Tasby v. Estes

Decision Date07 April 1976
Docket NumberNo. CA 3-4211-C.,CA 3-4211-C.
PartiesEddie Mitchell TASBY et al. v. Dr. Nolan ESTES, General Superintendent, Dallas Independent School District, et al. and Donald E. Curry et al., Intervenors.
CourtU.S. District Court — Northern District of Texas

Edward B. Cloutman, III, Mullinax, Wells, Mauzy & Baab, Inc., Sylvia Demarest, Director Dallas Legal Services Foundation, Inc., Dallas, Tex., Melvyn Leventhal, New York City, Vilma S. Martinez, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., San Francisco, Cal., and Albert H. Kauffman, San Antonio, Tex., for plaintiffs.

Warren Whitham, Spafford, Gay & Whitham, and Mark Martin, Strasburger, Price, Kelton, Martin & Unis, Dallas, Tex., for defendants.

Robert H. Mow, Jr., and Robert L. Blumenthal, Carrington, Coleman, Sloman, Johnson & Blumenthal, Dallas, Tex., for Donald E. Curry et al.

James G. Vetter, Jr., Elliott, Meer, Vetter, Denton, Bates & Cole, Dallas, Tex., for Oak Cliff Citizens.

N. Alex Bickley, City Atty., Dallas, Tex., for City of Dallas.

James T. Maxwell, pro se.

Martin Frost, Barber & Frost, and John W. Bryant, Dallas, Tex., for Dr. E. Thomas Strom, et al.

E. Brice Cunningham, L. A. Bedford, Jr., and Fred Finch, Jr., Dallas, Tex., for Metropolitan Branches of NAACP.

James A. Donohoe & G. Duffield Smith, Jr., Gardere, Porter & DeHay, Dallas, Tex., for Brinegar et al.

OPINION AND ORDER

WILLIAM M. TAYLOR, Jr., Chief Judge.

The task presented to this Court is to adopt and implement a desegregation plan for the Dallas Independent School District (DISD) which will finally conclude the tortured history of this litigation and which will establish a unitary, nonracial system of public education in the DISD, as required by Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954). This cause is here on remand from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals' decision of July 23, 1975,1 which affirmed in part and reversed in part this Court's 1971 desegregation order. The Fifth Circuit has instructed this Court to formulate a student assignment plan which will remedy the dual nature of the DISD found to exist in 1971.

I. The Parties

The cast of legal characters in this desegregation drama has changed since 1971, with the addition of new intervenors and the departure of intervenors previously in the case. The present actors still include the plaintiffs, representing a class of black and Mexican-American students in the DISD; the defendant DISD; the Curry intervenors, representing a group of North Dallas students; the intervenor James T. Maxwell, representing himself; and the City of Dallas.2 Additionally, the Metropolitan Branches of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) were granted leave to intervene on August 25, 1975; the Strom intervenors, representing a class of persons living in naturally integrated areas of Western Oak Cliff and Pleasant Grove, were granted leave to intervene on August 25, 1975; and the Brinegar intervenors, representing a class of persons living in the naturally integrated area of East Dallas, were given leave to intervene on September 17, 1975.

On September 16 the Court challenged the business leaders of Dallas to become involved and further pointed out that everyone in the district had a job to do — that it was not a job for the Court alone. The business leaders have responded to the challenge and have shown their sincere interest. Many churches, their leaders, and many organizations have expressed significant interest and offered to assist the Court. Additionally, a group of citizens formed a committee composed of six blacks, seven Mexican-Americans, one American Indian and seven Anglos. This group became an affiliate of the Dallas Alliance and became known as the Educational Task Force of the Dallas Alliance. The Dallas Alliance is a community service organization designed to act on and aid in the solution of urgent issues of the community. It consists of a forty member Board of Trustees, and seventy-seven correspondent organizations in the Dallas area.

This Task Force met for a period of four months and spent approximately 1500 hours together in devising concepts and principles for a desegregation plan for a DISD. They sent various members of their group to cities around the country to discover all possible tools for desegregation, and met with or talked with thirty leading figures in the desegregation field. Finally, on February 17, 1976, the Alliance group filed their plan for the DISD with the Court. The Court granted them the status of Amicus Curiae for the purpose of presenting their ideas and plan to the Court, and heard evidence from Dr. Paul Geisel regarding the plan.

