Case Name: James E. SWANN et al., Plaintiffs, v. CHARLOTTE-MECKLENBURG BOARD OF EDUCATION et al., Defendants
Court: United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1974-07-30
Citations: 379 F. Supp. 1102
Docket Number: Civ. No. 1974
Parties: James E. SWANN et al., Plaintiffs, v. CHARLOTTE-MECKLENBURG BOARD OF EDUCATION et al., Defendants.
Judges: 
Reporter: Federal Supplement
Volume: 379
Pages: 1102–1119

Head Matter:
James E. SWANN et al., Plaintiffs, v. CHARLOTTE-MECKLENBURG BOARD OF EDUCATION et al., Defendants.
Civ. No. 1974.
United States District Court, W. D. North Carolina, Charlotte Division.
July 30, 1974.
See also, D.C., 362 F.Supp. 1223, 4 Cir., 501 F.2d 383.
Julius L. Chambers, Chambers, Stein, Ferguson & Lanning, Charlotte, -N. C., for plaintiffs.
William W. Sturges, Weinstein, Sturges, Odom, Bigger & Jonas, Charlotte, N. C., for defendants.

Opinion:
ORDER
McMILLAN, District Judge.
Upon the express assumption and condition that the Board of Education will constructively implement and follow all of its new guidelines and policies (Exhibit A to this order), which were adopted by the Board on July 9, 1974, and filed with this court on July 10, 1974, and subject to the further conditions stated below, the court approves those guidelines and policies and the proposals for pupil assignment.
Adoption of these new guidelines and policies is understood as a clean break with the essentially "reluctant" attitude which dominated Board actions for many years. The new guidelines and policies appear to reflect a growing community realization that equal protection of laws in public education is the concern of private citizens and local officials and is not the private problem of courts, federal or otherwise. This court welcomes the new guidelines and policies and the new plan, and the declared intention of the new Board to carry them out. If implemented according to their stated principles, they will produce a "unitary" (whatever that is) school system.
This court cannot express too strongly its appreciation to Mrs. Margaret Ray and the Citizens Advisory Group for their unique and intelligent and determined efforts which presented to the Board and the community an acceptable consensus on methods to solve this constitutional issue — and to Assistant Superintendent Ed Sanders and his associates for their cheerful and skilled professional cooperation in devising and completing the proposal. To borrow an old Navy phrase, the work of the Citizens Advisory Group and the school staff in this connection has been "in the highest traditions" of public service.
The future depends upon the implementation of the new guidelines and policies. This approval is expressly contingent upon the implementation and carrying out of all the stated policies and guidelines. Here is the heart of the matter. Only if they are thus implemented is it likely that a fair and stable school operation will occur, and that the court can close the case.
The guidelines include undertakings to prepare and put into effect:
(I) Transfer policies and procedures for "the purpose of maintaining an integrated school system with a stabilized assignment program."
(II) Optional school assignment procedures to provide county-wide access to appropriately integrated optional schools, and to prevent significant jeopardy to the racial composition of other schools. [The future of optional schools as desirable educational experimentation and variety, and their legal future, are clouded by the failure thus far to provide transportation (which I understand is now being procured and which of course must be provided for such schools in the future); by the less-than-equal notification and opportunity for people from the entire county to enroll; and by the havoc which such schools, lately conceived, can wreak on an orderly pupil assignment program. "Freedom of choice" was a synonym for segregation for many years, and though a high ideal in theory, it should not be resurrected at this late date sub nom. "optional schools" without adequate safeguards against discriminatory results.]
(III) West Charlotte High School has been given a "home base," a new principal, and a group of students apparently well chosen from various areas. [It is understood and assumed that the white students who attended West Charlotte under the "lottery plan" in 1973-74 will be allowed to attend West Charlotte for 1974-75 with transportation provided.]
(IV) Hidden Valley school, in a recently integrated neighborhood, will be operated as a 1-6 neighborhood school, with a black population exceeding 50%. [This is viewed as a desirable experiment to encourage the neighborhood patrons to make a "go" of a desegregated "neighborhood" school, just as the people in rural North Carolina by the hundreds of thousands have done for many years. However, it must be carefully monitored; the school should not become racially identifiable; this experiment must not be a first step towards re-establishment of old policies which allowed schools to become identified as "black" whenever sizeable numbers of blacks moved into the school community.]
(V) , (VI) Distances of bus travel have been somewhat reduced; years of bussing for many children have been reduced; and the burdens of bussing have been more equally, though of course not perfectly, re-distributed.
