Coalition to Save Our Children v. State Bd. of Educ. of State of Del.
| Decision Date | 24 July 1996 |
| Docket Number | No. 95-7452,95-7452 |
| Citation | 90 F.3d 752 |
| Parties | 111 Ed. Law Rep. 132 COALITION TO SAVE OUR CHILDREN, Appellant, v. STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION OF the STATE OF DELAWARE; Board of Education of the Christiana School District; Board of Education of the Brandywine School District; Board of Education of the Colonial School District; Board of Education of the Red Clay School District; Delaware House of Representatives Committee on Desegregation. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit |
Thomas D. Barr, David Boies (argued), Sandra C. Goldstein, Katherine B. Forrest, Cravath, Swaine & Moore, New York City, Thomas J. Henderson (argued), Pace J. McConkie, Lawyers' Committee For Civil Rights Under Law, Washington, D.C., Leonard L. Williams, Wilmington, DE, for Appellant.
Andre L. Dennis, Stradley, Ronon, Stevens & Young, Philadelphia, PA, Mary B. Matterer, Stradley, Ronon, Stevens & Young, Wilmington, DE, for Amicus Curiae--City of Wilmington, DE.
Rodman Ward, Jr. (argued), Andre G. Bouchard, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, Wilmington, DE, John B. Hindman, Department of Justice, Dover, DE, for Appellee State Board of Education of the State of DE.
M. Duncan Grant, Pepper, Hamilton & Scheetz, Philadelphia, PA, Alfred J. D'Angelo, Jr., Daniel V. Folt, Pepper, Hamilton & Scheetz, Wilmington, DE, for Appellee Red Clay Consolidated School District.
David H. Williams, Barbara D. Crowell, Morris, James, Hitchens & Williams, Wilmington, DE, for Appellees Brandywine, Christiana and Colonial School Districts.
Charles J. Cooper (argued), Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge, Washington, D.C., for Appellee Delaware House of Representatives Committee on Desegregation.
Before: NYGAARD, SAROKIN and ALDISERT, Circuit Judges.
This case brings to a close our supervision of more than four decades of litigation designed to desegregate the public schools of Delaware.
However, we do not end our supervision hastily. After the Delaware schools' rudimentary attempts at desegregation were deemed insufficient by the district court in 1957, and by this court in 1960, judges of this circuit blazed new jurisprudential trails in 1975 by requiring an interdistrict remedy. By 1977 and 1978, the judiciary had fashioned detailed orders for primary and ancillary relief which, together with the factors set forth by the Supreme Court in Green v. County School Bd. of New Kent County, Va., 391 U.S. 430, 88 S.Ct. 1689, 20 L.Ed.2d 716 (1968), constituted the marching orders for the school system.
Still, it was not until almost 20 years later (and 35 years after this court announced dissatisfaction with an original plan that called for grade-by-grade desegregation over a 12-year period) that the district court could announce that the marching orders had been obeyed: The school system has achieved unitary status by complying in good faith with our detailed desegregation decrees and by eliminating to the extent practicable the vestiges of de jure segregation. This was the ruling of the district court embodied in a judgment entered after a lengthy hearing. The Coalition to Save Our Children ("Coalition"), the representative of the plaintiff class, has appealed. We will affirm.
It is beyond dispute that racism and bigotry continue to tear at the fragile social fabric of our national and local communities, and that our best efforts as citizens are needed to address this problem at many levels. However, as the district court observed in the case at hand, court-supervised school desegregation alone cannot eliminate racial discrimination:
[A]s the years have passed since Brown I and II [Brown v. Board of Educ., 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954) and Brown v. Board of Educ., 349 U.S. 294, 75 S.Ct. 753, 99 L.Ed. 1083 (1955) ], it has become apparent that the school desegregation process has been unable to eliminate or overcome racial discrimination in the "myriad factors of human existence" outside the school environment....
Coalition to Save Our Children v. State Bd. of Educ. of State of Del., 901 F.Supp. 784, 823 (1995) (quoting Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. of Educ., 402 U.S. 1, 22, 91 S.Ct. 1267, 1279, 28 L.Ed.2d 554 (1971)). Or as the Court succinctly put it in Swann: Swann, 402 U.S. at 22, 91 S.Ct. at 1279.
In light of this sobering truth, it is all the more important that we write the final chapter in this long period of supervision by the federal courts and release our provisional grip on the administrators and educators of Northern New Castle County, for only in so doing can we permit them to resume their full role in the larger social and political effort to make our nation worthy of the best ideals of its members. 1 The length of the discussion that follows is but one indication of the importance and sensitivity of the task at hand.
Historically, Delaware required its public school pupils to attend segregated schools. Del. Const. art. 10 § 2 (1950) and Rev.Code 1935 p 2631. However, even before the landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954) (Brown I ), the Delaware courts ordered the admission of black children to certain schools previously attended only by white children. Belton v. Gebhart, 87 A.2d 862, 2 aff'd 91 A.2d 137 (Del.1952). The Supreme Court consolidated Belton with Brown I and affirmed, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873, holding that racial segregation of public school students deprived the minority group children of equal educational opportunities, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. See Brown I, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954). The Court again affirmed Belton v. Gebhart in Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U.S. 294, 75 S.Ct. 753, 99 L.Ed. 1083 (1955) (Brown II ), remanding to the Supreme Court of Delaware for further proceedings to require "a prompt and reasonable start toward full compliance" with Brown I and "to effectuate a transition to a racially nondiscriminatory school system ... with all deliberate speed." Brown II, 349 U.S. at 300-01, 75 S.Ct. at 756.
Yet notwithstanding the end of de jure segregation, the City of Wilmington continued to operate many racially identifiable schools. Accordingly, the district court fashioned an inter-district remedy to eliminate the vestiges of segregation and, faced with the state authorities' adamant and prolonged refusal to discharge their responsibilities, issued a remedial decree in 1978. 3 The 1978 Order required a 9-3 student assignment plan, which provided that all students would attend formerly predominantly "white" suburban school districts for a maximum of nine years and would spend at least three years in the formerly "black" school districts.
The 1978 Order also directed eight forms of ancillary relief "necessary and essential to ... overcome the vestige effects of de jure segregation," including: (1) an in-service training program for teachers; (2) an affirmative reading and communication skills program; (3) new curriculum offerings; (4) a nondiscriminatory counseling and guidance program; (5) a human relations program; (6) codes of conduct providing for nondiscriminatory discipline; (7) the reassignment of faculty and staff; and (8) nondiscriminatory guidelines for construction and maintenance of school buildings. Evans v. Buchanan, 582 F.2d 750, 770-774 (3d Cir.1978) (in banc ).
In 1981, the district court permitted the state to reorganize the judicially-created school district into the current four districts--Brandywine, Christiana, Colonial and Red Clay. Evans v. Buchanan, 512 F.Supp. 839 (D.Del.1981). In so doing, Judge Schwartz asserted that, notwithstanding the continued existence of "problems that may be characterized as vestige effects of de jure segregation, ... [the] four-district plan is viewed as a good faith effort to respond to repeated judicial invitations for appropriate State authorities to come forward with their own meaningful solutions to vexing problems." Id. at 863, 874. However, because Judge Schwartz found the "effort [to have] fallen short of the mark in the critical area of pupil assignment," he deferred for 60 days any...
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