Vetere v. Allen, 12
| Decision Date | 18 March 1965 |
| Docket Number | No. 12,12 |
| Citation | 206 N.E.2d 174,258 N.Y.S.2d 77,15 N.Y.2d 259 |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | , 206 N.E.2d 174 In the Matter of Michael VETERE, Individually and as Parent and Natural Guardian of Anita Vetere, an Infant, Appellant, v. James E. ALLEN, Jr., as Commissioner of Education of the State of New York, et al., Respondents. In the Matter of Lewis HUMMEL et al., Individually and as Parents and Natural Guardians of Sally A. Hummel and Another, Infants, Appellants, v. James E. ALLEN, Jr., as Commissioner of Education of the State of New York, Respondent, and Board of Education of Union Free School Districtof the Town of Hempstead, New York, Appellant |
Mason L. Hampton, Jr., C. William Gaylor and H. Paul King, Lynbrook, for petitioners-appellants.
Thomas L. Driscoll, Brooklyn, for Board of Education of Union Free School Dist. No. 12, Town of Hempstead, appellant.
Charles A. Brind, Jr., John P. Jehu, Elizabeth M. Eastman, George B. Farrington and Louis H. J. Welch, Albany, for Commissioner of Education, respondent.
Robert L. Carter, Joan Franklin and Lewis M. Steel, New York City, for remaining respondents.
The issue posed by the petition in terms of racial balance, which balance the Commissioner now avers is essential to a sound education, is not reviewable by this court as the following quotations from opinions show. The purpose of the grant of quasi-judicial powers under section 310 of the Education Law, Consol.Laws, c. 16 is 'to make all matters pertaining to the general school system of the state within the authority and control of the department of education and to remove the same so far as practicable and possible from controversies in the courts' (Bullock v. Cooley, 225 N.Y. 566, 576-577, 122 N.E. 630, 633 (1919)). 'By our state system of education, protected by the Constitution and developed by much study and experience, the commissioner of education is made the practical administrative head of the system, and in his exercise of sound wisdom, as we believe, the Legislature deemed it best to make him the final authority in passing on many questions bound to arise in the administration of the school system, and has provided an expeditious and simple method by which a disposition of such questions could be reached through appeal to him' (People ex rel. Board of Educ. of City of N. Y. v. Finley, 211 N.Y. 51, 57, 105 N.E. 109, 110 (1914)).
This is merely a reaffirmation of a principle contained in New York law for over 130 years.
In Easton v. Calendar, 11 Wend. 91, 93-94 (1833) the court stated:
A recent case illustrating the Commissioner's unusual authority to overturn a local board's orders solely from the standpoint of alleged sound education policy is Matter of Board of Educ. of City of N. Y. v. Allen, 6 N.Y.2d 127, 188 N.Y.S.2d 515, 160 N.E.2d 60 (1959). In that case a decision by the Commissioner that the local board's policy of requiring teachers who were former communists to identify colleagues as party members was educationally unsound was not disturbed by this court on the ground that his decision was final. In arriving at this result, the court was fully cognizant of the fact that both the Feinberg Law (Education Law, § 3022) and section 20.1 of the Board of Regents Regulations (8 NYCRR 20.1) directed boards of education to take steps to eliminate subversive elements in their school system. Here the Board of Regents under authority of section 207 of the Education Law has declared racially imbalanced schools to be educationally inadequate. The Commissioner under sections 301 and 305 of the Education Law has implemented this policy by directing local boards to take steps to eliminate racial imbalance. These decisions are final absent a showing of pure arbitrariness.
The Commissioner's decision in this case rests squarely on his finding of the inadequacy of such schools from the viewpoint of educational soundness. Since this court had decided that the Commissioner, when a similar policy judgment was made, may substitute his judgment for that of the local board even where the action of the local board was not arbitrary (Matter of Board of Educ. of City of N. Y. v. Allen, 6 N.Y.2d 127, 188 N.Y.S.2d 515, 160 N.E.2d 60 (1959), supra), the decision of the Commissioner in regard to racial balance is conclusive.
Disagreement with the sociological, psychological and educational assumptions relied on by the Commissioner cannot be evaluated by this court. Such arguments can only be heard in the Legislature which has endowed the Commissioner with an all but absolute power, or by the Board of Regents, who are elected by the Legislature and make public policy in the field of education.
Since we find that the determination of the Commissioner of Education is not arbitrary or illegal, the order of the Appellate Division must be affirmed.
The order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed, without costs.
VAN VOORHIS, Judge .
If, as I think, the action by the Commissioner of Education violates the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and statutes of New York State, it is reviewable in the courts as included in the class of conduct which is legally defined as purely arbitrary (Matter of Ross v. Wilson, 308 N.Y. 605, 127 N.E.2d 697).
By directing that all pupils from kindergarten through grade 3 attend the Davison Avenue or Lindner Place Elementary School, and that all pupils in grades 4 and 5 attend the Woodfield Road School, after adopting the finding of his Advisory Committee that the attendance areas of these schools as defined by the Board of Education could be cited as an excellent example of administrative planning except for racial difference, the Commissioner or Education has made clear that he reversed the ruling of the Board of Education entirely in order to correct or reduce imbalance between the black and white races. The court is confronted directly with whether racial imbalance in the public schools, however, it may be defined, can be overcome by admitting or excluding children from schools on account of their color. The purpose in the Commissioner's ruling is to blend the 75% Negro children in the Woodfield School with the white children in the other two elementary schools. The concentration of nonwhite children in the Woodfield School attendance area was not designed to promote racial segregation in the public schools but occurred on account of the geographical grouping of the races.
Section 3201 of the Education Law prevents a person from being excluded from any public school 'on account of race, creed, color or national origin.' Other statutes and constitutional provisions call for the same result (cf. U.S.C.onst., 14th Amdt. § 1; N.Y.Const., art. I, § 11; Education Law, § 313; Civil Rights Law, Consol.Laws c. 6, § 40; Executive Law, Consol.Laws, c. 18, § 290).
The Supreme Court of the United States has held that Negroes cannot be 'denied admission to schools attended by white children under laws requiring or permitting segregation according to race' without denying the equal protection of the Law (Brown v. Board of Educ. of Topeka, Shawnee County, Kansas, 347 U.S. 483, 488, 74 S.Ct. 686, 688, 98 L.Ed. 873; 349 U.S. 294, 75 S.Ct. 753, 99 L.Ed. 1083). That principle is contradicted by the holding of the Appellate Division in this case. Where is the line to be drawn between allocating persons by law to schools or other institutions or facilities according to color to promote integration, and doing the same thing in order to promote segregation? Is the underlying principle not the same in either instance? Both depend on racism. If one is legally justifiable, then so is the other. There is no law which says that school children or others may be allocated according to race until there are 50% of each. If that be the guilding principle, it is honored more in the breach than in the observance.
There is an important difference between obliterating the color line by admitting a boy or girl or man or woman to a school, to employment, to a...
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