Opinion ID: 500653
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Liability of the City

Text: 192 The court found that the City's segregative housing practices had been a contributing cause of the racial segregation of the schools. It found that the failure of the Board to take action to minimize the school segregation in no way negates the fact that, as a factual matter, the City's housing practices contributed to the perpetuation and aggravation of residential segregation and the resulting segregation of the schools. Id. at 1501. 193 The court found that the segregative impact of the City's segregative housing practices on the schools was not unavoidable, unknowing, or inadvertent. It noted that the link between the racial identifiability of a school and the residential segregation of the surrounding neighborhood was recognized by City officials, id. at 1443, and found that in light of the school district's historic neighborhood school policy, the perpetuation and exacerbation of racial imbalance in the school district was a natural, probable and actually foreseen consequence of the City's discriminatory housing practices.... Id. at 1542. Indeed, in the racially motivated community opposition to the construction of low-income housing in non-minority areas, there was frequent mention of the effect of such housing on schools, and express objection by white parents to having their children schooled with minorities. 194 Further, the court found that the pattern of appointments by Mayor Martinelli of Board members, screened for their opposition to busing, was an exercise of power over school board appointments as a means of furthering the city's segregative objectives. Id. at 1534. Though the City was not initially responsible for the Board's neighborhood-school policy, it opposed construction of housing for minorities outside of Southwest Yonkers, and it advocated keeping all children assigned to schools in the neighborhoods in which they lived. Martinelli consistently appointed Board members who shared this view and who steadfastly refused to take any action that would have had any desegregative effect on the schools. Thus, the court found that the City not only was aware of the overall impact of its subsidized housing practices on Yonkers public schools but also intended to preserve the racially segregative impact of these practices on the schools. Id. at 1501. 195 In all, the court found that the City's segregative housing practices and the mayor's appointments contributed significantly both to the confinement of minority students to schools in Southwest Yonkers and to the Board's failure to undo the segregative effects of these and other practices on the schools. And in a city where the segregated condition of 'neighborhood schools' is in part the product of official municipal design, the commitment to the neighborhood school system by the head of that same municipality can hardly be considered race-neutral. Id. at 1513. 196 The court concluded that the conduct of the City in intentionally perpetuating segregation in the schools violated the rights of minority schoolchildren under Title IV and the Equal Protection Clause.