(VII) Kindergartens and primary grades (grades 1-3 or 1-4) are promised in the immediate future for the black communities.
(X) Monitoring procedures to prevent adverse trends in racial make-up of schools are promised.
(XI) School location, construction and closing are to be planned to simplify rather than to complicate desegregation.
The policy recommendations adopted by the Board provide, under the heading "Transfer Policy and Procedure," that "explicit policies and procedures for the management of future reassignments of pupils, either in the interest of the school system or on request of pupils, need formulation and adoption. Such policies are to fulfill the purpose of maintaining an integrated school system with a stabilized assignment program." More explicitly, these policies will provide:
(a) That upon change of residence pupils "will be reassigned to the school serving the new residence provided that such reassignment does not contribute significantly to a racial ratio trend at either school involved.
(b) That pupils may be reassigned for other valid reasons such as health, home conditions or bona fide academic reasons, provided that the reassignment does not significantly and adversely affect desegregation.
(c) That the optional school enrollments will be controlled starting with 1974 so that they are open to all county residents and have about or above 20% black students.
(d) That guidelines and central monitoring by a pupil assignment staff will be set up for these purposes.
Racial discrimination begins with a mental process — the recognition of racial differences among human beings and the decision to treat them differently because of those differences. It is, in origin, an attitude or state of mind.
Its effects also start in the minds of those who are discriminated against.
Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954) talked, not about "SAT" performance, but about the mental and emotional impact which segregation has on school children:
"To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone." (Emphasis added.)
The attitude or state of mind at the top, among the Board of Education, is far more important than the physical details or logistics of pupil assignment. If that attitude or policy is negative or technical, the children know it and feel it; then "ratios" and "bussing" assume unwanted but unavoidable significance. On the other hand, if the top level attitude or policy is equal treatment for all, the word gets around; hackles fall; litigants and lawyers and courts get easier to please; and the details of pupil assignment become less controversial and more commonplace.
And the recurrent injury to the spirits and motivation of the children themselves — as well as the unrest among parents — can be alleviated.
Because of the obvious change in Board attitude, it will be assumed that the new Board has taken charge of desegregation in the schools and that they will read and follow and implement their own "book" — the guidelines and adopted policy recommendations. It will be assumed that the sizeable continuing problems yet remaining will be resolved by spontaneous action by staff or board, with input as needed from the Citizens Advisory Group and other community "ombudsmen."
Under the terms above described, the guidelines, policies and plan are approved. Except as modified herein, all previous orders of court remain in effect. Racial discrimination in the operation of the schools, including racial segregation, of course is still unlawful. Racially identifiable schools may not be operated. The case will be kept open for a time but presumably only for routine administrative matters. Defendants are requested to report about April 1, 1975, on operations for the current year. Plaintiffs will provide comments if any by May 1, 1975. Assuming and believing that no action by the court will then be required, I look forward with pleasure to closing the suit as an active matter of litigation shortly thereafter.
EXHIBIT "A"
INTRODUCTION
School assignment in this single system of racially integrated schools has been in process of achievement through the cooperative efforts of many elements in the community. At the present stage, the superintendent's staff and the Citizens Advisory Group leadership have pulled together elements of all assignment proposals in a search for the fairest, most stability — capable program that can be implemented and sustained within the restraints of existing conditions.
In arriving at the present proposal, mutual efforts have been made to establish fairness in the county-wide distribution of the burdens of long or long-term transportation to and from distant schools. There has been an effort toward selection of specific major deviations from the feeder-school concept, where such would aid in providing equalization of transportation burden, and toward the allocation of grades to schools on a basis that would give schools of each grade-level organization to all areas of the city and county.
The subsequent sections of this document present a numbered list of basic considerations that guided the effort, and then a corresponding series of actual policy outlines and assignment changes that the participants agreed would become a part of this proposal.
Basic Guidelines for this Proposal
I. Transfer policy and procedure. Explicit policies and procedures for the management of future reassignments of pupils, either in the interest of the school system or on request of pupils, need formulation and adoption. Such policies are to fulfull the purpose of maintaining an integrated school system with a stabilized assignment program.
II. Optional school reassignment policy. Explicit policies and procedures for the management of admissions to any optional schools need formulation and adoption. They must provide for countywide access to those schools as appropriately integrated schools, and prevent any significant jeopardy to the racial composition of any other school.
