Light and G. Ross Smith, Little Rock, Ark., for defendants.

Christopher C. Mercer, Jr., Little Rock, Ark., for intervenors Richardson and others.

James L. Sloan, Little Rock, Ark., for intervenors Lay and others.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

HENLEY, Chief Judge.

This litigation which involves the racial integration of the public schools of the City of Little Rock, Arkansas, and which has been in the courts for some sixteen years is again before the Court pursuant to an order of the Court of Appeals entered on May 4, 1971, remanding the case for further consideration.¹ The Court was directed to call upon the defendants to submit a new integration plan conforming to the requirements of the four decisions of the Supreme Court handed down on April 20,² to conduct appropriate hearings, and to rule on the new plan not later than August 1.

The Court promptly entered an order calling on the School District to submit a new plan which was done on June 8. An extensive hearing which consumed three days was commenced on June 16. On June 21 the Court conducted a hearing in connection with a plan submitted by the North Little Rock School District which has integration problems quite similar to those of Little Rock. At the conclusion of that hearing the Court directed the defendants in this case to submit an alternative plan designed to eliminate what the Court considered to be a patently discriminatory situation that would have been created under the June 8 plan. The alternative plan was submitted on June 28, and a hearing on it was held on July 12. The Court will call the June 8 plan "Plan I" and the June 28 plan "Plan II." Both plans have been given careful consideration along with other questions included in the remand of the case. This memorandum opinion incorporates the Court's findings of fact and conclusions of law with respect to the issues before it.

Historically, the Little Rock public schools have been operated on what is known as the 6-3-3 basis; that is to say, the system had six elementary grades, three junior high grades, and three senior high grades. Up until the comparatively recent construction of the Parkview High School in the western part of the City, the District operated four senior high schools. The oldest of those schools was Central High School which is located in what was the central part of Little Rock when the school was built; it was constructed as a "pre-Brown" school for the education of white students only. Horace Mann High School, a facility of more recent construction, was built in a predominantly Negro section in the eastern part of the City and has always been identifiable as a Negro school. Hall High School was built after the Brown decisions were rendered; it is located in the western part of the City in an essentially all white neighborhood and until a very short time ago was an all white school. The fourth school was Metropolitan High School, a fully integrated vocational-technological institution which has never really been in controversy in this litigation.

Last year the District operated five high schools, Central, Mann, Hall, Metropolitan, and Parkview. Parkview, like Hall, is located in a nearly all white affluent neighborhood, and is substantially to the south and west of Hall.

The junior high school system consisted of seven schools located in various parts of the City and prior to the 1970-71 school year just about all of them were racially identifiable, some of them notably so.

There were some 31 elementary schools located throughout the City and in accordance with the neighborhood school concept. Since housing in Little Rock is de facto segregated, the elementary schools were naturally racially identifiable. They still are.

In 1969 the late Judge Gordon E. Young approved a desegregation plan for Little Rock which the Court of Appeals found insufficient as far as student body desegregation was concerned, although the appellate court noted that substantial progress in that area had been made. Clark v. Board of Education, 8 Cir., 426 F.2d 1035 (1970). The holding of the District Court was reversed, and the cause was remanded for further proceedings.

A new plan was filed which this Court considered in August 1970. In a decree entered on August 17, 1970, the Court approved the plan in part and disapproved it in part as an operating plan for the 1970-71 school year. As far as the high schools were concerned, the Court approved the plan, including the aspect which involved the phasing out of Mann as a senior high school, provided that the Board made certain commitments mentioned in the decree and in the accompanying memorandum opinion. As far as elementary students were concerned, the plan contemplated their continued assignments to neighborhood schools, and that aspect of the plan was approved for 1970-71. The plan for the junior high schools was disapproved. As to them, the decree provided:

"* * * The District is now mandatorily enjoined to proceed forthwith to commence the disestablishment of the dual junior high school system that it is now operating; the disestablishment of that system must be effectively commenced as of the beginning of the 1970-71 school year and must be completed as of the beginning of the 1971-72 school year. By September 1, 1970 the District will file a statement with the Court setting forth what it proposes to do with respect to 1970-71 and what it expects to do with respect to 1971-72 * * *."

The statement called for by the decree was filed, and this Court considered the junior high school situation again in late September 1970. The junior high school plan was finally approved for 1970-71 only. Clark v. Board of Education, E.D.Ark., 316 F.Supp. 1209 (1970).

Appeals were taken from the Court's orders of August and September, 1970 and were still pending when the Supreme Court handed down its most recent school decisions heretofore mentioned.

One of the matters that the Court considered in August 1970 was certain proposed construction at the Henderson Junior High School located in the western part of the City. However, the record made up on that issue was scanty, not much emphasis was laid on it, and the Court passed it over lightly. During the pendency of the appeals the Court of Appeals entered a limited order of remand directing the Court to consider the matter of the Henderson construction more fully. The Court did so and found that the construction was proper and would neither help nor hinder integration, and the Court refused to enjoin the prosecution of the work. However, the Court of Appeals entered an order last December restraining the construction until the basic controversies before it should be decided.³ The current order of remand vacates the injunction issued by the Court of Appeals and directs this Court to consider the Henderson construction again, which has been done. The matter will be dealt with in this opinion along with other issues.

In formulating Plan I now before the Court the School Board decided on a drastic restructuring of the overall school system. That involved the abandonment of the old 6-3-3 system and the substitution therefor of a 5-3-2-2 system. Under Plan I Grades 1-5 may be considered elementary grades; Grades 6-8 may be considered "middle grades;" Grades 9-10 may be considered junior high school grades; and Grades 11-12 may be considered senior high school grades.

Plan I makes no change in the existing method of assigning elementary students to their schools. They will still attend schools located in accordance with the neighborhood school concept. There would be a closing of some elementary schools which would increase to some extent the degree of integration in other elementary schools. It is clear, however, that racially identifiable schools would continue to exist.⁴

Children in Grades 6-8 would be educated in four "middle schools" or middle school complexes and would be assigned to schools on the basis of geographical attendance zones. Under Plan I almost 49 percent of the District's total middle school Negro enrollment would attend the Gibbs-Dunbar complex located in a predominantly Negro section of the City, and nearly 95 percent of the enrollment in that complex under Plan I would be black.

Plan I makes use of Horace Mann High School and Central High School for the education of students in the 9th and 10th grades and of Hall and Parkview High Schools for the education of 11th and 12th grade students. Students in those four grades would be assigned to schools on the basis of geographical zones, and it appears to the Court that Plan I would achieve essential racial balance at those four grade levels.

Another facet of Plan I which should be mentioned is that it would pair the formerly predominantly Negro Booker Junior High School with Metropolitan High School so as to create an advanced vocational-technical education complex, attendance at which would be entirely voluntary and completely unrelated to the race of students desiring an education of that type. Students completing their course of vocational training would be ceremonially graduated from either Hall or Parkview both of which are schools fully accredited by the North Central Association of Secondary Schools and Colleges.

The striking racial imbalance that would exist at the Dunbar-Gibbs complex (hereinafter called simply Dunbar) is what caused the Court to call upon the Board to...