Meyers v. Bd. of Educ. of San Juan, 93-C-1080J.
| Citation | 905 F. Supp. 1544 |
| Decision Date | 07 April 1995 |
| Docket Number | No. 93-C-1080J.,93-C-1080J. |
| Parties | Lynette MEYERS, By and Through her natural mother and general guardian Lena MEYERS, Lena Meyers; Melvin Holgate and Eugene Holgate, by and through their natural father, Jamie R. Holgate; Leonardo Bob Manheimer, by and through his natural parents, Leo Manheimer and Sara Manheimer; Lenora Manheimer; Rosita Johnson, by and through her natural father, Robert Johnson; and The Navajo Nation, Plaintiffs, v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF the SAN JUAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, Preston Nielson, Bill Todachennie, Neal Crank, Paul Mantz, Pete Black, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Utah |
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Eric P. Swenson, Monticello, Utah, and Sarah A. Krakoff, DNA-People's Legal Services, Inc., Tuba City, Arizona, for individual plaintiffs.
Herbert Yazzie and Steven C. Boos, Navajo Nation Department of Justice, Window Rock, Arizona, for plaintiff Navajo Nation.
Scott M. Matheson, Jr., U.S. Attorney, Joseph W. Anderson, Asst. U.S. Atty., Salt Lake City, Utah, and Lawrence R. Baca, U.S. Dep't of Justice, Washington, D.C., for plaintiff-intervenor United States of America.
Brinton R. Burbidge, Von G. Keetch, Randy T. Austin, Kirton & McConkie, Salt Lake City, Utah, for defendants.
Jan Graham, Attorney General, William T. Evand and John S. McAllister, Assistant Attorneys General, Salt Lake City, Utah, for Utah State Board of Education and State Superintendent of Public Instruction.
This action involves the right of Native Americans living on a remote part of the Navajo Indian Reservation to a free public education. The parties do not dispute that the plaintiffs are entitled to such an education. They only dispute who is responsible for providing it. For the reasons stated below, the court concludes that each of the governmental entities involved in this case has an obligation to see that the plaintiffs receive appropriate educational opportunities.
The Navajo Mountain area of the Navajo reservation is located in extreme southern Utah, within the boundaries of San Juan County. It is bordered by Lake Powell on the north, by 10,388-foot Navajo Mountain on the west, by the impassable Paiute mesa on the east and by Arizona on the south. It is one of the most remote and inaccessible areas of the Navajo reservation and perhaps of the United States.1 About two-thirds to three-quarters of the 1,700 Navajo Mountain residents live on the Utah side of the border; the rest live in Arizona.
The individual plaintiffs are apparently all Navajos who reside at Navajo Mountain. See Memorandum in Support of Joint Plaintiffs' Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (dkt. no. 72) hereinafter Plaintiffs' Memo. at 3, ? 2.2 They are school-age children and their parents or guardians. The Navajo Nation is also a party plaintiff. The plaintiffs brought this action against the Board of Education of the San Juan School District (the "Board") and its members to compel the San Juan School District (the "District") to provide secondary school facilities and services at Navajo Mountain and to improve the quality of elementary education at Navajo Mountain.
Although Navajo Mountain is technically within Utah, the only vehicular access to the Navajo Mountain area is from the Arizona side, by a graded dirt road. It is a 200-mile trip from District headquarters in Monticello, Utah, to Navajo Mountain. As the proverbial crow flies, Navajo Mountain is only about 45 miles from the District's nearest high school, at Monument Valley, and only about 60 miles from the District's nearest elementary school, at Mexican Hat, but because of the topography and lack of roads, one has to drive more than 120 miles from Navajo Mountain to reach the nearest District facilities.
