Dowell v. School Board of Oklahoma

• Decision Date: 07 September 1965
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 9452.
• Citation: 244 F. Supp. 971
• Parties: Robert L. DOWELL, an infant, who sues by A. L. Dowell, his father and next of friend, Plaintiff, v. The SCHOOL BOARD OF OKLAHOMA CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Oklahoma

244 F. Supp. 971

Robert L. DOWELL, an infant, who sues by A. L. Dowell, his father and next of friend, Plaintiff, v. The SCHOOL BOARD OF OKLAHOMA CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS et al., Defendants.

Civ. No. 9452.

United States District Court W. D. Oklahoma.

September 7, 1965.

U. Simpson Tate, Wewoka, Okl., Jack Greenberg, Derrick A. Bell, Jr., New York City, for plaintiff.

Coleman Hayes, Oklahoma City, Okl., for defendants.

BOHANON, District Judge.

This is a class action to test the sufficiency as to law and desegregation action of the Oklahoma City Board of Education "Policy Statement Regarding Integration of the Oklahoma City Public Schools," which was filed with the Court January, 1964, in compliance with the Court's Opinion of July, 1963 (219 F. Supp. 427). With the filing of the Policy Statement, counsel for the School Board filed its Motion requesting the Court to set the Policy Statement for hearing. Thereafter a hearing was had upon the Policy Statement, and at the hearing the evidence was substantially the same as had been offered to the Court prior to the Opinion of July, 1963.

The crux of the problem before the Court is whether or not the Policy Statement is sufficient in law to comply with the Court's Opinion of July 11, 1963, in many respects, particularly insofar as it pertains to paragraph 6 and paragraph 8 thereof, and the case of Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873, and 349 U.S. 294, 75 S.Ct. 753, 99 L.Ed. 1083, and other cases of the same tenor.

Following the first hearing on the Policy Statement regarding integration of the Oklahoma City Public Schools above referred to, the Court was without sufficient evidence to approve or disapprove the Policy Statement, and for this reason requested the Oklahoma City Board of Education to employ experts who were competent, qualified, unbiased, unprejudiced, and independent of any local sentiment, to make a survey of the problem as it related to the integration of the Oklahoma City Public Schools, for the benefit of the Court as well as the Oklahoma City Board of Education and the Oklahoma City School System. The School Board rejected this request. Thereafter the Court invited the plaintiff to cause such a report to be made, and in due time the plaintiff responded favorably to the Court's suggestion, and the Court entered an Order authorizing and directing Dr. William R. Carmack, then director of the Southwest Center for Human Relations Studies, The University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma; Dr. Willard B. Spalding, Assistant Director, Coordinating Council for Higher Education for the State of California, San Francisco, California; and Dr. Earl A. McGovern, Administrative Assistant for Research and Evaluation to the Superintendent of New Rochelle Schools, New Rochelle, New York, to make such investigation, study, and report, and file the same with the Court. The report was completed and filed January, 1965. In March, 1965, plaintiff filed its motion for an order requiring the defendant School Board to submit a desegregation plan with special emphasis on school zone lines, pupil assignments, transfers, faculty integration, in-service education of faculty, and calling for the plan of integration to be put on a fixed time of performance.

Each of the three experts is, by training and experience, well qualified to accomplish the study of the Oklahoma City School System. Dr. Spalding is one of the outstanding names in education in the country, with wide experience in public school administration, including experience as Superintendent of School Systems in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Oregon. He is a former dean of the College of Education of The University of Illinois and Chairman of the Division of Education of Portland State College. He has co-authored several books on education, including "The Public Administration of American Schools," and has authored many articles in the field of education. Dr. McGovern has been involved in school administration since 1955 and has played a leading role in solving integration problems in the school system of New Rochelle, New York. Dr. Carmack, a scholar, offered his expert services and the facilities of the Human Relations Center which he established at The University of Oklahoma, for the purpose of compiling and organizing the great mass of data used by the experts in compiling the report.

