Opinion ID: 764702
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Modification of the Consent Decree

Text: 100 The district court found, and the majority agrees, that the irreconcilable conflict between the 15% requirement and Vision 21's parental choice assignment plan, both adopted in the Settlement Agreement and Consent Decree, represented a significant changed circumstance and, therefore, modification of the Consent Decree was proper. I disagree. First and foremost, the defendants did not demonstrate that there were significant changed and unforeseen circumstances justifying such a modification. See Rufo v. Inmates of Suffolk County, 502 U.S. 367, 384-88, 112 S.Ct. 748, 116 L.Ed.2d 867 (1992). Second, the proposed modification was not suitably tailored to the alleged changed circumstance. See id. at 391. As a result, the district court abused its discretion by modifying the Consent Decree when the legal standard for such a modification was not met. 101 As the majority explains, a party seeking modification of a consent decree must establish a significant change in the factual circumstances of the case that makes compliance with the consent decree substantially more onerous, shows a change in the law that renders the obligations placed upon the parties impermissible under federal law, or shows that the law has changed to make legal what the consent decree was designed to prevent. See id. at 384-88. Modification should not be granted, however, when a party relies upon events that actually were anticipated at the time it entered into such a decree. See id. at 386. 102 Here, any conflict between the 15% requirement and Vision 21's parental choice plan does not represent a significant change in circumstances justifying modification of the Consent Decree. The difficulty of balancing student populations in accordance with the 15% parameter while permitting parental choice was neither a new nor unforeseen circumstance. See id. at 385. Based on the implementation of parental choice during the 1993-94 school year, the parties were well aware that the application of parental choice significantly increased the number of schools that fell outside the 15% parameter; that year the number of schools not in compliance with the 15% requirement increased from between ten to fourteen to between forty-one to forty-nine out of one hundred and twenty-seven schools, depending on whose statistics one adopts. As Rufo advises, modification should not be granted when a party relies upon events that were actually anticipated at the time it entered into a consent decree. See id. at 386. Here, the defendants were certainly cognizant that parental choice would dramatically increase the number of racially identifiable schools. The plaintiffs, also anticipating this fact, refused to abandon the 15% parameter for precisely that reason. Because the difficulty of implementing both the parental choice plan and the 15% requirement was anticipated by the parties at the time of the negotiations that led to the Settlement Agreement and the Consent Decree, that difficulty cannot serve as a significant changed factual circumstance justifying modification. 8 103 Another glaring defect in the district court's decision is its failure to engage in any meaningful analysis of whether the proposed modification, elimination of the 15% requirement, was suitably tailored to address the so-called irreconcilable conflict between the requirement and Vision 21's parental choice student assignment plan. Once the party requesting modification has met its initial burden of establishing an unforeseen, changed circumstance, a court must then determine whether the proposed modification is suitably tailored to the changed circumstance. See id. at 391. In evaluating the appropriateness of the modification, the court must take into account three concerns. First, a proposed modification must not create or perpetuate a constitutional violation. See id. Second, a proposed modification should not strive to rewrite a consent decree so that it conforms to the constitutional floor, meaning that if the consent decree provides for more protection than the Constitution requires, courts should not approve modifications that seek to conform only to the bare minimum the Constitution requires. See id. Finally, courts should not inquire whether any of the provisions could have been successfully opposed. See id. It is the first consideration that renders the proposed modification in this case inappropriate. 104 Modification of the subject Consent Decree clearly perpetuates racially identifiable schools. Segregated schools are the ends and means of a policy of de jure segregation. See Freeman, 503 U.S. at 474 (noting that racial exclusion was both the means and ends of a policy motivated by disparagement of, or hostility toward, the black race). Racially identifiable schools are one of the primary vestiges or effects of state-sanctioned segregation. See Oklahoma City Public Schools v. Dowell, 498 U.S. 237, 262, 111 S.Ct. 630, 112 L.Ed.2d 715 (1991) (Marshall, J., dissenting). Therefore, the struggle for equality of schools involves not only an assurance that students receive the same educational resources, but that they do so in a racially integrated environment rather than in a racially isolated one. See Brown I, 347 U.S. at 495 (holding that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal). Black children are not only entitled to non-discriminatory treatment in the future, they also must receive what Brown II promised them: a school system in which all vestiges of enforced racial segregation have been eliminated. Wright v. Council of the City of Emporia, 407 U.S. 451, 463, 92 S.Ct. 2196, 33 L.Ed.2d 51 (1972). Accordingly, school districts are clearly charged with the affirmative duty to take whatever steps might be necessary to convert to a unitary system in which racial discrimination would be eliminated root and branch. Green, 391 U.S. at 437-38. 105 We need not speculate whether schools in Cleveland would become resegregated if the 15% requirement were eliminated and parental choice were adopted; there is ample evidence of that result. In 1995-96, when virtually unfettered parental choice was allowed, there were fifty-eight out of one hundred twenty-seven schools outside the 15% requirement. Therefore, elimination of the 15% requirement and the implementation of a choice plan that will lead to an increase in the number of racially identifiable schools, the primary vestige of a de jure school system, continues and perpetuates the unconstitutional condition of school segregation. See Rufo, 502 U.S. at 391. 106 Considering that the defendants have failed to demonstrate a significant changed circumstance justifying modification and that the proposed modification would perpetuate an unconstitutional condition, the district court's modification of the Consent Decree was improper. I therefore would reverse the district court's decision on this issue.