III. West Charlotte base assignment areas. The elementary school areas assigned to West Charlotte in both the Board and CAG plans are to form the base assignment area for that school. Other areas assigned to West Charlotte are to be selected so as to equalize the out-busing burden and provide a stability-capable enrollment for that school.
IV. Hidden Valley. In view of the unique history and effort of this neighborhood and school, and as a start toward an ultimate variation from the placing of all black students as a minority in all schools, it is proposed that Hidden Valley remain as a 1-6 school with its present (1973-74) boundaries, regardless of the resulting racial ratio.
V. Reduction of distance traveled. As many long-distance satellite arrangements as possible are to be eliminated. When necessary, a deviation from the feeder arrangement is to be made by assigning a satellite to a closer school for at least one school level of grades.
VI. Reduction and equalization of span of years out-bused. No children in a satellite or in any other area close to a school are to be so assigned that they are transported away from their home area for the full 12 years of school. Out-busing assignments are to be distributed as equally as is possible and practical.
VII. School organization of grades served. Where practical immediately, and where not, in the near future, schools serving primary grades (including the voluntary-attendance kindergartens) are to be located in every section of the system. In schools now paired, when possible, the fourth grade is to be moved from the primary school to the fifth and sixth grades school. In the future, the creation of any school seiwing fifth and sixth grades only is to be avoided; in the next new pairings, the primary grades are to be located in a black residential area. As kindergartens are phased in, priority is to be given, within the restraints of regulations, to the placing kindergartens in the schools on the west side of the county.
VIII. A base home territory for all schools. Adjustments and specific exceptions to the feeder sequence are to be effected to insure that each school serves its own immediate neighborhood unless there is compelling reason to do otherwise at a specific school.
IX. Boundary adjustments of certain elementary school areas that extend from the city limits toward the perimeter of the county: Effort is to be made to rearrange, as feasible, these narrow-shaped extensions of assignment areas that contain homes at great distance from the assigned schools though they are still in a contiguous part of that area.
X. Schools evidencing a trend of increasing black ratio: Monitoring procedures are to be so specified that assignment adjustments will be acted upon when trends of racial change are noted. These procedures are to be made specific with respect to degree of change and timing of remedial actions to be taken.
XI. Future Site Selection: School planning is not to be predicated on population growth trends alone; consideration is to be given to the influence new building can be toward simplification of an integrated pupil assignment plan. Buildings are to be built where they can readily serve both races.
When consideration is being given to the closing of any school, or its conversion to another program, the impact of such action on an integrated school system should be taken into account. The closing or conversion should not jeopardize the integrated status of the system.
Specific Proposals
Policy Development
I. Transfer Policy and Procedure
It is recommended that the board adopt a resolution asserting its policy to effect transfers and reassignments in such manner that an integrated school system will be maintained. The resolution could include instructions to the staff to formulate appropriate policies and guidelines to that end, to encourage the staff to solicit help from the CAG, and then to present them for adoption by the Board.
Pending further refinements, the following may serve both as a basis for discussion and a policy to be acted on temporarily:
A. No pupil assignments shall be changed during the school year except by specific action of the Board of Education.
B. The Board of Education will grant individual reassignment requests forwarded to it by the staff under the following conditions :
1. Change of residence: pupils will be reassigned to the school serving the new residence provided that such reassignment does not contribute significantly to a racial ratio trend at either school involved. (Guidelines can and will be developed to spell out a definition of "significantly".)
2. Reasons other than change of residence: pupils may be reassigned to the school requested provided that, after full investigation by the principals and staff members concerned:
a. the reassignment does not contribute significantly to a racial ratio trend or status at either school involved,
b. the functional capacity of the receiving school can accommodate the new student,
c. the reasons for reassignment are not related to athletic participation, and
d. there is demonstrable valid reason for the reassignment such as health, home conditions, or a bone-fide scheduling difficulty for a needed course of study.
C. The Board of Education shall review its pupil assignment program each third year, at which times changes may be effected to maintain full utilization of school capacities at appropriate ratios of racial integration. Boundary changes, realigned school pairings and satellite areas may be used to maintain the stability of the overall school assignment plan. To the extent possible, any necessary changes in assignment will be effected at grades of school-change through promotion.
II. Optional School Reassignment Policy.
Strict and central control must be exercised over all admissions (reassignments) to each optional school in order to fulfill the necessary ends that these schools be open to all county residents and be integrated by grade at or above approximately a 20% black ratio. Reassignments to optional schools must not jeopardize the racial composition of any other school.
