Opinion ID: 1175930
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: (1a) As declared in Jackson v. Pasadena City School Dist ., California school boards bear a constitutional obligation to take reasonably feasible steps to alleviate school segregation, whether such segregation is de jure or de facto in nature.

Text: As noted above, the defendant school board generally concedes that its district's schools are, in fact, substantially segregated, and that it has not prepared or implemented any general plan to attempt to alleviate such segregation. The board contends, however, that the segregation in its schools is de facto in origin, and therefore, that it bears no constitutional obligation to take any steps to attempt to alleviate the concededly racially and ethnically segregated status of its schools. In this regard, the school board relies heavily upon several recent decisions of the United States Supreme Court, which it contends establish that school districts have no constitutional duty to remedy de facto school segregation. As we read these recent federal cases, the issue as to whether school districts have an obligation under the federal Constitution to avoid the perpetuation of purely de facto school segregation remains an open question. [4] In focusing primarily on these federal decisions, however, defendant ignores a significant line of California decisions, decisions which authoritatively establish that in this state school boards do bear a constitutional obligation to take reasonable steps to alleviate segregation in the public schools, whether the segregation be de facto or de jure in origin. Jackson v. Pasadena City School Dist., supra, 59 Cal.2d 876 is, of course, the seminal decision in this line of cases. In Jackson, a minority student instituted an action against the Pasadena school district alleging that the board had gerrymandered one of its high school boundary attendance zones to perpetuate the largely segregated character of the school's student body. After finding that such intentional discrimination was unquestionably unconstitutional, Chief Justice Gibson, writing for a unanimous court, went on to make clear that the constitutional obligations of school boards in this state entail more than simply the avoidance of such intentionally invidious conduct. Our decision in Jackson declared: Although it is alleged that the board was guilty of intentional discriminatory action, it should be pointed out that even in the absence of gerrymandering or other affirmative discriminatory conduct by a school board, a student under some circumstances would be entitled to relief where, by reason of residential segregation, substantial racial imbalance exists in his school. So long as large numbers of Negroes live in segregated areas, school authorities will be confronted with difficult problems in providing Negro children with the kind of education they are entitled to have. Residential segregation is in itself an evil which tends to frustrate the youth in the area and to cause antisocial attitudes and behavior. Where such segregation exists it is not enough for a school board to refrain from affirmative discriminatory conduct. The harmful influence on the children will be reflected and intensified in the classroom if school attendance is determined on a geographic basis without corrective measures. The right to an equal opportunity for education and the harmful consequences of segregation require that school boards take steps, insofar as reasonably feasible, to alleviate racial imbalance in schools regardless of its cause. (Italics added.) (59 Cal.2d at p. 881.) Although this language as to a California school board's obligation with respect to de facto segregation could hardly be clearer, defendant attempts to avoid the mandate of this passage by characterizing the quoted portion of the decision as mere dictum. While in a technical sense the foregoing passage may not have been strictly necessary to the judgment in Jackson, a subsequent line of decisions of this court demonstrate beyond dispute that the principles articulated by Chief Justice Gibson in Jackson have been accepted as established constitutional law in this state. In Mulkey v. Reitman (1966) 64 Cal.2d 529, 537 [50 Cal. Rptr. 881, 413 P.2d 825], for example, we described the Jackson holding in the following terms: [I]n Jackson v. Pasadena City School Dist., supra , ... the state, because it had undertaken through school districts to provide educational facilities to the youth of the state, was required to do so in a manner which avoided segregation and unreasonable racial imbalance in its schools. Subsequently, in San Francisco Unified School Dist. v. Johnson (1971) 3 Cal.3d 937, 957-958 [92 Cal. Rptr. 309, 479 P.2d 669] (hereinafter Johnson ), we spoke to Jackson's treatment of the de jure-de facto distinction even more directly, stating: We recognize that the courts of other jurisdictions have reached differing decisions as to whether school boards bear an affirmative duty to eliminate de facto segregation. This court, in Jackson v. Pasadena City School Dist . ..., however, took a position squarely in favor of enforcing an affirmative duty to eradicate school segregation regardless of its cause. (Fn. omitted.) Finally, in analyzing an argument seeking to justify de facto wealth discrimination in the public school system in Serrano v. Priest (1971) 5 Cal.3d 584, 603 [96 Cal. Rptr. 601, 487 P.2d 1241, 41 A.L.R.3d 1187], we explained: [S]uch discrimination cannot be justified