Flax v. Potts
| Decision Date | 19 February 1988 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 4205-E. |
| Citation | 680 F. Supp. 820 |
| Parties | Arlene FLAX, et al. v. W.S. POTTS, et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Texas |
Leon Haley, and Glenn O. Lewis, Fort Worth, Tex., for plaintiffs.
David B. Owen, Quillen, Owen & Thompson, Fort Worth, Tex., for defendants.
William L. Garrett, Dallas, Tex., for intervenors.
This Opinion concerns the viability of a limited portion of the Fort Worth Independent School District's FWISD Desegregation Plan. The portion of the Plan in issue deals with the busing of 1233 elementary school students. After the 1983 amendments to the Desegregation Plan, this is all that remains of the number of students bused for desegregation purposes.
On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court of the United States announced in Brown v. Board of Education that "in the field of public education the doctrine of separate but equal has no place."1 The Court's landmark decision did more than remove the stain of white supremacy from the nation's lawbooks and public dealings. It marked the beginning of a new era in civil rights and the end of an official caste system in this country.
Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments.... It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.2
An opportunity "to succeed in life" — not a guaranty of success, but more than a hollow concession. The linchpin of the Brown decision was the belief that laws which required or permitted a segregated school system not only isolated and humiliated black people, it kept them from moving as far as their ability, desire, and potential would allow.
On May 31, 1955, after hearing additional arguments on the relief to be accorded in the school desegregation cases, the Supreme Court in Brown II remanded the cases "to the District Courts to take such proceedings and enter such orders and decrees ... as are necessary and proper to admit the plaintiffs to public schools on a racially nondiscriminatory basis with all deliberate speed...."3
On October 1, 1959, in the aftermath of the Brown decisions, Sergeant Weirleis Flax, as next friend for his six-year-old daughter, Arlene, and Herbert Teal, as next friend of his six school age children, instituted this class action "to terminate a policy of racial segregation in the public schools within the Fort Worth Independent School District."4
On November 8, 1961, the Flax cause was tried before Judge Leo Brewster. It was his very first case. He sat without a jury; the trial lasted less than a day. In the opening pages of the transcript of this brief proceeding, the following exchange takes place between Weirleis Flax and his attorney regarding Flax's attempt to enroll his daughter in the Burton Hill Elementary School:
On March 1, 1962, Judge Brewster held that the "undisputed evidence fully supported the defendants' allegations ... about the operation of its school system under a policy of compulsory racial segregation."6 The School District, in its verified answer, had asserted:
For more than 78 years Fort Worth Public Schools have been operated under a dual system for white and colored. This pattern of procedure has become a fundamental part of the educational process in Fort Worth, and by experience, training and habit it is part of the culture of all the citizens both white and colored.7
Astonished by the Defendant's defensive theory, Judge Brewster wrote: "they defended upon the separate but equal doctrine, as if Plessy v. Ferguson were still the law."8
It was not. Judge Brewster entered a judgment "declaring that the dual racial system under which the Fort Worth schools was being operated violated the constitutional rights of the minor children named in the complaint and of the other members of their class...."9 The Defendants were ordered to submit a plan for effectuating a transition to a racially nondiscriminatory school system by the next term, and they were permanently enjoined from obstructing or interfering with the plan's implementation. Judge Brewster retained jurisdiction over the case to ensure implementation. To this day, the School Board has not been free to act without federal supervision.
Judge Brewster approved the School District's "stair-step"10 plan whereby the entire system was not desegregated at one time. During the 1963-64 school term, only the first grade in all schools and the adult education program were desegregated. During each school year after that session, the Court's desegregation order was applied "to one additional grade, proceeding from grade two to the twelfth grade, and last the kindergarten."11 Judge Brewster opined:
It is well known that there are adult extremists on both sides of the segregation issue who put their own prejudices ahead of the welfare of the school children and of the community. To desegregate kindergarten classes at the beginning, would make the small children pawns in the hands of those extremists.12
From 1963 to 1970, the School Board traveled alone in the integration process. It undertook its obligation slowly13 and largely by the voluntary implementation of a self-designed integration plan. Little judicial intervention was sought.
In 1970, however, a dispute arose over the construction of a high school in the Morningside area of Fort Worth. In addition to objecting to the construction of a new high school in a predominantly black area, the Plaintiffs moved the District Court for further relief, alleging that the 1963 desegregation plan had failed to eliminate the dual school system. Judge Brewster denied the motion.14 He held that the school district had "been operated as a bona fide unitary system, devoid of racial discrimination as to students, faculty, administrative staff and personnel ..."15 and that the "just people" of Morningside were entitled to their school.16
The Court of Appeals disagreed. The case was remanded with directions that the School Board implement a "student assignment plan and a faculty assignment plan that complies with the principles established in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education...."17 The School District was enjoined from constructing Morningside High School. In accordance with the Fifth Circuit's mandate, the School District submitted a desegregation plan on July 30, 1971 to the District Court. Judge Brewster approved the plan, but again the Plaintiffs objected, arguing on appeal that the plan fell short of full compliance with Swann.
Again, although this time with some hesitation, the Court of Appeals agreed.18 It held:
While the plan is effective in achieving a substantial amount of integration in the Fort Worth Independent School District, it falls short of meeting the mandate of Swann that all vestiges of state-imposed segregation be eliminated from the public schools. This is because of the existence in the school system, during both the 1970-71 and 1971-72 school years, of 16 unjustified virtually all-black, one-race schools, relegating almost 12,000 of the approximately 21,000 black public school students in Fort Worth to a constitutionally proscribed segregated education.19
Again, the case was remanded with directions that the desegregation plan be modified.20
In accordance with the Fifth Circuit's directive, on August 23, 1973, a modified and comprehensive plan was entered and approved by the District Court. The modified Plan was amended to include the all-black schools in the clustering. Busing was increased, and affirmative desegregation devices such as majority-to-minority transfers were instituted. The faculty assignments in each school were required to reflect the ratio of white to black teachers in the School District as a whole; only a 12% variance of this ratio requirement would be tolerated in any school. The School District was ordered to submit biannual reports containing detailed racial data for each school.
From 1973 to 1983, additional modifications and revisions were made to the desegregation plan.21 The faculty assignment ratio was modified to allow only a 10% variance. Magnet schools were implemented as a desegregation tool. The Mexican-Americans, who Judge Brewster permitted to intervene in this suit in 1971, were recognized as a separate ethnic minority. They entered into an affirmative action agreement with the School District to protect and to further the special needs of the Mexican-Americans.
In 1983, the parties presented a Joint Motion to the Court seeking approval of numerous amendments...
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Flax v. Potts, 89-7006
...resolved the busing issue, the district court indicated that it intended to reexamine the entire desegregation plan. See Flax v. Potts, 680 F.Supp. 820 (N.D.Tex.1988), aff'd, 864 F.2d 1157 (5th Cir.1989). To that end, the court sua sponte entered an order on March 2, 1988, designating a per......
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Flax v. Potts, 88-1188
...District's (FWISD) Desegregation Plan by terminating the remaining busing of some 1233 elementary students for desegregation purposes. 680 F.Supp. 820. We affirm the district court's decision, finding no abuse of discretion by the district judge in deciding modification was I. Facts and Pri......
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Flax v. Potts
...Flax v. Potts, 864 F.2d 1157 (5th Cir.1989) (affirming order discontinuing limited busing for desegregation purposes); Flax v. Potts, 680 F.Supp. 820 (N.D.Tex. 1988) (opinion and order ending desegregation busing); Flax v. Potts, 567 F.Supp. 859 (N.D.Tex.1983) (opinion and order approving 1......