Opinion ID: 764702
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Supervision Required To Ensure Compliance In Other Areas

Text: 122 The district court concluded that continued supervision in the area of student assignments was not required to ensure compliance in other areas, such as faculty assignments and extracurricular activities. It does not appear that the district court clearly erred with regard to this factor. Thus, I accept that continued supervision over student assignments is not necessary to ensure compliance in other areas of the school system. 123 Nevertheless, the other two Freeman factors, full and satisfactory compliance in the area of student assignments and good faith, establish that the district court's withdrawal of its supervision was premature. The defendants plainly and simply have not demonstrated that they have eliminated segregation in that aspect of the school system to the extent practicable. Nor have they proven that the increase in racially identifiable schools was not caused by Cleveland Board of Education action. To the contrary, defendants' lack of good faith supports the inference that not only is the current resegregation attributable to their actions, but once they are not subject to judicial supervision, further resegregation is likely to occur. See Freeman, 503 U.S. at 499 (A finding of good faith ... reduces the possibility that a school system's compliance with court orders is but a temporary constitutional ritual.) (quoting Morgan v. Nucci, 831 F.2d 313, 321(1st. Cir.1987)). There was simply no legal or factual basis for the district court to declare partial unitary status in this case. 124 Though it is not necessary to do so for purposes of analysis pursuant to Freeman, I would be remiss if I did not address what seems to be a paramount concern of the district court and the majority: the length of time of court supervision of the Cleveland school district. It is true that the Supreme Court never contemplated perpetual judicial oversight of former de jure segregated school districts. However, the Constitution requires that the job of school desegregation be fully completed and maintained so that the harm identified in Brown does not recur upon lifting the decree. The Cleveland Board of Education's history of unflagging defiance and its implementation of a plan that is rapidly returning the school district to a state of segregation suggests that lifting the decree is premature at this point. The Constitution has imposed on school districts an unconditional duty to eliminate any condition that perpetuates the message of racial inferiority inherent in the policy of state-sponsored segregation. Dowell, 498 U.S. at 268 (Marshall, J., dissenting). Courts should be hesitant to terminate court supervision prior to fulfillment of this duty merely because litigation has gone on for a long time. The focus should not be on the length of the court's supervision, but on the factors and circumstances that make such lengthy supervision necessary. As Justice Blackmun noted: [A]n integrated school system is no less desirable because it is difficult to achieve, and it is no less a constitutional imperative because that imperative has gone unmet for [decades]. Freeman, 503 U.S. at 518. 125 In Cleveland, this litigation has stretched nearly three decades not because of insuperable difficulties of implementing the commands of the Supreme Court and the Constitution, but because of the unpardonable recalcitrance of the defendants. This court should not affirm termination of supervision simply because the defendants have delayed compliance or because they claim, without offering proof, that they are not responsible for the increasing number of racially identifiable schools. 126 Desegregation is not an easy task. Nonetheless, neither the difficulty in achieving desegregation nor the length of time it takes can take precedence over the constitutional guarantee of equal justice. For all these reasons, I dissent from the majority's decision to affirm the district court's declaration of partial unitary status and its withdrawal of supervision over student assignments.