by analogy to de facto racial segregation. Although the United States Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the constitutionality of de facto racial segregation, this court eight years ago held such segregation invalid, and declared that school boards should take affirmative steps to alleviate racial imbalance, however created. [Citing Jackson. ] Consequently, any discrimination based on wealth can hardly be vindicated by reference to de facto racial segregation, which we have already condemned. As these decisions demonstrate, since Jackson this court has consistently reiterated the principle that the constitutional obligations of school boards in California include an obligation to undertake reasonably feasible steps to alleviate school segregation, regardless of its cause. Contrary to defendant's contention, nothing in this court's recent decision in Santa Barbara Sch. Dist. v. Superior Court (1975) 13 Cal.3d 315 [118 Cal. Rptr. 637, 530 P.2d 605] (hereinafter Santa Barbara ) can properly be interpreted as either a retreat from, or repudiation of, the Jackson decision. In Santa Barbara we considered, inter alia, the constitutionality of an initiative provision which purported (1) to prohibit all busing to attain racial integration, and (2) to repeal several statutory and administrative provisions which required school districts to achieve specific racial balance quotas in their schools. We held initially that the prohibition of busing was unconstitutional as applied either to de jure or de facto segregated school districts, explicitly reaffirming our earlier decision in San Francisco Unified School Dist. v. Johnson, supra, 3 Cal.3d 937. At the same time, however, we upheld the validity of the second half of the initiative, emphasizing that insofar as the specific statutory racial balance quotas were not constitutionally mandated, they were subject to repeal. Although defendant argues that this latter holding conflicts with Jackson, that conclusion cannot stand. In Jackson we held that local school boards have an affirmative obligation to take reasonably feasible steps to alleviate school segregation, whatever its cause; in Santa Barbara we simply held that insofar as specific racial percentages were not constitutionally compelled, such quotas could be repealed. Indeed, in Santa Barbara we were careful to emphasize explicitly that our decision upholding the repeal of the specific racial balance quotas would in no way limit or affect the constitutional obligations of school districts.... (13 Cal.3d at p. 330.) [5] Thus, as we have seen, for more than a decade this court has adhered to the position that school boards in this state bear a constitutional obligation to attempt to alleviate school segregation, regardless of its cause. Although defendant urges our court, at this late date, to abandon this constitutional interpretation, we remain convinced of the soundness of our prior decisions, both as to the principle itself and as to the practical consequences that would follow if our court were now to embrace defendant's suggested de facto-de jure distinction. (2) To begin with, wherever the origins or causes of school segregation may lie, we do not doubt that, under traditional constitutional doctrine, local school boards are so significantly involved in the control, maintenance and ongoing supervision of their school systems as to render any existing school segregation state action under our state constitutional equal protection clause. In California, school boards possess plenary authority to determine school assignment policies; to establish and reestablish geographic attendance zones; to determine where new schools will be built, what their size will be and what neighborhood they will serve; to create or eliminate transfer options between schools; and to establish specialized programs that may attract particular students to particular schools. Given the school board's pervasive control over and continuing responsibility for both the daily decisions and the long range plans which in fact determine the racial and ethnic attendance pattern of its district's schools, past authorities demonstrate that the state cannot escape constitutional responsibility for the segregated condition of the public schools. (See, e.g., Santa Barbara, supra, 13 Cal.3d 315, 329; Johnson, supra, 3 Cal.3d 937, 951-952; Jackson, supra, 59 Cal.2d 876, 879; accord Adams v. Department of Motor Vehicles (1974) 11 Cal.3d 146, 152-153 [113 Cal. Rptr. 145, 520 P.2d 961, 64 A.L.R.3d 803]; United States v. Texas Education Agency (5th Cir.1972) 467 F.2d 848, 863-864; cf. Burton v. Wilmington Pkg. Auth. (1961) 365 U.S. 715, 722-725 [6 L.Ed.2d 45, 50-52, 81 S.Ct. 856].) [6] Moreover, although a school board's establishment of and adherence to a neighborhood school policy may on its face represent the implementation of a neutral, constitutionally permissible classification scheme, the effect of such state action has invariably been to inflict a racially specific harm on minority students when such a policy actually results in segregated education. In Brown v. Board of Education (1954) 347 U.S. 483, 493 [98 L.Ed. 873, 880, 74 S.Ct. 686, 38 A.L.R.2d 1180], the United States Supreme Court framed the crucial question before it in the following terms: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other `tangible' factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? The court's answer: We believe that it does. ( Id. ) The decision in Brown was, of course, rendered