Lifting "Desegregation" Court Orders

Where winning isn't always a victory

Unitary -- A school district that no longer maintains dual school systems, i.e., one for minority students and one for white students; a district that has one school system for all students. "Unitary status" indicates that the courts have declared a school system "sufficiently desegregated" to require the dissolution of federal control and the return of control to the local school board.

In looking at how dismal matters are in the realm of public schools, it's surprising that the United States still has a functioning education system of any kind. Just consider the years of wrangling over "racial balance." The ongoing disruption in many school districts have resulted in the loss of exasperated teachers, administrators and parents who gave up the struggle and moved their children elsewhere. Yet when one hears about the demise of American education, notice how this disturbance to the very fabric of the educational system itself is rarely cited as, at least, part of the reason for the demise.

Following are examples of the incomprehensible absurdity that has prevailed throughout the land, in some cases, for more than 40 years. These reports come primarily from the National Association for Neighborhood Schools, based in Columbus, Ohio.

In Florida, Hillsborough County has been declared "unitary," finally ending a 43-year-old "desegregation" case. For 30 years, the county's families have had to bear the upheavals resulting from court ordered busing. After all these decades, the Appeals Court now claims that an earlier finding, which declared the schools still technically segregated, "was tainted and infected by reliance on an incorrect legal standard."

However, the mania to achieve pure racial balance is not necessarily over, and those who claim that segregation still exists are threatening further actions. Accordingly, the school district has now devised a "controlled choice" plan, designed to maintain racial "diversity." Although the school board is now free to establish and support neighborhood schools, its members, instead, are preparing a "choice" plan that is estimated to cost $82 million, with the bulk of this going to pay for school buses and drivers. This new scheme, where parents get to choose their children's schools, is expected to be challenged whenever the "prescribed levels of diversity" are not achieved. So, the madness continues.

In Dayton, Ohio, in February, the school board voted to ask a federal judge to lift the "desegregation" order that the city schools have been under since 1976. Dayton is now the only city in Ohio that remains under court order. Citing the fact that the district is now 73% black, the board claimed that busing black children around town serves little purpose.

But, true to form, the president of Dayton's branch of the NAACP claims the organization will oppose lifting the order. It seems, however, that 25 years of forced busing folly have exasperated Dayton's weary citizens enough to oppose even the NAACP--and the desegregation order is expected to be lifted.

Again, in Florida, a 40-year-old desegregation case was heard by a three-judge panel of the federal Court of Appeals. The court must determine whether the Duval County school board has desegregated its schools as previously ordered. Although a federal district judge had ruled in 1999 that the district was, indeed, "unitary," and released the county from its desegregation order, the Jacksonville branch of the NAACP reared its head and appealed the ruling.

Of course, it's of no consequence that there are black parents who want a concentration on academics, not on cross-town busing and federal mandates. Jimmie Johnson, who is a black member of the Duval County board, claims that the local system needs stronger neighborhood schools and that, "All schools should offer the most rigorous and challenging curriculum . . . Everything else is secondary." But what is his wisdom against the clout of the NAACP?

In Wake County, North Carolina, black parents who recently learned that their children were to be bused to a distant school spoke out forcefully against the move, saying that their children were targeted because of their skin color. A church pastor complained that the children would be too scattered to be taught the meaning of community. However, to the usual call for racial balance, Wake County school officials have added "socioeconomic balance." This usually means giving middle class white children the chance to fraternize with poorer children. To this, the outspoken clergyman is reported as saying, "Apparently, there is a great deal of economic prosperity in north Raleigh. I'm really happy for them. But don't use our kids to balance out those schools because they don't have enough black kids."

And, finally, can anyone, except the most ardent insider, follow the case of the Rockford, Illinois, school system and its integration travails? The head spins when trying to sort out the significance of "remedial orders, tort taxes, curriculum management audit, motion for partial unitary status, controlled choice." All terminology that gives some idea of the phases undergone throughout 12 years of federal control of Rockford's schools. This control was virtually complete in that the federal judiciary regulated almost every aspect of school administration, and required the district to spend over $300 million. (Rockford citizens actually pay the highest property tax of any community in the United States.) Judicial control included student assignments, (e.g., individual classroom racial balancing), extra-curricular activities, discipline, curriculum and instruction, transportation, disposition and acquisition of facilities and equipment, and overseeing district boundaries.

There seemed to be no end to the burden of taxation and academic disruption until, on April 18, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals granted the Rockford school district "unitary status." The ruling ended 30 years of desegregation litigation, restoring the board's control over student assignment and other court-imposed programs.

The most surprising move was that of Judge Posner, who wrote the court's decision, and noted the heavy taxpayer burden the court order had imposed. He wrote that the lag in minority academic achievement in Rockford was not any greater than that found in similar districts "that have no history of racial discrimination."

Posner had strong words for the supporters of the status quo, who had attempted to shut off negative discussion or criticism of the federal decree that originally imposed the desegregation court order. He wrote: "The undemocratic implications of this position leaves us almost speechless. Are elected officials, the members of the school board . . . forbidden, under threat of never resuming control of the public school system they were elected to govern, to criticize a decree that in pursuit of an ambitious and possibly quixotic scheme of social engineering has imposed a formidable tax burden on the people who elected these officials?"

It's probably not necessary to relate that an appeal was immediately filed by the opponents of the Circuit Court's ruling. But on May 22, this appeal was denied, so the ruling of Judge Posner's court stands. The Rockford school board is once again in charge of the city's schools, although its official management will begin on June 30, 2002. The Rockford Register Star newspaper reports that the board is now holding special meetings for the public, to get input from citizens, "as it moves into an era free of federal court oversight."

To learn more about the status of busing and desegregation orders around the country, visit the website of the National Association for Neighborhood Schools (NANS)

To keep up with the various school choice options, see the Institute for Justice

Copyright 2001 Issues & Views