Soria v. Oxnard School District Board of Trustees, 71-2929.

Decision Date27 November 1973
Docket NumberNo. 71-2929.,71-2929.
Citation488 F.2d 579
PartiesDebbie and Doreen SORIA et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. OXNARD SCHOOL DISTRICT BOARD OF TRUSTEES, Defendant-Appellant.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Edwin M. Osborne, Ronald W. Sabo (argued), County Counsel, William A. Waters, Asst. County Counsel, Ventura, Cal., for defendant-appellant.

Thomas E. Malley, Camarillo, Cal., John A. Childers (Legal Aid Assoc.), Oxnard, Cal., Peter D. Roos, Joel I. Edelman (Western Center on Law & Poverty), Los Angeles, Cal., for plaintiffs-appellees.

David L. Norman, Asst. Atty. Gen., U.S. Dept. of Justice, Washington D.C., for intervenor U.S.A.

Before CHOY and GOODWIN, Circuit Judges, and McNICHOLS,* District Judge.

CHOY, Circuit Judge:

Debbie and Doreen Soria and other elementary school students in the Oxnard School District (the Students) brought this class action for declaratory and injunctive relief in the district court for themselves and all other similarly situated minority (Hispano/Negro) students. They alleged that the Oxnard School District Board of Trustees (the School Board/the Board) by certain acts and omissions had "consistently maintained and perpetrated a systematic scheme of racial segregation by capitalizing on a clear pattern of de facto racial segregation in Oxnard ...." Further, they charged that the Board had deprived them of equal educational opportunities in violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and by reason of this destructive pattern of racial segregation had also deprived them of liberty in violation of that amendment's due process clause. The Board denied the allegations of unconstitutional segregation and inequality, and asserted it had acted at all times in good faith without discriminating between racial and ethnic groups.

After a substantial volume of facts was obtained through discovery devices, the Students moved for summary judgment. Finding no material question of fact in dispute, the district court, 328 F.Supp. 155, granted summary judgment in favor of the Students and ordered the implementation of a desegregation plan for the district's elementary schools. The School Board appeals. We vacate and remand for further proceedings.

Since at least 1964, the Board has maintained neighborhood schools pursuant to its policy declaration that: "The Oxnard School District shall establish and maintain neighborhood schools so far as it is practical to do so." The Students do not claim that the attendance zones for these neighborhood schools have been intentionally gerrymandered by the School Board upon racial or ethnic considerations. Nor has the state of California or the city of Oxnard ever maintained a "dual school system" wherein students have been assigned to schools on account of race or ethnic background. Indeed, since 1963 California law has required that school boards alleviate racial imbalance in the state's schools, as far as reasonably feasible, regardless of the cause for the imbalance. Jackson v. Pasadena City School District, 59 Cal.2d 876, 31 Cal.Rptr. 606, 382 P.2d 878 (1963). Nevertheless, the facts adduced in the district court reveal the existence of a pattern of racial and ethnic disproportion within Oxnard's elementary schools under the neighborhood school policy of the Board.

The Oxnard School District is relatively small, consisting of twelve elementary schools and two junior high schools with the greatest distance between any two schools being approximately four miles. The two junior high schools are conceded to be racially and ethnically integrated and are thus not a part of this action. The elementary school geographic attendance zones are demo graphically grouped into three definable areas of the city. The Colonia in the eastern part of the city is primarily Hispano/Negro; the Northwest which is populated almost exclusively by Anglos; and the Southcentral where the racial and ethnic population is more evenly mixed.

The percentage breakdown of the district's 7,483 elementary school students by racial and ethnic origin is 55% Hispano/Negro, 43% Anglo and 2% other. Prior to November, 1970 when the School Board instituted a busing plan permitting certain students to attend schools other than those assigned to their neighborhood, ten of the district's twelve elementary schools were racially and ethnically imbalanced.1

From the facts presented to the district court through discovery by answers to interrogatories, affidavits, and admissions of the School Board, the Students submitted seventy-four proposed findings of fact as required by a local rule of court.2 Except as to certain proposed findings deemed by it to be either conclusionary or overly subjective, the Board stipulated to every finding of fact proposed by the Students. These proposed findings of fact reveal certain actions of the School Board since 1961 with regard to the location of new school sites, use of temporary mobile classrooms, adoption of integration plans, student busing plans, and the placement as well as teaching experience of the school staffs.