in the context of an explicit state policy requiring racial segregation in schools. As this court discussed at some length in San Francisco Unified School Dist. v. Johnson, supra, 3 Cal.3d 937, 949-950, however, the Brown court's conclusion that [s]eparate educational facilities are inherently unequal (347 U.S. at p. 495 [98 L.Ed. at p. 881]) has traditionally been true of de facto segregated schools as well as de jure segregated schools. In Johnson we quoted at length from a comprehensive study by the United States Commission on Civil Rights [7] and noted that the findings of the commission as to the harm inflicted on minority children do not, of course, turn on whether the segregation is of de facto or de jure character; it is the presence of racial isolation, not its legal underpinnings, that creates unequal education. (Italics added.) (3 Cal.3d at p. 949.) As the commission staff itself concluded: The central truth which emerges from this report and from all of the Commission's investigations is simply this: Negro children suffer serious harm when their education takes place in public schools which are racially segregated, whatever the source of such segregation may be.... (U.S. Com. on Civ. Rights, Racial Isolation in the Public Schools (1967) p. 193.) The harms traditionally inflicted on minority children by school segregation do not, of course, relate solely to objective measures of academic achievement. Although from the existing evidence it appears that, by and large, the maintenance of segregated education probably does disproportionately impede the achievement of minority students vis-a-vis majority students, [8] the detriments traditionally identified with segregated education rest in significant part outside of the academic sphere. In both Brown and in numerous pre- Brown decisions, the United States Supreme Court emphasized the less measurable psychological and sociological burdens traditionally imposed on minority children when the public schools afford them education only in an isolated setting, apart from students who make up a majority of the nation's population. In rejecting an attempt by the State of Texas to justify the maintenance of racially segregated law schools on the basis of the separate but equal doctrine in Sweatt v. Painter (1950) 339 U.S. 629, 634 [94 L.Ed. 1114, 1119, 70 S.Ct. 848], for example, the Supreme Court observed that [t]he law school, the proving ground for legal learning and practice, cannot be effective in isolation from the individuals and institutions with which the law interacts.... The law school to which Texas is willing to admit petitioner excludes from its student body members of the racial groups which number 85 percent of the population of the State and include most of the lawyers, witnesses, jurors, judges and other officials with whom petitioner will inevitably be dealing when he becomes a member of the Texas Bar. With such a substantial and significant segment of society excluded, we cannot conclude that the education offered petitioner is substantially equal to that which he would receive if admitted to the University of Texas Law School. (See also McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents (1950) 339 U.S. 637 [94 L.Ed. 1149, 70 S.Ct. 851].) A similar observation could be made as to the Los Angeles public school system. (3) In light of the detrimental consequences that segregated schools have traditionally imposed on minority children, and a school board's plenary authority over the governance of its schools, a school board in this state is not constitutionally free to adopt any facially neutral policy it chooses, oblivious to such policy's actual differential impact on the minority children in its schools. As recent California decisions concerning the constitutional obligations of state officials have held, public officials in some circumstances bear an affirmative obligation to design programs or frame policies so as to avoid discriminatory results. Thus, in defining the duties of officials in compiling jury lists and selecting jury panels, in People v. Superior Court (Dean) (1974) 38 Cal. App.3d 966, 972 [113 Cal. Rptr. 732], for example, the Court of Appeal cautioned that: [O]fficial compilers of jury lists may drift into discrimination by not taking affirmative action to prevent it. In formulating a panel for a grand jury endowed with the criminal indictment function, officials must adhere to a standard more stringent than mere abstension from intentional discrimination; they have an affirmative duty to develop and pursue procedures aimed at achieving a fair cross-section of the community. (Italics added.) (See also People v. Spears (1975) 48 Cal. App.3d 397, 402 [122 Cal. Rptr. 93]; accord Avery v. Georgia (1953) 345 U.S. 559, 561 [97 L.Ed. 1244, 1247, 73 S.Ct. 891]; Smith v. Texas (1940) 311 U.S. 128, 132 [85 L.Ed. 84, 87, 61 S.Ct. 164].) (4) Finally, the importance of adopting and implementing policies which avoid racially specific harm to minority groups takes on special constitutional significance with respect to the field of education, because, at least in this state, education has been explicitly recognized for equal protection purposes as a fundamental interest. (See Serrano v. Priest, supra, 5 Cal.3d 584, 604-610; cf. San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez (1973) 411 U.S. 1 [36 L.Ed.2d 16, 93 S.Ct. 1278].) Indeed, as we emphasized in Serrano, the fundamental nature of the right to an equal education derives in large part from the crucial