United States v. State of Texas

• Citation: 342 F. Supp. 24
• Decision Date: 06 December 1971
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 5281.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America v. STATE OF TEXAS et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Texas

342 F. Supp. 24

UNITED STATES of America v. STATE OF TEXAS et al.

Civ. A. No. 5281.

United States District Court, E. D. Texas, Tyler Division.

December 6, 1971.

Roby Hadden, U. S. Atty., Tyler, Tex., Brian K. Lansberg, Civil Rights Div., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., for plaintiff.

Grant Cook, Houston, Tex., James McCoy, Asst. Atty. Gen., Austin, Tex., for defendants.

J. B. Ochoa, Jr., El Paso, Tex., Mike Gonsalez, Del Rio, Tex., Warren Burnett, Odessa, Tex., amici curiae.

MEMORANDUM OPINION REGARDING THE SAN FELIPE DEL RIO CONSOLIDATED INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT

JUSTICE, District Judge.

The final order in this case with respect to the creation and desegregation of the San Felipe Del Rio Consolidated Independent School District and its operation as a unitary system which would afford all its students, whether Anglo or Mexican-American, equal educational opportunities as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, was entered on August 13, 1971. That order and the Court's previous decree in this matter dated August 13, 1971, was premised upon the Court's firm conviction that the record demonstrates, first, that Mexican-American students in the State of Texas are a cognizable ethnic group and, hence, may avail themselves of the protections afforded under the Fourteenth Amendment and under Title VI (See Conclusions of Law #5 and 6 entered August 24, 1971) and, second, that the Mexican-American students in the Del Rio area have been subjected, over the years, to unequal treatment with respect to the educational opportunities afforded them and are, thus, part of a so-called de jure dual school system based upon separation of students of different ethnic origins. Moreover, the Court believes that this segregated arrangement, if not directly created by the State and its agencies, has been condoned and, in the 1970-71 school year, was financially supported by the State to a level well over 90% of the operating expenditures of each of the two school districts joined by the August 13 order. In other words, had it not been for the substantial contributions of the State under the terms of the Texas Minimum Foundation Program and under various additional arrangements, neither the former San Felipe nor the former Del Rio school district could have continued in operation. Hence, since the State and its agencies knew, or should have known of the segregated educational system being operated, largely at state expense, in the Del Rio area, and in light of this Court's previous findings of fact and conclusions of law concerning the State of Texas and the Texas Education Agency in this case (See Findings and Conclusions dated November 21, 1970), this Court believes that the segregated system described above existed as the result of state action.

The Court believes that the order of August 13 relating to consolidation and desegregation of the students and faculty of the two former districts in the Del Rio area is clear on its face and, therefore, finds it unnecessary to comment further upon it, save to say that it is consistent with the earlier orders of the Court in this case dated November 24, 1970, 321 F.Supp. 1043, April 19, 1971, and April 20, 1971, as modified July 13, 1971, and so approved by the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, 447 F.2d 441. In light of the relative novelty of the issue in current case law, however, the Court considers it advisable to clarify its position regarding the status of Mexican-American students within the State of Texas as developed from existing case law and from the record in this matter.

The Court found that "Mexican-Americans constitute an identifiable minority group in the State of Texas," and that "Mexican-Americans are subject to protection under Title 6 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fourteenth Amendment as applied to racial and ethnic discrimination in public schools." As stated in a scholarly note by Gerald M. Birnberg in the University of Texas Law Review, 49 Texas L.Rev. 337, 338 (1971), "The conclusion that ethnic isolation of Mexican-Americans in the public schools is unlawful should not be surprising, since that principle has long been established in Texas law." Independent School District v. Salvatierra, 33 S.W.2d 790 (Tex.Civ.App.1930), appeal dismissed, w. o. j., and cert. denied, 284 U.S. 580, 52 S.Ct. 28, 76 L.Ed. 503 (1931); Delgado v. Bastrop Independent School District, Civ. No. 388 (W.D.Tex. June 15, 1948); Hernandez v. Driscoll Consolidated Independent School District, 2 Race Rel.L.Rev. 329 (S.D.Tex. January 11, 1957). (See also, Instructions of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, (1948) sent to school districts by the State Education Agency to inform them that segregation of Mexican-American students constituted a violation of Article VII, Section 7, of the Texas Constitution, Vernon's Ann. St.)¹ This same principle has also been upheld by other federal courts. Perez v. Sonora Independent School District, C.A. 6-224 (N.D.Tex.1969); Cisneros v. Corpus Christi Independent School District, 324 F.Supp. 599 (S.D.Tex.1970), on appeal, C.A. (5th Cir. 1971). Judge Seals stated in Cisneros:

. . . It is clear to this court that these people for whom we have used the word Mexican-Americans to describe their class, group, or segment of our population, are an identifiable ethnic-minority in the United States, and especially so in the South-west and in Texas. . . . f. n. s. omitted This is not surprising; we can notice and identify their physical characteristics, their language, their predominant religion, their distinct culture, and, of course, their Spanish surnames. And if there were any doubt in this court's mind, this court could take notice, which it does, of the congressional enactments, governmental studies and commissions on this problem. At pages 607, 608

Judge Seals also noted in the Cisneros opinion that the identity of Mexican-Americans or Americans with Spanish surnames as a cognizable group is further acknowledged in the official United States Census for 1960 and 1970. (Cisneros, fn. 31 at page 607).

This Court joins Judge Seals and the other courts cited above in the position that, based on case law to date and on the official state and federal documents available and already noted and on the record in the matter at bar, Mexican-Americans or Spanish-surnamed Americans are a separate and distinct national origin group under the terms of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Court was particularly impressed by the testimony of Dr. Jose Cardenas, who presented a lengthy commentary on the problems commonly faced by Mexican-American students. This testimony demonstrated that Mexican-American students exhibit numerous characteristics which have a causal connection with their general inability to benefit from an educational program designed primarily to meet the needs of so-called Anglo-Americans. These characteristics include "cultural incompatibilities" and English language deficiencies—two traits which immediately and effectively identify those students sharing them as members of a definite group whose performance norm habitually will fall below that of Anglo-American students who do not exhibit these traits. It would appear, therefore, from Dr. Cardenas's testimony, that it is largely these ethnically-linked traits—albeit combined with other factors such as poverty, malnutrition and the effects of past educational deprivation—which account for the identifiability of Mexican-American students as a group and which have, as a consequence, elicited from many school boards throughout Texas and, indeed, throughout the southwestern United States, the different and often discriminatory treatment shown on the record in this case.

This court is convinced that the characteristics of Mexican-American students bind them into a cognizable "national origin" group and has, in the case at bar, ruled accordingly. If it may be argued in such factual circumstances that the nature of the Mexican-American heritage is too vague and elusive a ground upon which to base a belief that the people sharing that heritage are an identifiable ethnic entity see Tijerina v. Henry, 48 F.R.D. 274 (D.N.M.1969), appeal dismissed, 398 U.S. 922, 90 S.Ct. 1718, 26 L.Ed.2d 86 (1970) (but cf. dissent by Douglas, J.), nevertheless, the Mexican-American students in this case may be considered as a separate and distinct group cognizable under the Fourteenth Amendment and Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. This position may be justified solely on the grounds that these students react to or are affected by a given stimulus—the Anglo-oriented educational program such as that maintained in the former Del Rio Independent School District—in a similar and predictable manner and, in the opinion of a recognized expert, this reaction is based almost entirely on common characteristics which, incidentally, may be traced to their common and distinct ancestry. See cases cited in Carpenter v. Davis, 424 F.2d 257, at 260 (5th Cir. 1970).

It may be well to note that for many years, Mexican-Americans have been recognized by the Supreme Court as an ethnic group which may sustain discriminatory treatment as a class. Significantly, in the opinion in Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475, 74 S.Ct. 667, 98 L.Ed. 866 (1945)² (a case decided just two weeks before the famous Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954), and also written for a unanimous Court by Chief Justice Warren), it was held that

The State of Texas would have us hold that there are only two classes—white and Negro—within the contemplation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The decisions of this Court do not support that view.4 And, except where the

4. See Truax v. Raich, 239 U.S. 33 36 S.Ct. 7, 60 L.Ed. 131; Takahashi v. Fish & Game Commission, 334 U.S. 410 68 S.Ct. 1138, 92 L.Ed.

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