Lorain NAACP v. Lorain Bd. of Educ., s. 91-3666

• Decision Date: 05 January 1993
• Docket Number: Nos. 91-3666,91-3667,s. 91-3666
• Citation: 979 F.2d 1141
• Parties: 79 Ed. Law Rep. 41 LORAIN NAACP, et al., Plaintiffs, v. LORAIN BOARD OF EDUCATION, Defendant-Appellee, Cross-Appellant, Ohio Department of Education, Defendant-Appellant, Cross-Appellee, Coalition for Hispanic Issues and Progress, Intervenor-Appellee, Leo Svete, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 1141

979 F.2d 1141

79 Ed. Law Rep. 41

LORAIN NAACP, et al., Plaintiffs, v. LORAIN BOARD OF EDUCATION, Defendant-Appellee, Cross-Appellant, Ohio Department of Education, Defendant-Appellant, Cross-Appellee, Coalition for Hispanic Issues and Progress, Intervenor-Appellee, Leo Svete, Defendant.

Nos. 91-3666, 91-3667.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued Feb. 21, 1992.

Decided Nov. 12, 1992.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc

Denied Jan. 5, 1993.

Thomas I. Atkins, Brooklyn, N.Y., for plaintiff Lorain NAACP, et al.

Anthony B. Giardini (argued and briefed), Lorain, Ohio, for defendant-appellee, cross-appellant Lorain Bd. of Educ.

Rita S. Eppler (argued and briefed), Samuel N. Lillard, Office of Atty. Gen., Lauren M. Ross, Columbus, Ohio, for defendant-appellant, cross-appellee Ohio Dept. of Educ.

Jose C. Feliciano, Sr., Loretta H. Garrison (argued and briefed), Baker & Hostetler, Cleveland, Ohio, for intervenor-appellee Coalition for Hispanic Issues and Progress.

Before: RYAN and SUHRHEINRICH, Circuit Judges, and CHURCHILL, Senior District Judge. ^*

RYAN, Circuit Judge.

This case is an appeal from a judgment modifying a 1984 school integration consent decree. The modification, among other things, substantially increased the financial obligations of the Ohio Department of Education, a voluntary participant in the original school desegregation plan. In a Memorandum Opinion and Judgment, entered June 21, 1991, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio eliminated an express $1 million limitation on the liability of the State of Ohio Department of Education contained in the desegregation consent decree and ordered the State to contribute an estimated $9 million to its co-defendant, the Lorain Board of Education, to assist in the voluntary desegregation of the Lorain public school system. See Lorain NAACP v. Lorain Bd. of Educ., 768 F.Supp. 1224 (N.D.Ohio 1991). We are asked to decide whether the district court acted within its discretion in increasing the State's financial obligations under the decree beyond the scope of its consent and in the absence of an adjudication or admission of wrongdoing. We think the court exceeded its authority in modifying the consent decree as it did, and we shall, therefore, reverse.

I.

In 1979, the Lorain, Ohio branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and a number of black and Hispanic students and parents of students in the public schools in the Lorain City School District instituted this desegregation action. In their complaint, plaintiffs alleged that defendants--Lorain Board of Education and its individual members, the Ohio State Board of Education and its individual members, and the state and local public school superintendents--"ha[d] effected racial segregation and discrimination in the operation of the Lorain public schools" by the closing of certain school facilities, the assignment of students, and the hiring and assignment of teachers and administrators.

Prior to an adjudication on the merits of plaintiffs' complaint, the parties settled all claims. In a consent decree entered into by the parties and approved by the district court in 1984, the parties "waived the need [for the district court] to make findings of fact and conclusions of law on all issues raised in the complaint, except the issue regarding plaintiffs' right to and the amount of attorney fees incurred in prosecution of this action." Certain affirmative duties were assigned to defendants by the terms of the decree, but all parties agreed that "nothing in this Consent Decree shall be construed as an admission by any of the defendants of any violation of any provision of the Constitutions of the United States or the State of Ohio."

