United States v. Bd. of Educ. of City of Chicago

Citation621 F. Supp. 1296
Decision Date15 October 1985
Docket NumberNo. 80 C 5124.,80 C 5124.
PartiesUNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF the CITY OF CHICAGO, Defendant.
CourtUnited States District Courts. 7th Circuit. United States District Court (Northern District of Illinois)
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Neil H. Koslowe, Sp. Litigation Counsel, Washington, D.C. for plaintiff.

Robert C. Howard/Robert M. Weissbourd/James Bradtke, Hartunian, Futterman & Howard, Chtd., Hugh R. McCombs, Jr./David Narefsky/Denise L. Jarrard, Isham, Lincoln & Beale, Chicago, Ill., for defendant.

PRELIMINARY MEMORANDUM OPINION

ASPEN, District Judge:

INTRODUCTION

The dispute over the Consent Decree in this unique desegregation case returns to the district court for the third time. The case is here, assigned to a new judge, following the Seventh Circuit's second opinion in the case. See United States v. Board of Education of Chicago, 744 F.2d 1300 (7th Cir.1984) ("Second Opinion"), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 105 S.Ct. 2358, 86 L.Ed.2d 259 (1985). Although the United States won the appeal, the Court of Appeals concluded its opinion with an admonition to the United States that its conduct in connection with the case had been less than honorable:

In the circumstances of this case, we deem it important to note that the actions of the Executive Branch described above and reflected in the hearings below could be interpreted to contravene the spirit of the Decree. Such actions, while perhaps within constitutional limits, cannot enhance the respect to which this Decree is entitled and do not befit a signatory of the stature of the United States Department of Justice. The Executive Branch initiated this critical litigation and bears a continuing shared and special responsibility for its eventual outcome, regardless of changes in personnel and ideology that will inevitably accompany the passage of time.

744 F.2d at 1308. Such conduct continues. The United States continues its hard line approach to its obligations under s 15.1 of the Consent Decree, which provides:

Each party is obligated to make every good faith effort to find and provide every available form of financial resources adequate for implementation of the desegregation plan.

Rather than make this "good faith effort," the government has made and continues to make every possible effort to minimize its obligations under s 15.1, even as narrowed by the Second Opinion. In this opinion, we hold that the United States has violated the letter, as well as the spirit, of the Decree.

A consent decree is both an enforceable contract and an order of the court.1 It quickly became clear to this Court that the United States has had little respect for s 15.1, whether viewed as contractual promise or judicial command. As the Court of Appeals implicitly recognized, 744 F.2d at 1308, changes in administration and philosophy since 1980, when the decree was signed, have been largely responsible for generating the conflict in this case. This change in philosophy apparently includes the belief that promises made by previous administrations need not be honored and that court orders need not be followed if they contradict prevailing ideology. If such a belief exists, it will not prevail, as this opinion will explain.

Since receiving the case, the Court has had to quickly learn the complex history of the case, and resolve pre-trial disputes, see 610 F.Supp. 695 (1985); 610 F.Supp. 702 (1985), as the parties feverishly worked to prepare evidence and supporting material for this merits opinion. We appreciate the hard work of the parties and their briefs, which were very long â totalling about 450 pages, not counting the thousands of pages of appendices â but very helpful.

Remarkably, the parties devoted well over 150 pages of their briefs to arguments over what the Court of Appeals meant in the Second Opinion, which itself spanned just nine published pages. Obviously, much of this case hinges on our interpretation of the Second Opinion. Accordingly, before entering our Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law concerning the evidence submitted by the parties, we set forth first an extensive preliminary opinion, which interprets the Second Opinion, thereby defining the context shaping the Findings and Conclusions which follow.

Technically, pending before the Court is the Board's motion for declaratory and injunctive relief, which essentially alleges that the United States violated s 15.1 of the Consent Decree in many ways in 1984 and earlier years. For the reasons stated in the Preliminary Opinion and the Findings and Conclusions that follow, that motion is granted in large part.

PART I: ANALYZING THE SECOND COURT OF APPEALS OPINION
1. Background

The focus of this remand proceeding is the meaning of the United States' obligation under s 15.1 of the Consent Decree, which is quoted above at 1. In this preliminary chapter of the opinion, we resolve the continuing dispute over which federal funds were "available" to the Board under s 15.1; in the concluding chapters we decide whether the United States has made "every good faith effort to find and provide" these funds, with particular scrutiny on fiscal year 1984.