Guidelines and central monitoring by the Pupil Assignment staff with the respective school principals are to be drawn up. Capacities and allocation of maximum numbers of students that may be drawn from each other school attendance area, by race, are to be designated. The actual enrollment of the optional school may have to be guided by its racial composition and by the number drawn from each other school area, not by considerations of space and program only.
Specific Proposals
Alterations of Assignments
III. West Charlotte
The following elementary attendance areas are proposed for the base area of West Charlotte attendance:
Tryon Hills Cotswold
Newell Oakhurst
Statesville Road
University Park including its increase by former satellite 25 Eastover including its increases from Myers Park Elementary Briarwood except its Dinglewood students who remain at Garinger
Exception: The Billingsville area students assigned to Cotswold and Oakhurst will remain assigned to East Mecklenburg.
IV. Hidden Valley
It is proposed that Hidden Valley continue to operate as a 1-6 school with its present boundary lines unchanged. High priority should be given to the early placement of kindergarten at that school, from this or next year's increases of kindergarten. For junior high school, % of Hidden Valley is to be assigned to Cochrane and % to Northeast-, all Hidden Valley is to be assigned to Myers Park for high school. (See M. below)
OTHER PROPOSED MODIFICATIONS:
In accomplishing the policy goals enumerated as V, VI and VII above, the following specific proposals are agreed to: A. Rama Road and First Ward. Rama Road having been released from its pairing with Hidden Valley by the above action, is eligible to re-enter its 1973-74 pairing arrangement with Lansdowne and First Ward. As this three-school pairing has had a successful operation, it is proposed that it be continued. Its reestablishment would allow Satellite 9A (Piedmont Court and surrounding area) to be eliminated since the three schools could now absorb that area. It is also proposed that the Cherry Street portion of the now existing Myers Park Elementary attendance area be added to the Lansdowne-First Ward pairing. A further change becomes possible and is recommended: that part of Rama Road attendance area lying East of the center of Monroe Road to be assigned to Idlewild. This change in turn allows a further proposed modification: Idlewild to give to Matthews that area south of and including Rice Road bounded on the southeast by Highway 51. (This change eliminates one of the longest bus routes: Idlewild sections to Lin- coin Heights). Lansdowne and Rama Road remain K-4 and First Ward 5-6. As enrollments permit the change, the fourth grade should be housed at First Ward making a K-3, 4-6 organization in the future.
B. Myers Park Elementary, as an optional school, is removed from the assignment plan. If dissolved as an attendance area, other schools must absorb its neighborhoods. Eastover, as a 1-6 school, had been designated to absorb part of that Myers Park area and not, as previously proposed, be paired with Wilmore.
It is therefore proposed that the Myers Park area give:
To Eastover: the area previously part of Myers Park Elementary that lies East of the center of Morehead and east of the center of Sharon; also, the area recently proposed to be moved from Elizabeth to Myers Park. This area is a triangle contiguous to Eastover's Southern Railway boundary extending to Independence Boulevard and Briar Creek (the creek itself).
To First Ward: The Cherry Street section located in the area generally bounded by Kings Drive, Third Street, and Queens Road.
To Dilworth: The previously Myers Park Elementary area west of the center of Morehead Street, Queens Road and Sharon Road as they form a line from Baldwin Street to Brandon Road.
With the above adjustment to Dilworth, it can give up a part of its assignment area to Wilmore — allowing Wilmore to continue as a 1-6 school rather than join a pairing as previously proposed for 1974-75. This area zoned from Dilworth to Wilmore is to be that area west of the center of Tremont Avenue and of Park Road. It is proposed that Dilworth also remain a 1-6 school.
Satellite 11B (Wilmore area 1973-74 plan) is to continue its assignment to Eastover and A. G. and then on to Myers Park Senior High School as an exception to the feeder plan.
C. Since Cotswold has been removed from the proposed pairing with Hidden Valley, it is to retain its present boundary and, as in previous years, to receive Satellite 9B from Center City. This satellite and the Billingsville community Cotswold students, as the past, are to proceed on to Randolph and to East as exceptions to the feeder plan. The Cotswold base area is to continue on to Randolph and then be assigned to West Charlotte for high school.
D. Oakhurst has also been removed from its proposed pairing arrangement with Hidden Valley. Its boundary line is to remain. Satellite 10, (Center City 1973-74) is to be reinstated as it was in 1973-74 and to continue on to Randolph and, as an exception to the feeder plan, to East, as are the Oakhurst students from the Billingsville community. The base area of Oakhurst is to proceed on to Randolph and then to West Charlotte.
