Opinion ID: 324656
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the basic challenge: the standard of judgment

Text: 9 Defendants do not challenge the findings below as to the extent of racial segregation in Boston's schools. Nor do they, in the main, challenge findings as to what they have done or not done. Their position is that the present segregation is not a product of their intent, but is 'due to factors over which the city defendants have had and have no control, or is due to the policy of providing neighborhood schools, a policy which long predated any segregation now complained of, which city defendants claimed was constitutionally permissible.' 7 Defendants view the proof as establishing only that 'the city defendants were faced with a school system in which considerable de facto segregation existed, and continued to operate that school system without taking affirmative action to counteract that de facto segregation.' Throughout their brief and argument, they characterize their conduct as 'mere inaction' or 'mere failure to take affirmative action'. 10 We note, but leave for later discussion, the fact that the district court made a number of findings based on the initiation of new actions and policies which could hardly be termed 'mere inaction', e.g., feeder patterns, open enrollment and controlled transfer policies. Thus the district court's findings of intentional discrimination have support quite apart from the evidence of inaction. To some extent, however, the district court, as in its treatment of defendants' approach to redistricting, did place emphasis on the Committee's rejection of all proposals to redistrict when the failure to do so would predictably increase or perpetuate segregation. 11 We therefore deal with defendants' basic contention that school authorities in a northern city which has never had a statutory dual school system cannot be found to have violated the constitution unless they have taken affirmative acts which have brought about segregation in the schools. We have carefully considered this argument, since it is the one put forth most vigorously in this appeal, and have found it to be without support. The controlling test is that propounded in Keyes, where the relevant inquiry is described as an effort to determine whether the authorities' 'policies and practices . . . were . . . taken in effectuation of a policy to create or maintain segregation.' 413 U.S. at 213--214, 93 S.Ct. at 2700. See also413 U.S. at 198, 93 S.Ct. at 2692 ('brought about or maintained by intentional state action'); at 211, 93 S.Ct. at 2699 ('create or contribute to the current segregated condition'); at 214, 93 S.Ct. at 2700 ('policy to create or maintain segregation'). 8 That is, Keyes does not merely speak to those activities which cause or bring about segregation, but proscribes as well efforts to maintain segregation which may in the first instance be attributable to outside forces. And neither Keyes, which speaks in terms of 'policies and practices', nor the cases which went before it support the suggestion that official policies and decisions which do not call for affirmative actions may not be considered by a court when it determines whether segregation has been intentionally promoted or maintained. 'Every act of a school board and school administration, and indeed every failure to act where affirmative action is indicated, must now be subject to scrutiny.' Keyes, 413 U.S. at 234, 93 S.Ct. at 2710 (Powell, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); id. at 230, 93 S.Ct. at 2708 (the Court 'searches for de jure action in what the Denver School Board has done or failed to do') (Powell, J.). 12 Not only is it inconceivable that the repeated rejection of proposals which would promote desegregation could not properly be considered by a court as evidence of an intent to create or maintain segregation, but there can be no doubt that defendants' failures to act are probative evidence of intent when it is remembered that they labored under the specific legal obligations imposed by the Massachusetts Racial Imbalance Act. 'Plainly, where public issues are framed and questions posed which bear directly on the quality of education, a deliberate negative response from school authorities or a deliberate omission to act, can affect the shape of subsequent circumstances just as materially as can affirmative decisions and action. State responsibility under the United States Constitution must logically be and is fixed in either context.' Oliver v. Kalamazoo Bd. of Educ., 368 F.Supp. 143, 178 (W.D.Mich.1973), aff'd sub nom. Oliver v. Michigan State Bd. of Educ., 508 F.2d 178 (6th Cir. 1974); Kelly v. Guinn, 456 F.2d 100 (9th Cir. 1972) (school district had continued a neighborhood school policy at the elementary level); Spangler v. Pasadena City Bd. of Educ., 311 F.Supp. 501 (C.D.Cal.1970). 13 If the school administrators of a community were allowed so to deal with a changing school population that the old segregative profile would not only persist but be sharpened, there would be little hope for desegregation anywhere. In short, when administrators face the problems of managing a dynamic system, they seldom have the luxury of 'mere inaction'. Every decision to act for racial balance or to fight it has consequences. 9 Thus we think the district court, in determining segregative intent, could properly take account of School Committee decisions not to act as well as its decisions to act affirmatively. 14