role that education plays in preserving an individual's opportunity to compete successfully in the economic marketplace, despite a disadvantaged background.... [T]he public schools of this state are the bright hope for entry of the poor and oppressed into the mainstream of American society. (5 Cal.3d at p. 609.) (1b) Given the fundamental importance of education, particularly to minority children, and the distinctive racial harm traditionally inflicted by segregated education, a school board bears an obligation, under article I, section 7, subdivision (a) of the California Constitution, mandating the equal protection of the laws, to attempt to alleviate segregated education and its harmful consequences, even if such segregation results from the application of a facially neutral state policy. (See Serrano v. Priest, supra, 5 Cal.3d at pp. 602-603; cf. In re Antazo (1970) 3 Cal.3d 100 [89 Cal. Rptr. 255, 473 P.2d 999]; Gould v. Grubb (1975) 14 Cal.3d 661, 674-675 [122 Cal. Rptr. 377, 536 P.2d 1337].) Moreover, Jackson's conclusion that school boards in this state must take steps to alleviate school segregation, however caused, is not only required by application of state equal protection principles, but, in addition, by consideration of the deleterious practical consequences that would inevitably flow from our adoption of the de jure-de facto distinction. As we explain, the practical difficulties stem from a number of considerations. We begin with the difficulties that would be encountered in attempting to distinguish de facto from de jure segregated schools. Initially we confront the problem of definition for, as we observed in our Johnson and Santa Barbara decisions, [t]he courts have not drawn a clear distinction between de facto and de jure segregation. (3 Cal.3d at p. 956; 13 Cal.3d at p. 325.) Although recent decisions have defined de jure segregation as a current condition of segregation resulting from intentional state action, ( Keyes, supra, 413 U.S. at p. 205 [37 L.Ed.2d at pp. 561-562]), disputes continue to persist as to whether the intent of a school board is to be judged on the basis of the objective effects of its actions or the basis of the subjective motives of its members. [9] More significantly, even if it were possible to arrive at a definition distinguishing de jure from de facto segregation, the factual inquiries which would inevitably arise in the judicial application of such a definition would be unending. As Justice Powell has pointed out, if significant constitutional consequences are to turn on whether school segregation is de jure or de facto [e]very act of a school board and school administration, and indeed every failure to act where affirmative action is indicated, must ... be subject[ed] to scrutiny. The most routine decisions with respect to the operation of schools, made almost daily, can affect in varying degrees the extent to which schools are initially segregated, remain in that condition, are desegregated, or  for the long term future  are likely to be one or the other. These decisions include action or nonaction with respect to school building construction and location; the timing of building new schools and their size; the closing and consolidation of schools; the drawing or gerrymandering of student attendance zones; the extent to which a neighborhood policy is enforced; the recruitment, promotion and assignment of faculty and supervisory personnel; policies with respect to transfers from one school to another; whether, and to what extent, special schools will be provided, where they will be located, and who will qualify to attend them; the determination of curriculum, including whether there will be `tracks' that lead primarily to college or to vocational training, and the routing of students into these tracks; and even decisions as to social, recreational and athletic policies. ( Keyes, supra, 413 U.S. at pp. 234-235 [37 L.Ed.2d at p. 578] (Powell, J., concurring).) Further, the difficulty of the judicial task is exacerbated by the fact that the judicial scrutiny cannot be confined to [school board] actions in the immediate present ... [but must encompass] the full history of acts by the school authorities.... ( Santa Barbara, supra, 13 Cal.3d at pp. 326-327; see Keyes, supra, 413 U.S. at pp. 210-211 [37 L.Ed.2d at pp. 564-565].) As we observed in Johnson: The weighing of the motive and effect of board decisions stretching back for many years to arrive at a net determination of the de facto or de jure character of the present structure presents a highly difficult and possibly insoluble task. (3 Cal.3d at p. 957.) Moreover, the difficulty of categorizing districts as de facto or de jure is aggravated by the fact that actions of state entities other than school boards must also be scrutinized to determine whether such conduct has significantly contributed to racially segregated residential patterns. In many instances, for example, such residential patterns may be in part the product of unconstitutional enforcement of restrictive racial covenants ( Johnson, supra, 3 Cal.3d at p. 956); in other instances, segregated housing patterns may be linked to a long-standing policy of the Federal Housing Administration which discouraged the development of mixed, i.e., integrated, neighborhoods out of fear that such neighborhoods were economically unstable. (See 1938, FHA Underwriting Manual, § 980(3)(g).) [10] Finally, the identification of de jure segregation would require an examination of the workings of the private