Tasby v. Wright

• Decision Date: 03 August 1981
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 3-4211-H.
• Citation: 520 F. Supp. 683
• Parties: Eddie Mitchell TASBY, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Dr. Linus WRIGHT, General Superintendent, Dallas Independent School District, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Texas

520 F. Supp. 683

Eddie Mitchell TASBY, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Dr. Linus WRIGHT, General Superintendent, Dallas Independent School District, et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 3-4211-H.

United States District Court, N. D. Texas, Dallas Division.

August 3, 1981.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Edward B. Cloutman, III, Mullinax, Wells, Baab, Cloutman & Chapman, Patrick A. White, Dallas Legal Services Foundation, Inc., Dallas, Tex., for plaintiffs.

Mark Martin and Robert H. Thomas, Strasburger & Price, Dallas, Tex., for DISD, Wright, et al.

Thomas I. Atkins, Gen. Counsel, NAACP Special Contribution Fund, New York City, Ernest Lemuel Haywood, Mahomes, Biscoe & Haywood, Dallas, Tex., for NAACP, intervenor.

James A. Donohoe, Gardere & Wynne, Dallas, Tex., for Brinegar, et al., intervenor.

Robert W. Blumenthal and John Martin, Carrington, Coleman, Sloman & Blumenthal, Dallas, Tex., for Curry, et al., intervenors.

H. Ron White, H. Ron White & Associates, Dallas, Tex., for Dallas Alliance, amicus curiae.

E. Brice Cunningham, Dallas, Tex., for Cunningham and Dockery, intervenors.

Joan T. Winn, Dallas, Tex., for Black Coalition to Maximize Ed., intervenor.

                                      TABLE OF CONTENTS
                I.     History of the Case                             686
                II.    The Parties: Who's Still Here                   689
                

                III.     Demography and Geography: The city, the
                         school district, and the students                    690
                         A. The City of Dallas                                690
                         B. Scholastic Enrollment                             692
                         C. Subdistrict Organization                          695
                         D. Summary                                           699
                IV.      Relevant Cases and Principles                        701
                V.       The Constitutional Violation                         705
                VI.      Constitutional Adequacy of the Existing Plan         707
                VII.     Kindergarten-Third Grade Schools                     713
                         A. Demographics of the K-3 Schools                   714
                         B. Time and Distance Study, K-3 Grades               724
                         C. Impact of Busing on K-3 Education                 730
                         D. Opposition of Minority Parents to K-3 Busing      732
                VIII.    High Schools                                         733
                IX.      Fourth through Eighth Grade Schools                  736
                X.       East Oak Cliff                                       739
                         A. Background of the East Oak Cliff Subdistrict      740
                         B. Implementation of the 1976 Court Order            741
                         C. Feasibility of Transportation to Desegregate
                            East Oak Cliff                                    743
                XI.      Magnet High Schools                                  744
                XII.     Majority-to-Minority Transfers                       748
                XIII.    Remedy                                               749
                

OPINION OF THE COURT

SANDERS, District Judge.

Today the Court decides that vestiges of state-imposed racial segregation remain in the Dallas Independent School District (DISD). The Court holds that additional systemwide transportation is not a feasible remedy for the existing constitutional violation. The Court believes, however, that effective remedies can be fashioned and directs the parties to prepare and file desegregation plans for the Court's consideration.

I. History of the Case

This case is before the Court on remand from U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Tasby v. Estes, 572 F.2d 1010 (1978), reh. en banc denied, 575 F.2d 300 (1978); cert. dismissed, Estes v. Metropolitan Branches of Dallas NAACP, et al., 444 U.S. 437, 100 S.Ct. 716, 62 L.Ed.2d 626 (1980). The Circuit has directed this Court to make specific findings regarding the feasibility of using the desegregation techniques approved in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Educ., 402 U.S. 1, 91 S.Ct. 1267, 28 L.Ed.2d 554 (1971) (Swann), to reduce the number of one-race schools in the Dallas Independent School District.

This case was originally filed in October 1970, Plaintiffs seeking the development of a comprehensive desegregation plan for DISD. The case was tried in July 1971, Tasby v. Estes, 342 F.Supp. 945, aff'd in part, rev'd in part, and remanded with directions, Tasby v. Estes, 517 F.2d 92 (5th Cir. 1975); tried again in 1976, Tasby v. Estes, 412 F.Supp. 1192; and remanded again in 1978, Tasby v. Estes, 572 F.2d 1010 (5th Cir.), with directions to make "findings to justify the maintenance of any one-race schools that may be a part of" a new student assignment plan. 572 F.2d at 1018.

