Trahan v. Lafayette Parish School Board

• Decision Date: 13 August 1971
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 10903.
• Citation: 330 F. Supp. 450
• Parties: Alfreda TRAHAN, a minor, by her father and next friend, Nelson Trahan, et al., Plaintiffs, v. LAFAYETTE PARISH SCHOOL BOARD et al., Defendants, United States of America, Amicus Curiae.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Louisiana

330 F. Supp. 450

Alfreda TRAHAN, a minor, by her father and next friend, Nelson Trahan, et al., Plaintiffs, v. LAFAYETTE PARISH SCHOOL BOARD et al., Defendants United States of America, Amicus Curiae.

Civ. A. No. 10903.

United States District Court, W. D. Louisiana, Lafayette Division.

August 13, 1971.

Margrett Ford, New York City, and Marion Overton White, Opelousas, La., for plaintiffs.

Harry J. Kron, Jr., Thibodeaux, La., and Bertrand DeBlanc, Dist. Atty., Fifteenth Judicial District, Lafayette, La., for defendants.

Gary R. Steckler, Lafayette, La., for intervenor, George Dupuis.

Piccione, Piccione & Wooten, Peter C. Piccione and Joseph J. Piccione, Lafayette, La., for intervenors John Montesano and E. M. Christensen.

John Scott, Atty., Education Section, Civil Rights Div., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., for the United States, amicus curiae.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

PUTNAM, District Judge.

This case, filed on March 5, 1965, is before the court for the fifth time on motion by plaintiffs for further relief, following decision by the Supreme Court of the cases of Swann, et al. v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, et al., 402 U.S. 1, 91 S.Ct. 1267, 28 L.Ed.2d 554, and Davis, et al. v. Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County, et al., 402 U.S. 33, 91 S.Ct. 1289, 28 L.Ed.2d 577, decided April 20, 1971.

A review of past action by the Board would provide us with nothing more than the familiar pattern of desegregation reported in countless decisions throughout the country since Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954), through freedom of choice under a two-grade-a-year plan, then under the "model" decree of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in United States v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 372 F.2d 836; 380 F.2d 385 (1966-1967), then, following Green v. County School Board, 391 U.S. 430, 88 S.Ct. 1689, 20 L.Ed.2d 716 (1968); Raney v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 443, 88 S.Ct. 1697, 20 L.Ed.2d 727 (1968); Monroe v. Board of Commissioners, 391 U.S. 450, 88 S.Ct. 1700, 20 L.Ed.2d 733 (1968), and the decision of Hall v. St. Helena Parish, 417 F.2d 801, 5 Cir. 1969, to a two-step plan based upon a combination of pairing and zoning techniques adopted by the Board following a pretrial conference held in July, 1969, which is the plan under which the system was operated until the end of the 1970-71 term. Phase I of the plan, which successfully terminated the dual school system in the rural areas of Lafayette Parish, was implemented without incident. Because of the good faith demonstrated by this School Board at that time and the facts developed at the pretrial conference mentioned above, in which the HEW team concurred, no appeal was taken from our decree of August 11, 1969, and this parish escaped the holocaust resulting in many other parishes of this and our neighboring states following reversal of the decision of the court in Singleton v. Jackson Municipal Separate School District, 419 F.2d 1211, 5 Cir. 1969, in Carter v. West Feliciana Parish, et al., 1970, 396 U.S. 290, 90 S.Ct. 608, 24 L.Ed. 2d 477, which directed that in all cases consolidated therewith student desegregation be accomplished in all schools by February 1, 1970.

During the summer vacation of 1970 no complaint was formally lodged with this court against implementation of Phase II of the Lafayette Plan, which applied to 19 public schools in the city of Lafayette and its immediate environs, attended by 15,932 of the 27,899 public school students in the entire parish. This plan called for closure of Paul Breaux High School, a facility constructed in 1953 and 1954 to accommodate all of the Negro high school students in the parish of Lafayette. We must here note that these students were bussed into Paul Breaux High from the rural areas of the parish, some students travelling as much as twenty miles, round trip, each day. The Paul Breaux campus is located on the north side of the city in an almost all-Negro residential area.

At the close of the 1970-71 school year, there were 6730 Negro students enrolled in this school system. Of these, 1967 were attending 18 fully integrated rural schools included in Phase I of the plan. For these students, the second year of equal educational opportunity had concluded. See Appendix I and attached map.