In January, 1965, after the expenditure of several hundred hours of work and at least two three-day visits to Oklahoma City, the above-named experts filed with the Court their report entitled "Integration of the Public Schools of Oklahoma City." The Report analyzes statistical data on schools, pupils and faculty, reviews in great detail the present status of integration of the Oklahoma City Public Schools, finds that some progress has been made in the integration of students and faculties, but concludes that the absence of an affirmative program and the maintenance of transfer policies which enable white pupils to transfer from predominantly Negro schools to predominantly white schools has greatly hindered the disestablishment of segregation in the public school system. The Report notes that teacher desegregation has taken place on only a token basis, makes several recommendations aimed at both correcting existing policies which hinder desegregation and permitting at least a meaningful beginning toward the desegregation of the school system required by the mandate of the Brown decisions.

After careful study and evaluation of the Report admitted in evidence, hearing the testimony of the experts who prepared it, observing their demeanor, and noting their responses to questions posed by counsel for defendants, this Court concludes the Report was prepared by highly qualified individuals in an atmosphere of objective impartiality; that the statistics and data upon which the recommendations are based are substantially accurate, and that the recommended remedies for the continuing segregation of the defendant school system are reasonable, workable, and educationally sound. That the recommendations, if placed into effect by the Board with the same spirit in which they were made, will substantially increase the quality of the education for all pupils in the Oklahoma public schools, both white and Negro.

The Court hereby adopts and includes the Report by reference as a part of this Opinion, and the Appendix attached thereto.

Hearing on the Report was scheduled for April 12, 1965, but various difficulties, including the lengthy illness of one of the educational experts, delayed proceedings until August 9, 1965. At the hearing, extensive testimony was given by the three educational experts. In addition, plaintiff offered the testimony of Henry Floyd, a Negro licensed real estate broker, and Dr. Chester Pierce, a Negro psychiatrist from The University of Oklahoma School of Medicine. The School Board obtained testimony from former board member Phil C. Bennett and Superintendent of Schools Jack F. Parker.

The School Board has instituted the changes in its policy and administration required by this Court's Order of July, 1963, and has in good faith attempted to administer the school system in accordance with these changes.

The Board has adopted a special transfer policy, the provisions of which are adequately set forth in both the Integration Report and in answers to interrogatories filed by defendants. Under this transfer policy, parents of white pupils assigned to integrated or predominantly Negro schools, are able to utilize its provisions in order to obtain transfers out of such schools and into all white schools or to integrated schools where the percentage of Negro pupils is not large. In 1963-64, 86%, and in 1964-65, 90% of the approved transfers were granted to white pupils.

Certain provisions of the special transfer policy, including, but not limited to, the provision permitting transfer to make it possible for two or more members of the same family to attend the same school, the provision allowing a pupil to complete the highest grade in a school which he has been attending, and the provision permitting transfer for valid, good faith reasons, give a continuing effect to the "minority to majority" transfer rule invalidated in this Court's July, 1963, Opinion. Under the provisions set forth above, pupils who obtained transfers away from their neighborhood schools to segregated schools under the "minority to majority" transfer policy are not only permitted to remain in such schools, but also provide a basis for enabling all brothers and sisters to follow them from the schools near their residences to segregated schools.

The Board is aware of the purpose for which some white parents have sought transfers under this policy, and notes some measures taken to tighten the transfer policy and reduce the number of pupils permitted to leave their "neighborhood schools." Such measures, to date, have not been wholly successful. For example, virtually all of the 20 to 30 white pupils assigned to the predominantly Negro Lincoln Elementary School were permitted to transfer to white schools.

The special transfer policy as presently administered tends to permit transfers for reasons no different or more valid than those obtained under the now voided "minority to majority" transfer rule. Such policy tends to perpetuate a segregated system, violates the Board's asserted belief in the philosophy of the neighborhood school system and, for several economic and sociological reasons, deprives Negro pupils assigned to predominantly Negro schools who are less able to obtain such transfers, of the opportunity to obtain a desegregated education.

The Court noted in its July, 1963, Opinion that Negroes in Oklahoma City reside in certain definite areas, which areas were designated as such originally by virtue of state law and were continued through the general use of restrictive covenants. Such legal restrictions are no longer...