This is not the first time this court has considered the question of the Board's alleged obligation to educate Native Americans in the District. In 1974, Native American students residing in San Juan County brought an action against District, county and state officials alleging that they had "pursued a longstanding pattern of deep-rooted racial discrimination" resulting in "unequal educational opportunities for Native American children attending the San Juan public schools." See Complaint for Injunctive and Declaratory Relief (Civil Rights), Sinajini v. Board of Educ., No. C-74-346 (D.Utah), at 2, ? 1. (A copy of the Sinajini complaint is included as exhibit E to Defendants' Exhibits in Support of Motion for Summary Judgment (dkt. no. 61) hereinafter Defendants' Exhibits.) The parties to that case entered into a consent decree requiring the District to construct secondary facilities in the Oljato-Monument Valley-Mexican Hat area and in the Montezuma Creek-Aneth-Red Mesa area and to "use its best efforts to provide an education program ... at each of the new schools which is of substantially as high quality as the existing secondary programs in the District." Agreement of Parties, Sinajini v. Board of Educ., No. C-74-346, at 10, ? 17. (A copy of the consent decree is included as exhibit F to Defendants' Exhibits.)3 The parties' agreement also required school officials to "consult with the school community group and with parents in the Navajo Mountain area to determine whether the residents of that area wish an elementary school in that area." Agreement of Parties, Sinajini v. Board of Educ., No. C-74-346, at 14-15, ? 30. If the Navajo Mountain residents wanted an elementary school, then the District was required to establish one "at the earliest practicable date" unless "full elementary facilities serving at least grades kindergarten through six are established in that area by the Bureau of Indian Affairs BIA." Id. at 15, ? 30.
The District determined that the Navajo Mountain residents wanted an elementary school in their area but preferred a BIA boarding school to a District facility, so rather than constructing an elementary school itself, the District supported the residents' efforts to obtain a BIA facility at Navajo Mountain. See Defendants' Exhibits ex. G. Completed in 1983, the BIA school at Navajo Mountain now provides a free public education to students in grades K through 8. The school has about 115 students (well below its capacity of 200), some of whom board at the school. See id. exs. B, K & Q. However, there is no school at Navajo Mountain for students in grades 9 through 12. Secondary-school-age children at Navajo Mountain, of whom there are between about 40 and 66 on the Utah side,4 must attend distant BIA boarding schools, reside in BIA dormitories near public schools or live with friends or relatives near public schools outside of Navajo Mountain. The District does not provide any educational services at Navajo Mountain.
The plaintiffs brought this action to compel the District to provide educational facilities and services at Navajo Mountain. The plaintiffs' first claim for relief alleges that, by failing to provide educational services at Navajo Mountain, the defendants have deliberately discriminated against the plaintiffs and members of their class based on race. The plaintiffs further claim that this discrimination violates the equal protection guarantees of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. ? 2000d, and its implementing regulations, 34 C.F.R. ?? 100.1 et seq., which prohibit racial discrimination in the operation of federally funded programs, as well as the injunction and consent decree in Sinajini. See Complaint for Injunctive and Declaratory Relief (Civil Rights) (dkt. no. 1) hereinafter Complaint, at 11-12, ? 25. The plaintiffs' second claim alleges that the defendants have violated federal laws governing the use and expenditure of federal funds, including so-called chapter I funds, Johnson-O'Malley funds and Public Law 874 or federal impact funds. See id. at 12-13, ? 28.
The individual plaintiffs filed a motion to certify a class of plaintiffs consisting of all current and prospective Native American school-age children in the Navajo Mountain area, their parents and guardians, all adult students eligible for a free public education and all members of the Navajo tribe affected by the defendants' actions. See Motion for Class Certification (dkt. no. 48).
All the plaintiffs filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to enjoin the Board from refusing to provide Native American children at Navajo Mountain with an adequate secondary education and related school facilities and ordering the Board to submit a plan for providing a secondary education to each Native American of high-school age at Navajo Mountain comparable to that found in other schools in the District. See Joint Plaintiffs' Motion for a Preliminary Injunction (dkt. no. 46).
The defendants moved for summary judgment (dkt. no. 60), claiming that they had no duty to provide any educational services to Native American students residing at Navajo Mountain, and the plaintiffs filed a cross-motion for partial summary judgment on the issue of liability (dkt. no. 71). The United States filed a memorandum supporting and essentially tracking the plaintiffs' memoranda in support of their motion for partial summary judgment, and the Utah State Board of Education (the "State Board") filed a memorandum as amicus curiae setting forth its position.5
While the defendants' motion for summary judgment was pending, the parties stipulated to entry of an order providing that the District, with the aid of the State Board, would help secondary school students at Navajo Mountain and their parents with the increased expenses associated with living away from home while the students attend secondary schools in other areas (except for secondary schools operated...
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