The remaining 4763 Negro students, approximately 71% of the system's black children, were enrolled in the city schools encompassed by Phase II of the plan, with 2837 of these, or approximately 60%, attending six of the 19 schools in the city area, namely, Vermilion Elementary, W. A. Lerosen Elementary, Paul Breaux Elementary, St. Antoine Elementary, J. W. James Elementary, and Truman Elementary. As to student population, the precentages ranged from 76.1% black at Lerosen to 95.3% black at Truman. Faculty composition had greatly improved, with only one school, Paul Breaux Elementary, having a predominantly black faculty. See Appendix II and attached map.

Although projections made in 1969 when the plan was approved promised a more equitable distribution of students and complete faculty integration as required by Singleton, supra, in the fall of 1970, these projections failed to materialize. The Lafayette Parish School Board, therefore, was maintaining six schools included in Phase II which were identifiable as tailored for black students by reason of student composition and the location of the physical plants in predominantly Negro housing areas as a result of the past era of state-imposed segregation, at the end of the 1970-71 term.

Plaintiffs' motion sought two primary objectives—reopening Paul Breaux High School and institution of a bussing plan to bring about an evenly balanced student population of approximately 75% white and 25% black ratio in each school in the system. In addition, plaintiffs requested employment and assignment of more black female physical education instructors, coaches, and principals in the system.

A hearing was held on this motion on June 28th. of this year. There was no evidence to support the claim that closure of the Paul Breaux High School was racially motivated. On the contrary, this record reflects that it was kept open during 1969-70 because of the hardship its immediate closure would work upon the senior class, many of whom had purchased graduation rings and which had elected its class officers. And, during the 1969 pretrial discussions, as the record thereof demonstrates, it was stated that the Board intended to use the facility for establishment of a vocational educational center for the entire system, because of its central location and accessibility to students from the rural areas. During the 1970-71 school year, moreover, the Board has gone forward with these plans and has contracted work to refurbish a portion of the facility for this purpose at considerable expense.¹ It will be administered on a nondiscriminatory basis, and is generally regarded as an educational advance of considerable significance, not only to Lafayette Parish but as a model for other school districts in this area.

Moreover, the very purpose for which the former high school was built was to perpetuate an invidious discrimination against Negro high school students under the old state-imposed segregated system. Conversion to this use by whites and blacks alike, will, in the opinion of this court, exorcise from the system a constant reminder of past inequities.

Upon the basis of these findings, we deny plaintiffs' motion to reopen Paul Breaux High. The court wishes to point out to the Negro community the further fact that even if Paul Breaux were reopened, it could not, at this time, be maintained as a black or nearly all-black school.

For lack of any evidence to support the remaining claims advanced by plaintiffs' motions in regard to faculty and staff assignments, these claims are also denied.

We directed, however, that the defendant Board reevaluate the 1969 plan in view of the pattern of segregation still apparent in the racial composition of the six schools mentioned above, in light of the guidelines handed down in Swann, supra, Davis, supra, and related cases. Plaintiffs were also invited to submit a plan, but did not do so. The HEW plan, formulated by experts from the Office of Equal Educational Opportunities in July of 1969, is basically a pairing plan and is likewise filed in the record.

During the period from June 21, 1971, to July 25, 1971, which the court allowed for this study, the Board and its staff held public meetings attended by representatives of all segments of the public. The court directed the Board that bussing of children should be kept to an absolute minimum. Without attempting to set any inflexible racial ratios, speaking informally and from the bench at the conclusion of the June hearing, we expressed the view that any school with a student population of 60% white and 40% black would most certainly pass constitutional muster.

It was held in Swann that great flexibility is allowed to district courts in fashioning equitable remedies. In that case the Court addressed itself to four specific problems in the area of student body composition, which it stated as follows:

"(1) to what extent racial balance or racial quotas may be used as an implement in a remedial order to correct a previously segregated system;

(2) whether every all-Negro and all-white school must be eliminated as an indispensable part of a remedial process of desegregation;

(3) what are the limits, if any, on the rearrangement of school districts and attendance zones, as a remedial measure; and

(4) what are the limits, if any, on the use of transportation facilities to correct state-enforced racial school segregation." (Swann, supra, 402 U.S. p. 22, 91 S.Ct. p. 1279)

We shall attempt to capsulate the answers given by the Court to these important questions, within our limited ability to do so, so that the layman reading this opinion may...