The DISD was no stranger to desegregation litigation when this action was initiated, having been involved in several similar lawsuits¹ since the 1955 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown II. Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U.S. 294, 75 S.Ct. 753, 99 L.Ed. 1083 (1955). A "stair-step" (one grade per year) plan for desegregation was ordered by the federal court in 1960. Implementation began at the first grade level in the 1961-62 school year, and thereafter, the DISD converted from dual attendance zones to single zones on a grade-ayear basis until 1965, when the Fifth Circuit ordered the process accelerated to include all six elementary grades as well as the twelfth grade. Dual zones were eliminated for junior high schools in 1966 and for the remaining grades ten and eleven in 1967. The "stair-step" plan merely called for the elimination of racial criteria from the school system's admission policies. The courts did not direct DISD (and DISD did not volunteer) to take affirmative action to eradicate the vestiges of the former statutory segregated system. So, while it can fairly be said that DISD, like many another school district, moved with maximum deliberation and minimum speed to carry out the 1955 desegregation mandate of the U.S. Supreme Court, it should also be said that the federal court moved at the same pace; DISD did what the Court ordered — no more, no less.²

Since the filing of Tasby v. Estes ten years ago, a number of complex issues have been raised and resolved in this Court and the appellate courts.

(1) Elements of the former dual system were found to remain, in violation of the Constitution, as evidenced chiefly by the number of segregated schools present in 1971. 342 F.Supp. at 947.

(2) The Court was unable to find that de jure segregation had been practiced against hispanic students; nevertheless, it determined that any remedy or plan ultimately adopted would be triethnic in scope and treat hispanics as a distinct ethnic minority group for purposes of student assignment. 342 F.Supp. at 948; aff'd, 517 F.2d at 106-07.

(3) The issues relating to metropolitan, interdistrict violation and remedy were separately litigated. Plaintiffs failed to make the showing of "significant segregative effect" required under Milliken I,³ with respect to the suburban Highland Park I.S.D., thereby foreclosing the possibility of multidistrict remedy. 412 F.Supp. at 1188-91; aff'd, 572 F.2d at 1016. Plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed their complaints against six other suburban school districts.

In 1976 this Court (Taylor, J.) after considering desegregation plans submitted by DISD, Plaintiffs, a court-appointed expert and others, adopted the plan submitted by amicus curiae, the Dallas Alliance. The Alliance is a community service organization consisting of seventy-seven correspondent organizations in the Dallas area and having a forty member Board of Trustees, which seeks to assist in focusing attention on and devising solutions for a wide range of current issues facing the city. The Alliance plan had been prepared by its tri-ethnic twenty-one member Educational Task Force after an intensive four-month study.

The essential features of the Alliance plan may be summarized in the following fashion. The school district has been carved into six subdistricts, four of which⁴ are geographically structured in such a way that their enrollments reflect the same racial composition as the overall DISD, plus or minus five percent. The remaining two subdistricts⁵ were exempt from the racial composition requirement.

Within each of the subdistricts, students in grades kindergarten through three (K-3) were assigned according to then existing assignment patterns, with special emphasis placed on compensatory education involving individualized, diagnostic-prescriptive methods of instruction. In grades 4-8, satellite zoning and transportation techniques were used to establish desegregated schools located around the center of each subdistrict. In grades 9-12, magnet schools and majority-to-minority transfer options were the principal tools of desegregation, leaving students who declined to opt for one of these programs attending the high school in their regular neighborhood attendance zone. Exceptions to the general student assignment principles were made for students who resided in areas which were considered integrated by residential housing patterns (the "naturally integrated areas"), and for students in the East Oak Cliff and Seagoville subdistricts. Other provisions of the desegregation plan concerned special instructional programs, transfer options, discipline policy, facilities construction and improvement, faculty assignment and training, and accountability.

After the case was returned to this Court by the Supreme Court in 1980, the parties negotiated unsuccessfully in an effort to reach an agreement on a desegregation plan. Time and distance studies were ordered by Judge Taylor and trial on the issues raised in the Circuit's mandate was set for March 16, 1981. On March 13 Intervenor NAACP by motion requested Judge Taylor to recuse himself; Judge Taylor did so and on March 20, 1981, this case was assigned to the undersigned Judge for trial. Trial commenced April 27 and concluded May 22, 1981.

In remanding this case, the Fifth Circuit expressed concern about the number of one-race schools under the 1976 Plan — specifically,...