Under the terms of the consent decree, responsibility for designing and implementing a desegregation plan fell upon the Lorain Board of Education. Its first duty was to "immediately ... begin to develop a plan by which the objectives outlined in the Goal Statement will be achieved...." These objectives included eliminating racially identifiable schools and establishing in each school a composite minority student ratio of no more than a plus 20% or minus 15% deviation from the average racial composition in the school district; retaining an independent contractor to evaluate Lorain's bilingual programs, eliminating shortcomings discovered in the evaluation process, and adequately maintaining bilingual programs for Hispanic students in compliance with state and federal law; providing for student transfers from their assigned school to other schools unless the transfer adversely affected racial composition in the schools and equitably allocating the burdens of school assignments and closings between non-white and white students and between various neighborhoods; and establishing minority employment in the district at levels equal to the racial composition of the adult population of Lorain by increasing minority hirings of both certified and uncertified personnel.

The State of Ohio's only obligations under the consent decree consisted of specified financial contributions to Lorain. The consent decree states:

The State of Ohio will pay to the Lorain City School District 50 percent of the expenses incurred by the Lorain City School District in designing, implementing, administering and maintaining educationally sound programs reasonably expected to reduce racial isolation to the standards defined in the Goal Statement. The State of Ohio will pay 50 percent of the unreimbursed expenses attributed to the transportation of students who are being transported for the reduction of racial isolation. "Unreimbursed expenses" shall mean the portion of this expense which remains after deducting the state transportation reimbursement applicable to students involved in such transportation.

The total of the expenses referred to above shall be limited to those incurred during the seven school years 1984-85 through 1990-91, and the State of Ohio payments shall not exceed $1 million during the seven year term, or 50 percent of the actual reduction of racial isolation costs, whichever is less.

Beginning in December 1984, payments made by the State shall be made semi-annually in the months of December and June upon submission of vouchers covering costs actually incurred by the Lorain City School District. Such payments shall be in addition to all other state and federal funds to which the Lorain City School District may be entitled under law and regulations existing at the time of the submission of the vouchers.

The parties agree that the Lorain City School District shall retain an independent contractor to evaluate the bilingual programs currently in effect to determine program effectiveness. The cost of such evaluation shall be considered part of the cost of implementation of the Consent Decree and up to 50 percent of the cost shall be reimbursed by the State of Ohio....

Initially, the parties were unable to reach an agreement on a single plan to achieve the objectives of the consent decree, particularly the means by which to achieve school building and classroom racial composition goals. The Board proposed a magnet school program involving the voluntary transfer of students within the district, while plaintiffs preferred a system of involuntary student reassignments. The district court held hearings on this dispute and other matters of concern in March 1985. Eventually, the district court approved the implementation of the magnet program proposed by the Board, beginning in the 1985-86 school year, but conditioned continuation of the program on achievement of the targeted racial composition ratios established by the decree. The district court also approved the Board's proposals to evaluate Lorain's bilingual program and established monitoring procedures for the attainment of minority hiring goals.

A.

A brief description of the scope and cost of the principal features of the desegregation plan may be helpful to an understanding of the context in which the district court was asked to modify the consent decree.

At the time the parties entered into the consent decree, six schools were out of compliance with the racial composition goals established by the parties, and the parties estimated that approximately 650 students would have to be moved to meet the goals of the decree. It was later determined that it was necessary to move 1200 students in order to reach and maintain desegregation goals. By 1990, seventeen of Lorain's twenty-one schools, and approximately 3500 of its 12,300 students, were involved in the magnet program, even though the district court found that only 1300-1350 were necessary to meet the goals established in the consent decree. Lorain has employed over 100 additional teachers, administrators, and clerical staff, including a desegregation specialist, to implement and maintain its magnet school program even though the student population remained relatively constant at 12,000. Student racial balance within the goals established by the consent decree has been successfully achieved and maintained in Lorain under the magnet school program.

Although some bilingual education was already available at the time of the decree, the decree-required independent evaluation of these programs led to Lorain's development of a core bilingual program to meet the needs of English language deficient students. Four school buildings in Lorain are used to house different aspects of the bilingual program, each focusing on students with varying levels of English-language skills. In the 1986-87 school year, Lorain reopened the Palm Academy building for instruction of younger students lacking any English-speaking skills and for those needing primary instruction in Spanish while acquiring fluency in English. Because the curriculum at the Palm Academy was focused on bilingual education and thus drew a high concentration of...