E. Briarwood: Briarwood is to remain a 1-6 school with boundary lines as they pertained in 1973-74. The school is to be enlarged, however, by receiving Satellite 26 (Pitts Drive) which was previously assigned to Devonshire. Briar-wood area including Satellite 26 is to proceed on to Cochrane and West Charlotte.
Devonshire, having been removed from the proposed base of West Charlotte and having given up Satellite 26 to Briarwood, can now be paired as in the past with Double Oaks. Its boundary is to be restored to its 1973-74 area. Black students in the Barrington Oaks area (Satellite 27) are to be assigned to Clear Creek (Northeast and Independence.) The base area of Devonshire is to be assigned on to Cochrane and Garinger. The grade structure of Devon-shire is to be 1-3 and Double Oaks 4-6.
Hickory Grove has been taken out of the pairing with Double Oaks. It also has returned a part of its assignment area to Devonshire. The remaining area is to continue as in the 1974-75 Board proposal with a grade structure of 1-6. The Tryon Hills satellites scheduled to Huntersville and Statesville Road are to be accommodated at Hickory Grove, but return "home" at the junior high level to Williams.
F. Bain could, for the present time, keep its boundary as in the proposed 1974-75 plan. It is to continue to receive satellite S-18 (Midwood). However, students living in that satellite are to be assigned (as an exception) on the senior high level to Garinger rather than to Independence. This entry into Garinger is to be phased in starting with the 10th grade in 1974-75.
G. Albemarle Roach-Druid Hills are to keep their pairing arrangements and their proposed boundaries. However the grade structure is to be changed so that Albemarle Road will be a 1-3 and Druid Hills a 4-6 school.
H. Idlewildr-Lincoln Heights are to keep their pairing arrangement. Idle-wild attendance area is reduced by giving to Matthews that territory previously described (A). In addition, the grade structure of the two schools is to be Idlewild 1-3 and Lincoln Heights 4-6.
I. As Sharon is removed from the pairing arrangement with Wilmore, it now becomes a 1-6 school keeping satellite 7 (Raintree) and satellite 5 (Boulevard Homes-Little Rock Homes).
Since Satellite 5 can be accommodated at Sharon, it is proposed that Park Road continue its pairing with Marie Davis (along with Nations Ford) and that Park Road students, as in the past proceed on to Sedge field and Myers Park High as an exception to the feeder plan. (In the proposed adjustments, Park Road had been removed from that pairing.)
J. As Huntersville has given up Satellite S-l (Tryon Hills), it can now add from Long Creek one third of the area known as Trinity Park in and around map grid 191A. It is so proposed.
K. On the junior high level, Highland and Plaza Road are to be returned to Hawthorne (instead of to Williams as under the recently proposed plan). Hickory Grove, having been relieved from a pairing arrangement, is to be assigned along with the Tryon Hills Satellite to Williams and then on to Independence High School.
L. On the senior high level, satellite 25 (Oakdale) is to be removed from West Mecklenburg and assigned to West Charlotte. Satellites 4, 5, and 6 (Boulevard Homes-Little Rock) can then be assigned to West Mecklenburg as an exception to the feeder plan; it is so proposed.
M. In making the necessary adjustments to provide a broader base for West Charlottte, Meyers Park Senior High has lost all Eastover including its additions from Myers Park Elementary, and that part of Myers Park Elementary transferred to Dilworth. In the adjustment plan, Wilmore was proposed to be changed from Harding to Myers Park High School, and Dilworth was to go to Harding.
It is proposed that these assignments be negated; that Wilmore continue to Harding and the enlarged Dilworth area be assigned to Myers Park High School.
In addition, it is proposed that Hidden Valley be added to Myers Park. (See IV above)
N. The following additional changes are proposed:
1. The Billingsville area of Chantilly to be assigned to East Mecklenburg on the senior high level. This makes it possible for all of the Billingsville community to be assigned to one senior high school.
2. Matthews attendance area continue, as in the past, to East Mecklenburg rather than to South.
3. Sterling attendance area to be assigned to Smith Junior High and Olympic rather than to South.
4. The Rama Road area rezoned to Idlewild to be assigned as in the past, to McClintock and East Mecklenburg.
5. A "home base" area be established for Williams Junior High School. This base will be that area bounded by Newland Road, 1-77, 1-85, and Statesville Road.
(Specific guidelines to define "appropriate" can now, and at any future time, be spelled out.)