Court Opinion

ID: 9456949
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:07:31.259095+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:41.783942
License: Public Domain

CECIL, Senior Circuit Judge,
(concurring).
The American Public School System is one of the great institutions designed by man and the neighborhood concept of limited school districts for the purpose of attendance is a major element of strength of the institution. Busing students from one school building to another, particularly for the elementary grades, is out of harmony with the neighborhood concept of our public school system.
There is no legal requirement that there be a racial balance in every school nor is it required that students be bused back and forth from one part of a school system to another to achieve such a balance. The Court said in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1, 3, 91 S.Ct. 1267, 1270.
“The constitutional command to desegregate schools does not mean that every school in every community must *578always reflect the racial composition of the school system as a whole.”
At p. 16, 91 S.Ct. at p. 1276, the Court said,
“School authorities are traditionally charged with broad power to formulate and implement educational policy and might well conclude, for example, that in order to prepare students to live in a pluralistic society . each school should have a prescribed ratio of Negro to white students reflecting the proportion for the district as a whole. To do this as an educational policy is within the broad discretionary powers of school authorities; absent a finding of a constitutional violation, however, that would not be within the authority of a federal court." (Emphasis added).
See also Deal v. Cincinnati Board of Education, 369 F.2d 55 (C.A.6) cert. den., 389 U.S. 847, 88 S.Ct. 39, 19 L.Ed.2d 114; Northcross v. Memphis City Schools Board of Education, 420 F.2d 546, aff., 397 U.S. 232, 90 S.Ct. 891, 25 L.Ed.2d 246. Nevertheless school authorities may not through a pattern of zoning and school construction create a situation that will result in racial segregation. The Court said in Swan, supra, at p. 20, 91 S.Ct. at pp. 1278-1279,
“* * * The location of schools may thus influence the patterns of residential development of a metropolitan area and have important impact on composition of inner city neighborhoods.
In the past, choices in this respect have been used as a potent weapon for creating or maintaining a state-segregated school system. In addition to the classic pattern of building schools specifically intended for Negro or white students, school authorities have sometimes, since Brown, closed schools which appeared likely to become racially mixed through changes in neighborhood residential patterns. This was sometimes accompanied by building new schools in the areas of white suburban expansion farthest from Negro population centers in order to maintain the separation of the races with a minimum departure from the formal principles of ‘neighborhood zoning.’ Such a policy does more than simply influence the short-run composition of the student body of a new school. It may well promote segregated residential patterns which, when combined with ‘neighborhood zoning,’ further lock the school system into the mold of separation of the races. Upon a proper showing a district court may consider this in fashioning a remedy.
In ascertaining the existence of legally imposed school segregation, the existence of a pattern of school construction and abandonment is thus a factor of great weight.”
See also Kelly v. Metropolitan County Board of Education of Nashville, Tennessee, 436 F.2d 856 (C.A.6).
In the case before us the district judge made the following findings,
“This Court finds that the Pontiac Board of Education intentionally utilized the power at their disposal to locate new schools and arrange boundaries in such a way as to perpetuate the pattern of segregation within the City and thereby, deliberately, in contradiction of their announced policies of achieving a racial mixture in the schools, prevented integration. When the power to act is available, failure to take the necessary steps so as to negate or alleviate a situation which is harmful is as wrong as is the taking of affirmative steps to advance that situation. Sins of omission can be as serious as sins of commission. Where a Board of Education has contributed and played a major role in the development and growth of a segregated situation, the Board is guilty of a ‘de jure’ segregation. The fact that such came slowly and surreptitiously rather than by legislative pronouncement makes the situation no less evil.” Davis v. School District *579of Pontiac, Inc., 309 F.Supp. 734, 741-742.
As Judge McCree said in the opinion of the Court, these findings of purposeful segregation by the school district are supported by substantial evidence and are not clearly erroneous. Since the school authorities purposefully created a condition that resulted in segregation of races they must take such steps as are necessary to remedy the situation. If the remedy requires busing of students the school district must provide for such transportation. As the Court said in Swan, p. 30, 91 S.Ct. at p. 1283,
“* * * In these circumstances, we find no basis for holding that the local school authorities may not be required to employ bus transportation as one tool of school desegregation.”