US v. BD. OF S. COM'RS OF CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS, IP 68-C-225.

• Decision Date: 01 August 1975
• Docket Number: IP 68-C-225.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, Donny Brurell Buckley and Alycia Marquese Buckley, by their parent and next friend, Ruby L. Buckley, on behalf of themselves and all Negro school age children residing in the area served by original defendants herein, Intervening-Plaintiffs, v. The BOARD OF SCHOOL COMMISSIONERS OF the CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA, et al., Defendants, Otis R. Bowen, as Governor of the State of Indiana, et al., Added Defendants, Citizens For Quality Schools, Inc., Intervening-Defendant, Coalition For Integrated Education, Amicus Curiae. The BOARD OF SCHOOL COMMISSIONERS OF the CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA, Cross-Claimants, v. The METROPOLITAN DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION OF MARION COUNTY and The Housing Authority of the City of Indianapolis, Cross-Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Indiana

419 F. Supp. 180

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, Donny Brurell Buckley and Alycia Marquese Buckley, by their parent and next friend, Ruby L. Buckley, on behalf of themselves and all Negro school age children residing in the area served by original defendants herein, Intervening-Plaintiffs, v. The BOARD OF SCHOOL COMMISSIONERS OF the CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA, et al., Defendants, Otis R. Bowen, as Governor of the State of Indiana, et al., Added Defendants, Citizens For Quality Schools, Inc., Intervening-Defendant, Coalition For Integrated Education, Amicus Curiae.

The BOARD OF SCHOOL COMMISSIONERS OF the CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA, Cross-Claimants, v. The METROPOLITAN DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION OF MARION COUNTY and The Housing Authority of the City of Indianapolis, Cross-Defendants.

IP 68-C-225.

United States District Court, S. D. Indiana, Indianapolis Division.

August 1, 1975.

Alexander C. Ross, Samuel J. Flanagan, Jr., U. S. Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., John E. Hirschman, Asst. U. S. Atty., Indianapolis, Ind., for United States.

John O. Moss, John Preston Ward, Indianapolis, Ind., for Donny Brurell Buckley and Alycia Marquese Buckley.

Lawrence McTurnan, Indianapolis, Ind., for The Board of School Commissioners of the City of Indianapolis, Karl R. Kalp, Martha McCardle, William M. S. Myers, Carl J. Meyer, Paul E. Lewis, Lester E. Neal, Constance R. Valdez and W. Fred Ratcliff.

Donald P. Bogard, Asst. Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, Ind., for Otis R. Bowen, Theodore Sendak, Harold H. Negley, The Indiana State Board of Education.

Charles W. Hunter, Indianapolis, Ind., for Metropolitan School District of Decatur Township.

William O. Schreckengast, Beech Grove, Ind., for Franklin Township Community School Corp.

Lewis C. Bose, William M. Evans, Indianapolis, Ind., for Metropolitan School District of Lawrence Township, Metropolitan School District of Warren Township, Metropolitan School District of Wayne Township.

Donald A. Schabel, Indianapolis, Ind., for Metropolitan School District of Perry Township.

H. William Irwin, Indianapolis, Ind., for Metropolitan School District of Pike Township.

Ben J. Weaver, Charles G. Reeder, Indianapolis, Ind., for Metropolitan School District of Washington Township.

Richard L. Brown, Indianapolis, Ind., for School City of Beech Grove.

Richard D. Wagner, Indianapolis, Ind., for School Town of Speedway.

William F. LeMond, Kurt F. Pantzer, Jr., Indianapolis, Ind., for Metropolitan Development Commission of Marion County.

Gary R. Landau, Indianapolis, Ind., for Housing Authority of the City of Indianapolis.

Harold E. Hutson, Indianapolis, Ind., for Citizens for Quality Schools Inc.

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

DILLIN, District Judge.

This case comes before the Court for further hearing, pursuant to the direction of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. 503 F.2d 68 (1974) cert. den. 421 U.S. 929, 95 S.Ct. 1655, 44 L.Ed.2d 86, 43 U.S. L.W. 3571 (1975). The previous history of the case, and of various related actions, is fully set out at 503 F.2d 71-75, and will not be repeated here. The names of certain defendants sued in a representative capacity, and whose terms have expired, have been deleted and their successors substituted.

This Court was specifically directed to determine whether the establishment of the Uni-Gov boundaries of the City of Indianapolis¹ without a like re-establishment of Indianapolis Public Schools boundaries warrants an interdistrict remedy within Uni-Gov in accordance with Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717, 94 S.Ct. 3112, 41 L.Ed.2d 1069 (1974). Pursuant to such direction, a further evidentiary hearing was held, beginning March 18, 1975, and the parties have submitted both oral argument and briefs, all of which have been considered. The Court has also given consideration to other matters raised by the pleadings and evidence, and to matters of Indiana law, all as will more fully appear.