housing market as well, for if minorities have been deprived of the opportunity to move into certain neighborhoods by private acts of discrimination, a school board's adoption and retention of a rigid neighborhood school policy would impermissibly grant to private individuals the power to exclude minority children from certain public schools simply by refusing to sell or rent homes to their families. (See Goodman, De Facto School Segregation: A Constitutional and Empirical Analysis (1972) 60 Cal.L.Rev. 275, 320-326.) As we explicitly declared in a similar context in Johnson : A system that bestows governmental force upon a private decision to impose racial discrimination cannot stand. (3 Cal.3d at p. 953.) Indeed, in light of a local school board's comprehensive control over the operation of its school district and the widespread role both public and private acts of discrimination have played in contributing to much of the current residential segregation (see Farley, Residential Segregation and Its Implications for School Integration (1975) 39 Law & Contemp. Prob. 164; Taeuber, Demographic Perspectives on Housing and School Segregation (1975) 21 Wayne L.Rev. 833), some jurists and commentators plausibly maintain that if sufficient scrutiny were applied to any school district exhibiting substantial segregation, some form of de jure segregation would be found. (See, e.g., Keyes, supra, 413 U.S. at pp. 252-253 [37 L.Ed.2d at pp. 588-589] (Powell, J., concurring); Karst & Horowitz, Emerging Nationwide Standards for School Desegregation  Charlotte and Mobile, 1971 (1971) 1 Black L.J. 206, 218; Dimond, Segregation, Northern Style (1971) 9 Inequality in Ed. 17, 22-23.) And even if some segregated districts were, after a searching and complicated inquiry, classified de facto, such categorization would frequently be inconsistent with other judicial determinations on similar facts, for as Justice Powell has suggested, wide and unpredictable differences of opinion among judges would be inevitable when dealing with an issue as slippery as `intent' or `purpose,' especially when related to hundreds of decisions made by school authorities under varying conditions over many years. ( Keyes, supra, 413 U.S. at p. 233 [37 L.Ed.2d at p. 577] (Powell, J., concurring).) Moreover, assuming it were possible for the courts confidently and consistently to distinguish de jure and de facto segregated school systems, the litigative task involved in such an effort would be an enormous one, imposing tremendous burdens on representatives of minorities, on school boards and on the courts. Such a protracted litigative process would, as it has in the past, inevitably delay the desegregation of public schools throughout California for years to come. In both our Johnson and Santa Barbara decisions, we pointed out that because of the difficulty in distinguishing de facto from de jure segregation, any ruling preserving these two categories would inhibit and delay school boards in their efforts to bring about full equality of educational opportunity. ( Johnson, supra, 3 Cal.3d at p. 957.) As we explained in Santa Barbara : [In view of] the `dilatory tactics of many school authorities' [in the past], ... it is all too clear to us that the elimination of de jure segregation would be seriously impeded if school authorities could [justify their refusal to take any reasonably feasible steps to alleviate racial segregation] merely by asserting that the segregation in their district was de facto in origin. (13 Cal.3d at p. 327.) Thus, even though most of the currently segregated school systems in California would in all probability eventually be found to be de jure segregated, the immediate effect of a repudiation of the Jackson decision would be to delay efforts at desegregation. Finally, and most fundamentally, even if courts could satisfactorily distinguish de facto from de jure segregation and even if the effect of such judicial effort would not provide a haven for intractable school boards, the judiciary must still face the ultimate reality that in California in the 1970's the de facto-de jure distinction retains little, if any, significance for the children whose constitutional rights are at issue here. Although the educational experts may disagree on many aspects of the desegregation controversy, there is virtually no dispute that the practical effect of segregated schooling on minority children does not depend upon whether a court finds the segregation de jure or de facto in nature; the isolating and debilitating effects do not vary with the source of the segregation. [11] Thus, the final blow against an adoption of the de facto-de jure distinction is that, as Justice Powell has pointed out, the distinction is simply a legalism rooted in history rather than present reality. ( Keyes, supra, 413 U.S. at p. 219 [37 L.Ed.2d at p. 569] (Powell, J., concurring).) Accordingly, for all of the reasons discussed above, we adhere to this court's decision in Jackson. In California, all public school districts bear an obligation under the state Constitution to undertake reasonably feasible steps to alleviate school segregation, regardless of the cause of such segregation. Thus, having found that the schools of the Los Angeles Unified School District were substantially segregated, and that the school board had not undertaken any efforts to attempt to alleviate such segregation, the court in the instant case properly ordered the board to prepare and implement a reasonably feasible desegregation plan.