Opinion ID: 435100
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Board Awareness of Segregation and its Duty to Desegregate.

Text: 29 Throughout the period in question the Board was aware of ethnic imbalance in the district schools. 3 The Board was also continuously aware that it had an affirmative duty to desegregate under state law. 4 30 In 1963, the California Supreme Court held that: 31 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.... [w]here 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. Our State Board of Education has adopted regulations which encourage transfers to avoid and eliminate racial segregation (Cal.Admin.Code, Title 5, Secs. 2010, 2011) ... 32 Jackson v. Pasadena City School District, 59 Cal.2d 876, 881, 31 Cal.Rptr. 606, 382 P.2d 878 (1963) (emphasis added). 33 In 1976, the California Supreme Court reapproved the Jackson holding, recognizing that 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. Crawford v. Board of Education of the City of Los Angeles, 17 Cal.3d 280, 293, 130 Cal.Rptr. 724, 551 P.2d 28 (1976). The California courts throughout the period consistently had reiterated this obligation of local school boards. See Crawford, 17 Cal.3d at 291-92, 130 Cal.Rptr. 724, 551 P.2d 28 (citing Mulkey v. Reitman, 64 Cal.2d 529, 537, 50 Cal.Rptr. 881, 413 P.2d 825 (1966); San Francisco Unified School District v. Johnson, 3 Cal.3d 937, 957-58, 92 Cal.Rptr. 309, 479 P.2d 669 (1971); Serrano v. Priest, 5 Cal.3d 584, 96 Cal.Rptr. 601, 487 P.2d 1241 (1971)). The district court was clearly erroneous in its finding that the Board's obligations under state law were in constant flux. See Diaz I, 412 F.Supp. at 334; Diaz III, 518 F.Supp. at 642 (incorporating findings of Diaz I). The obligations were clear and the Board was aware of them. 5 34 Yet, during this period, the Board resisted compliance with state requirements that affirmative action be taken to desegregate its schools. In a 1966 report to the State Department of Education, the Board recognized that it was not meeting the State's guidelines. The Board acknowledged that it had been subject to considerable pressure to alter its neighborhood school policy, 6 and stated in the report:District representatives were informed that the State Board of Education felt it had a mandate to expedite integration in all schools; that social integration of all pupils carried the highest priority, regardless; that the traditional neighborhood school concept was no longer valid in districts characterized by racial imbalance, and that the subsequent year's projects (1967-68) would be required to focus on intergroup experiences and the general problem of de facto segregation in order to be approved for funding. 35 (emphasis in original). 36 Despite its recognized duty to take affirmative steps to desegregate, the Board continued to justify actions that maintained segregation by reference to its neighborhood school policy. The Board's stubborn adherence to this policy in the face of clearly established state law holding desegregation to be a matter of overriding educational importance suggests that the Board was motivated, at least in part, by a desire to avoid desegregation rather than a sincere commitment to the educational benefits of neighborhood schools. 7 37