The defendant Board of School Commissioners (IPS) on September 29, 1971, brought into the case as additional defendants, The Metropolitan Development Commission of Marion County (Commission) and The Housing Authority of the City of Indianapolis (HACI), and by way of a cross-complaint charged them with implementing policies which contributed to the segregation of IPS. Declaratory relief was demanded. These issues were not taken up heretofore, but in its pretrial entry of December 13, 1974 the Court ruled that, in addition to the Uni-Gov issue, the issue of the effect, if any, of the housing and zoning laws, rules, regulations and customs in Marion County, Indiana and its various political subdivisions upon the de jure segregation of IPS, would be considered. The greater part of the evidence introduced at the March hearing was on the latter subject.

The issue regarding housing and zoning laws was not mooted by Milliken. To the contrary, the concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Stewart, which constituted the decisive vote as between an otherwise evenly balanced Court, stated, "Were it to be shown . . . that state officials had contributed to the separation of the races by drawing or redrawing school district lines . . .; or by purposeful, racially discriminatory use of state housing or zoning laws, then a decree calling for transfer of pupils across district lines or for restructuring of district lines might well be appropriate." 418 U.S. at 755, 94 S.Ct. at 3132.

The evidence is undisputed that each and every public housing project constructed and operated by the added defendant HACI is located within IPS territory, in some instances just across the street from territory served by one of the added defendant school corporations. Each of such locations was approved—in some instances selected in the first place—by the added defendant Commission. The latter institution has had county-wide zoning jurisdiction at all times during the construction of 10 out of the 11 public housing projects for families, and HACI has at all times had the authority to erect public housing within the City of Indianapolis, and within five miles of the corporate limits of such city. The residents of said public housing projects are approximately 98% black (except in projects for the elderly), and their children all attend school in IPS. The location of these housing projects by instrumentalities of the State of Indiana has obviously tended to cause and to perpetuate the segregation of black pupils in IPS territory.

The evidence in the record, as taken in all hearings, clearly shows that the suburban Marion County units of government, including the added defendant school corporations, have consistently resisted the movement of black citizens or black pupils into their territory. They have resisted school consolidation, they resisted civil annexation so long as civil annexation carried school annexation with it, they ceased resisting civil annexation only when the Uni-Gov Act made it clear that the schools would not be involved. Suburban Marion County has resisted the erection of public housing projects outside IPS territory, suburban Marion County officials have refused to cooperate with HUD on the location of such projects, and the customs and usages of both the officials and inhabitants of such areas has been to discourage blacks from seeking to purchase or rent homes therein, all as shown in detail in previous opinions of this Court.

In its most recent opinion, 503 F.2d at 80, the Court of Appeals specifically concluded, with this Court, that state officials of the State of Indiana "have, by various acts and omissions, promoted segregation and inhibited desegregation within IPS, so that the state, as the agency ultimately charged under Indiana law with the operation of the public schools, has an affirmative duty to assist the IPS Board in desegregating IPS within its boundaries . . .." Inasmuch as certiorari has been denied by the Supreme Court, the finding that the State has promoted segregation and inhibited desegregation within IPS is, quite obviously, the law of the case. The new findings of this Court that the Commission and HACI have been guilty of such acts simply amplifies such earlier findings. The action of these agencies in confining poor blacks to the inner city has directly and proximately contributed to cause the suburban school districts within Marion County, other than Washington Township and Pike Township, to be and remain segregated white schools, with segregated white faculties and administrative staffs.

The evidence clearly shows that at the time of the passage of the Uni-Gov Act in 1969, various annexation plans and school consolidation plans had bogged down on the local level because of the aforementioned opposition of the suburban school corporations within Marion County, and their patrons. However, the General Assembly of Indiana, with its members elected on a state-wide basis, was not, or should not have been, subservient to local pressures, and undoubtedly could have legislated a county-wide school system for Marion County as easily as it legislated a county-wide civil government. Under existing law, both Federal as expressed in Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U.S. 294, 75 S.Ct. 753, 99 L.Ed. 1083 (1955), and in Green v. County School Board, 391 U.S. 430, 88 S.Ct. 1689, 20 L.Ed.2d 716 (1968), and the law of Indiana as expressed in Acts 1949, Ch. 186, p. 603, Burns Ind.Stat.Ann. §§ 28-6106—28-6112 (1970), it had a duty to alleviate the segregated condition then existing in IPS. When the General Assembly expressly eliminated the schools from consideration under Uni-Gov, it signaled its lack of concern with the whole problem and thus inhibited desegregation with IPS.

The Court finds that the establishment of the Uni-Gov boundaries without a like re-establishment of IPS boundaries, given all of the other facts and circumstances set out in this and former opinions of this Court, warrants a limited interdistrict remedy within all of Marion County,...