Opinion ID: 324656
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Permissive Student Options

Text: 28 Superimposed on this Byzantine system was the option for individual students to enroll in schools to which they would not normally be assigned. The concept originated in 1961, the hope then being that integration would be advanced. In the years following, however, it became clear that the Committee would resist every suggestion that these options be restricted to those which would contribute to racial balance and would encourage the use of these options to foster segregation in Boston schools. Defendants attempt to make here a variation of the argument they have clung to throughout this case. They say that they instituted open enrollment for integrative purposes--and that is where the court's exploration should end. The good motive at the outset sanitizes, they argue, all the consequences of their activity, any subsequently developed motivation or acquired knowledge, and all subsequent actions consciously promoting segregation. The rest was mere inaction. We, like the district court, find little to recommend that argument on the facts presented. 29 We start with a short history of the open enrollment policy. Soon after it was adopted in 1961 it became apparent that whatever the original motivation had been, white students were using the transfers to escape from schools where there were high concentrations of minority students. From 1966 to 1971 there was an intense but unsuccessful effort on the part of the state, acting under the Massachusetts Racial Imbalance Act, the compel a limitation on transfers. The defendants were intransigent. In 1971, in order to achieve the release of state funds withheld because of violation of the law, defendants finally agreed to prohibit transfers which would increase imbalance as defined by the act. The court below paid special attention to this chapter of the School Committee's history, finding it illuminative of the reasons for the actions taken. 30 In 1966, for a ten day period, the School Committee amended the open enrollment policy to prohibit transfers aggravating racial imbalance. This action was taken in light of the withholding of state funds and rejection of the defendants' 1965 racial imbalance plan. When the state Board did not revoke its disapproval of the plans, in the wake of the limitation on transfers, the Committee met and acted. It rescinded the limitation. No change in the underlying segregative policy of open enrollment was made during the remainder of this period. The purpose was clear and can be readily grasped from the words of the chairman of the Committee as late as 1970 when the issues of limiting transfers was again raised: 31 'Of course the thing that would have everyone deeply concerned would be again a school like the Lewenberg which starts to become evenly balanced or has become so and the white youngsters start to apply under open enrollment to move out, and under this they would be pretty much chained to their seats. They wouldn't be allowed to move.' 32 Further support for segregative intent is gleaned from a staff memorandum dated July 9, 1971 which described open enrollment as 'parental choice as to school attendance, historically granted to families in changing neighborhoods.' The words of the Committee members and papers confirm the district court's judgment that open enrollment had become 'a device for separating the races and contributed significantly to the establishment of a dual school system.' 379 F.Supp. at 453. 33 The 'controlled transfer policy', adopted in 1971, supposedly ended open enrollment. The district court, however, found the new policy honeycombed with exceptions--a grandfather clause, a grandfather-plus clause covering those who had merely applied for transfers, a grandfather-plus-plus clause covering younger brothers and sisters of a transferee, transfers within a multi-school district, and an open-ended hardship clause, which amounted to an 'escape clause' or 'big out', available for racial reasons. 34 The district court drew the conclusion that 'open enrollment and controlled transfer policies were managed . . . with the singular intention to discriminate on the basis of race.' 379 F.Supp. at 455. We see no basis for challenging this finding.