(1) New school sites — Between 1964 and 1966 the Board opened three new schools. Marina West opened in 1964, was built in the western extremity of the district and subsequently had a student enrollment which was 72% Anglo. In 1965 a new school was opened at the Rose Avenue site in the eastern section of the Colonia and thereafter had a student population which was 19% Anglo. Finally, the new Sierra Linda School was completed and opened for use in 1966. This school was located in the Northwest section of the city and had a student enrollment of whom 75% were Anglo.

The Board refused to agree to a proposed finding of fact that "the imposition of a neighborhood school plan on a racially segregated residential pattern had the foreseeable result of causing racially imbalanced attendance areas and therefore, such actions cast de jure overtones." The Board claimed that new schools were constructed only in overcrowded neighborhoods requiring new facilities and that, in all cases, attendance zone lines for the new schools were drawn with regard to natural boundaries such as major streets and highways.

(2) Temporary classroom units — Since 1961 the Board has authorized the addition of temporary, mobile classrooms known as "portables" to certain schools. Portables were used first at the Colonia schools but were later added to schools in the Northwest and Southcentral regions. The Students contend that the School Board has "consistently placed portables in such a way as to keep Anglos in Anglo schools and Hispano/Negroes in minority schools." The Board, however, refused to concede this to be true and asserted that portables were placed only where required because of overcrowded conditions.

(3) Integration proposals — The Board failed to adopt any of several integration plans suggested by various public as well as private groups and individuals. These include recommendations in 1963 by the N.A.A.C.P. that several oppositely imbalanced schools be paired, thereby reducing the disproportion of Anglos and Hispano/Negroes in each of the combined schools, and that certain boundary adjustments be made in the district. That same year the superintendent of the district suggested that "jig-sawed" boundary lines be drawn for the school attendance zones. In 1968 the Bureau of Intergroup Relations of the California Department of Education proposed changing certain boundaries, moving portables from Rose Avenue to majority inbalanced schools in the district, transporting pupils from the Colonia to other schools and pairing various schools. A so-called "Princeton Plan" was presented to the School Board in February, 1969, as well as a plan which again recommended pairing certain schools and moving portables from the Colonia. Similar suggestions were received in November, 1969, and as a part of its Master Plan for the district, the Board resolved the following month to "move portables from Colonia sites to reduce crowding, and to facilitate classroom space in the north and west of town for integration use." In February, 1970 a further resolution to relocate fourteen portable classrooms was adopted, and in April of that year specific schools outside the Colonia were scheduled to be the sites for these additional portables. However, in June the Board decided to postpone bids for the relocation and effectively rescinded the earlier resolutions.

The School Board rejected a proposed finding of fact that its failure to relocate portable classrooms to alleviate racial imbalance was "with knowledge of its results and cast overtones of de jure segregation." The Board argued instead that its failure over the years to adopt various plans is not culpable since it was under no duty to affirmatively achieve more racial balance in the school district.

(4) Student bus transportation — Beginning in February, 1964 the School Board implemented an "open enrollment" plan for the purpose of alleviating "de facto" segregation in the district. This plan proved minimally effective. By October, 1965 only forty-seven students (there is no indication what percentage were Anglo or Hispano/Negro) were attending schools in neighborhoods other than their own. The School Board revised its policy in 1970 when it authorized student busing in either of two situations. Where enrollment in certain grade levels at a school were overcrowded, students were to be transported to less crowded schools on a "last-enrolled — first-bused" basis. And as underenrollment in a school provided available space, students from throughout the district could choose to enroll in those schools.3

The Board refused to admit a proposed finding that its busing policy "aggravated the already existing segregated pattern ... Nevertheless the Board continued it, allowing Anglo students to escape the Colonia; the Board did this with full knowledge of the segregative effect of its policy...

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