Opinion ID: 435100
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Need to Prove Segregative Intent.

Text: 9 The Board admits that it has maintained ethnically imbalanced schools and has omitted courses of action that would have reduced that imbalance. Plaintiffs presented overwhelming evidence that the Board's actions knowingly perpetuated ethnic imbalance in the schools. Diaz III, 518 F.Supp. at 642. Nonetheless, de facto segregation in the schools does not, without more, prove a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The plaintiffs must prove not only that the defendants' actions created or maintained racial or ethnic imbalance in the schools, but also that those actions were motivated by segregative intent. See Keyes v. School District No. 1, 413 U.S. 189, 208, 93 S.Ct. 2686, 2697, 37 L.Ed.2d 548 (1973); Diaz I, 412 F.Supp. at 328-29. 10 Ordinarily, only circumstantial evidence is available to establish segregative intent. Evidence of the discriminatory impact of decisions is one sort of circumstantial evidence supporting an inference of segregative intent. 11 The impact of the official action--whether it bears more heavily on one race than another ...--may provide an important starting point. Sometimes a clear pattern, unexplainable on grounds other than race, emerges from the effect of the state action even when the governing legislation appears neutral on its face. 12 Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 266, 97 S.Ct. 555, 564, 50 L.Ed.2d 450 (1977). Proof that the segregative effects of a decision were foreseeable is not to be taken, as a general proposition, to make out a prima facie case of segregative intent, nor does it routinely shift the burden of persuasion to the defendants. See Dayton Board of Education v. Brinkman, 443 U.S. 526, 536 n. 9, 99 S.Ct. 2971, 2978 n. 9, 61 L.Ed.2d 720 (1979) (Dayton ). Nonetheless, proof of foreseeable consequences is one type of quite relevant evidence of racially discriminatory purpose.... Id. See also Columbus Board of Education v. Penick, 443 U.S. 449, 464-65, 99 S.Ct. 2941, 2949-50, 61 L.Ed.2d 666 (1979) (Columbus ). 1 Other circumstantial evidence relevant to the proof of segregative intent includes the historical background and specific sequence of events leading up to the Board's actions maintaining or exacerbating ethnic imbalance in district schools. See Arlington Heights, 429 U.S. at 267-68, 97 S.Ct. at 564-65. We will focus our review on these latter aspects of the proof, for the defendants concede that they knowingly perpetuated segregation. 13