The Court has before it several student assignment plans, offered to remedy the dual nature of the DISD. The School Board, being charged with the responsibility of devising an acceptable plan,3 filed its plan on the 10th of September, 1975. The NAACP devised a student assignment plan which was also filed on September 10. The Court was not wholly satisfied with either of these plans, as it indicated in a hearing on September 16. Therefore, the Court employed an expert in the field of education and desegregation, Dr. Josiah C. Hall of Miami, Florida. Dr. Hall presented a student assignment plan to the Court which was filed December 29, 1975. The plaintiffs meanwhile were working on a student assignment plan, and ended up filing two plans on January 12, 1976. Likewise, the Education Task Force of the Dallas Alliance met for several months considering concepts for a desegregation plan for the DISD, and filed their results with the Court on February 17, 1976. In addition, the Court received and has considered other plans and suggestions from various citizens and groups.4

II. Applicable Law

In this complex and ever-changing area of the law, it is difficult if not impossible to discover hard and fast rules for this Court to follow. Certainly, the "transition to a unitary, nonracial system of public education was and is the ultimate end to be brought about." Green v. County School Board, 391 U.S. 430, 436, 88 S.Ct. 1689, 1693, 20 L.Ed.2d 716, 722 (1967); Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, 396 U.S. 19, 90 S.Ct. 29, 24 L.Ed.2d 19 (1969); Brown v. Board of Education II, 349 U.S. 294, 75 S.Ct. 753, 99 L.Ed. 1083 (1955). Similarly, this Court recognizes that "the objective today remains to eliminate from the public schools all vestiges of state-imposed segregation." Swann v. Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1, 15, 91 S.Ct. 1267, 1275, 28 L.Ed.2d 554, 566 (1970).

Nevertheless, school districts are like fingerprints — each one is unique. Although the goal of a unitary, nonracial system is a constant, the method or plan for achieving that goal must be tailored to fit the particular school district involved. A plan that is successful in a district having a small student population or occupying a small area geographically, a rural district, a county-wide district, or a majority Anglo school district, will not necessarily be successful in a large urban district such as the DISD. As the Supreme Court observed in Brown II, supra, 349 U.S. at 299, 75 S.Ct. at 756, 99 L.Ed. at 1105:

Full implementation of these constitutional principles may require solution of varied local school problems. School authorities have the primary responsibility for elucidating, assessing, and solving these problems; courts will have to consider whether the action of school authorities constitutes good faith implementation of the governing constitutional principles. Because of their proximity to local conditions and the possible need for further hearings, the courts which originally heard these cases can best perform this judicial appraisal.

Throughout the proceedings on remand, this Court has held foremost in its mind the unique characteristics of the DISD, in order to insure that a feasible, workable plan is adopted which will realistically establish a unitary system in the DISD.

The Fifth Circuit remanded this case with instructions to formulate a new "student assignment plan." The DISD has maintained throughout these proceedings that the Court can consider nothing except a bare-bones student assignment plan. Although this Court recognizes that the mandate from the Fifth Circuit referred consistently to formulating a "student assignment plan," it does not interpret that language as limiting this Court to a plan which merely provides for moving bodies between buildings. As the Fifth Circuit held in Calhoun v. Cook, 522 F.2d 717 (1975), rehearing denied, 525 F.2d 1203 (1975):

The aim of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of equal protection on which this litigation is based is to assure that state supported educational opportunity is afforded without regard to race; it is not to achieve racial integration in public schools.

A student assignment plan cannot operate in a vacuum; it must include whatever additional tools are necessary to carry out the mandate that equal educational opportunity be provided, and to insure that a truly unitary system is established.

In adopting a student assignment plan, this Court is required to arrive at a delicate balance — the dual nature of the system must be eliminated; however, a quota system cannot be imposed. The Supreme Court ruled in Swann, supra, 402 U.S. at 26, 91 S.Ct. at 1281, 28 L.Ed.2d at 572, that

the district judge or school authorities should make every effort to achieve the greatest possible degree of actual desegregation and will thus necessarily be concerned with the elimination of one-race schools.

On the other hand, the Supreme Court held that

the constitutional command to desegregate schools does not mean that every school in every community must always reflect the racial composition of the school system as a whole.

Ibid, at 24, 91 S.Ct. at 1280, 28 L.Ed.2d at 571.

In arriving at this balance,...

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