Gomperts v. Chase
| Decision Date | 19 July 1971 |
| Docket Number | No. C-71 1307.,C-71 1307. |
| Citation | 329 F. Supp. 1192 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of California |
| Parties | Robert GOMPERTS et al., Plaintiffs, v. Charles E. CHASE et al., Defendants. |
Sidney L. Berlin, Fred R. Brinkop, James Madison, Phrasel Shelton & Associates, Redwood City, Cal., for plaintiffs.
Francis J. Stillman, Dennis Hession, Hession, Creedon, Hamlin, Kelly, Hanson & Farbstein, San Mateo, Cal., for defendants.
Plaintiffs, representing classes of students, residents, taxpayers, parents and others concerned, have brought this action under Section 1983 of Title 42 U.S. C. for the avowed purpose of remedying the deprivation of rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and Title Six of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
It is their basic complaint that Sequoia Union High School District of San Mateo County, which operates six high schools, has maintained and is maintaining a system segregated by race, and that the segregation is the product of affirmative actions pursuant to a conscious plan to create and maintain the segregated system.
In the immediate proceeding, plaintiffs seek by preliminary injunction to set aside recent action of the school board modifying a plan adjusting racial imbalance earlier adopted by the board. Entitlement to such relief requires a showing that plaintiffs are likely to prevail on the ultimate trial on the merits, and that the relief is necessary to prevent damage to plaintiffs.
The application for a preliminary injunction has been heard upon affidavits. The basic facts are not seriously in dispute. The schools of the district are clearly racially imbalanced. In October, 1970, Ravenswood High School was 94% black, while four schools had less than 10% black. A higher percentage of minority teachers has been assigned to Ravenswood than to schools with lower percentages of blacks. The four schools with the smallest black enrollment are being operated somewhat above planned capacity while Ravenswood is below its capacity. Test scores of students assigned to Ravenswood are lower than those of students attending the predominantly white schools in the district.
The school district has, for many years, recognized the racial imbalance. There has been, for several years, a variety of efforts made toward correcting the balance.
Ravenswood High School was only 21% black at the time it was built in 1958. While it is now 94% black, the increased black population of the school has been the product of the racial mix of new residents of the area rather than of any activity by the school board. Quite to the contrary, in the spring of 1963 the school board redrew attendance zones to incorporate into the Ravenswood attendance zone neighborhoods with a high proportion of white residents.
To upgrade the quality of education at Ravenswood High School the board exempted Ravenswood from the districtwide ratios for staff, equipment and supplies, thus providing smaller classroom sizes and more equipment and supplies per pupil at Ravenswood than was available throughout the balance of the district.
Efforts have been made to secure voter approval of bond issues to construct new schools but these efforts have failed.
Over the years the board has permitted a variety of transfers from one attendance district to another in an effort to alleviate the concentration of blacks at Ravenswood; in 1969-70 it encouraged a voluntary plan; and in 1969 it pledged itself to take such steps as are required to improve the educational opportunities for all students at Ravenswood High School.
In June of 1970 a plan was adopted with substantially the following features: a) effective September 7, 1971, minority enrollment at each of the district schools was not to exceed twenty-five percent; the certified staff at each school was to consist of not less than five percent nor more than twenty-five percent minority personnel; and no school plant was to be utilized at more than ten percent in excess of capacity; b) white students were to be encouraged to transfer voluntarily to Ravenswood and Menlo-Atherton, the schools with the highest minority enrollment; the black students were to be encouraged to transfer voluntarily from Ravenswood to other schools in the district; if voluntary transfers did not accomplish compliance with the twenty-five percent guideline students were to be selected on a random basis for mandatory transfer from one school to another; c) certified personnel were also to be encouraged to transfer voluntarily, or were to be involuntarily assigned if voluntary transfers failed to produce compliance with the proposed guidelines.
Between June of 1970 and July of 1971 the composition of the school board changed by virtue of an intervening election. The newly constituted board modified the June 1970 plan by providing that the percentage requirements of the former plan were to be deemed guidelines, that the voluntary transfer option was to be extended, that the ten percent ceiling on overcrowding be eliminated, and that the mandatory transfer aspects of the June 1970 plan be suspended for the school year 1971-72 to permit the board to consider viable alternatives to mandatory transfer.
In July of 1971 the board reaffirmed the previously announced program to establish at Ravenswood "an administration and faculty committed to creating excellence in education through the development of special programs and better teaching techniques" and to establish other programs to create what was termed a "New School."
The modification of the June 1970 plan approved in July of 1971 in effect requires the board to follow and implement the June 1970 plan, except as modified.
If the plan, as modified, is carried out, the black population of Ravenswood will initially be reduced from 94% to about 45%.
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People ex rel. Lynch v. San Diego Unified School Dist.
...92 Cal.Rptr. 309, 479 P.2d 669; see also United States v. Jefferson County Board of Education, Supra, 372 F.2d 836, 873, 876; Gomperts v. Chase, 329 F.Supp. 1192, U.S.Dist. Ct., No.Dist. of Under the corollary to this rule, however, extant de facto segregation intentionally maintained and p......
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Lau v. Nichols
...with de facto, discrimination violate the constitutional command.6 Other cases have followed the same rationale, Gomperts v. Chase, 329 F.Supp. 1192, 1195 (N.D.Cal.1971), application for injunction pending filing of petition for writ of certiorari denied, 404 U.S. 1237, 92 S.Ct. 16, 30 L.Ed......
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Stanton v. Sequoia Union High School Dist.
...of the 1970 plan imposing mandatory racial balance, suit was brought against the district in this court. See Gomperts v. Chase, 329 F.Supp. 1193 (N.D.Cal.1971). The allegation was that the rescission of the mandatory features of the desegregation plan amounted to de jure segregationist acti......
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...in Sequoia Union High School District see Stanton v. Sequoia Union High School Dist. (N.D.Cal.1976) 408 F.Supp. 502, Gomperts v. Chase (N.D.Cal.1971) 329 F.Supp. 1192, and Gomperts v. Chase (1971) 404 U.S. 1237, 92 S.Ct. 16, 30 L.Ed.2d 30, Douglas, J., denying injunction.9 These articles pr......