The Consent Decree embodying the unique funding provision was entered and approved by the Court on September 24, 1980, the same day that the United States sued the Board for allegedly operating racially segregated schools in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and Titles IV and VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The history surrounding the Consent Decree is detailed at length in previous opinions and repeated in part in Chapter I of our extensive Findings of Fact below. For present purposes, we need only repeat the undisputed proposition that the desegregation plan envisioned by the Decree and the funding provisions of the Decree were unique and pioneering. The Plan ultimately developed by the Board, endorsed by the United States and approved by the District Court, see United States v. Bd. of Education of Chicago, 554 F.Supp. 912 (N.D. Ill.1983), created a broad range of costly educational programs designed to remedy the effects of past segregation on Chicago's black and Hispanic students. The Plan eschewed forced desegregation methods, e.g. busing, in favor of voluntary desegregation made possible by the Plan's educational programs. The Plan recognized that Chicago's demographics made complete and lasting desegregation impossible. Thus, the Plan as approved by the Court created compensatory educational programs targeted to those schools which would remain segregated. These programs are intended to remedy the past and continuing effects of segregation. See, e.g., Findings of Fact ("Findings") 106-107.

Frustrated by what it considered the United States' unwillingness to help fund the Plan, the Board petitioned the District Court on May 31, 1983, for an order enforcing the funding obligations of the United States under s 15.1. The United States contended that the Decree did not constrain its discretion in the funding process, and that to honor the decree it need only help the Board apply for funds. The Court rejected this argument, embracing the Board's position, which was that s 15.1 unambiguously required the United States to provide available funds to the Board. 567 F.Supp. 272, 282. The Court held that the United States violated s 15.1 by failing to take affirmative steps to find and provide available funds, as well as by working to make funds unavailable to the Board. Id. at 283-85. The United States was obligated, said the Court, to provide presently available funds, to find other available funds, to support certain legislative initiatives and to seek appropriations which could be used to aid the Board's Plan. The Court enjoined the United States from spending certain Department of Education funds until the Board's entitlement to them could be finally determined. Id. at 289.

On appeal, the United States continued to assert that it had no funding obligations under s 15.1. The Court rejected this assertion. Although disagreeing with the District Court's conclusion that s 15.1 was unambiguous on that issue, it affirmed the District Court's alternative holding that the extrinsic evidence supports the conclusion that s 15.1 requires the United States to "go beyond assisting the Board in locating and applying for federal funds, and ... imposes a substantial obligation on the government to provide available funds to the Board." 717 F.2d 378, 383. However, the Court questioned whether the District Court was correct in concluding that the United States had violated s 15.1 by supporting broad legislative policy decisions which effectively reduced the pool of funds available to the Board. Id. It did not decide this question, though, but instead affirmed the District Court's finding of lack of good faith "on the narrower and more discernible ground" that the lower court had also found that the United States actually had funds available for the Board but had failed to provide them. Specifically the Court referred to the District Court's Findings of Fact 34-35 and 42-43, which had identified the Title IV fund and the "Discretionary Fund" as having available funds. Id. The Court also vacated the remedies ordered by the lower court, holding the "principles of comity" between the judicial and executive branches made it appropriate to let the United States have first crack at proposing how it would comply with its funding obligations, as well as remedy past non-compliance. Id. at 384.

On remand, the United States filed its November 10, 1983 "Plan for Supporting the Desegregation Plan of the Board" ("November 10 Plan"). Ostensibly a plan for complying with the Court of Appeals opinion, the November 10 Plan was essentially a legal brief arguing for dismissal of the Board's petition and accompanied a motion to dismiss. Among other things, the...

To continue reading

Request your trial
6 cases
  • U.S. v. Board of Educ. of City of Chicago, s. 86-1159
    • United States
    • United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)
    • August 18, 1986
    ...(7th Cir.1983) (vacating the district court's order appearing at 554 F.Supp. 912 (N.D.Ill.1983)); United States v. Board of Education of the City of Chicago, 621 F.Supp. 1296 (N.D.Ill.1985) (the district court order being reviewed in the present appeal). In its simplest form, this case revo......
  • Liddell v. Board of Educ. of City of St. Louis, Mo., s. 86-2193
    • United States
    • United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit)
    • March 14, 1988
    ...basis, or put another way, costs for particular items whose useful life is, in theory, unlimited. See, e.g., United States v. Board of Educ., 621 F.Supp. 1296, 1350 (D.C.Ill.1985) (where the court notes in discussing a budget matter "that certain of the items funded in school year 1983-84 a......
  • In re Enna Associated Investors, 85 C 07915.
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois
    • March 10, 1986
    ...have already been resolved by the same court at an earlier stage of the same litigation. See United States v. Board of Education of the City of Chicago, 621 F.Supp. 1296, 1323 (N.D.Ill. 1985); 18 C. Wright, A. Miller & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 4478 (1981). However, certai......
  • Turner v. Avery
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Louisiana
    • June 13, 1996
    ...are not inconsistent with the prior appellate ruling and are still relevant and uncontradicted. United States v. Bd. of Education of City of Chicago, 621 F.Supp. 1296, 1323 (N.D.Ill. 1985), vacated on other grounds, 799 F.2d 281 (7th The bankruptcy court did not violate the mandate of the F......
  • Request a trial to view additional results

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT