Court Opinion

ID: 9451104
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:06:45.725656+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:34.524870
License: Public Domain

LARSON, District Judge
(concurring).
I concur in the disposition of this case and in Judge Gibson’s opinion.
I agree that the Department of Health, Education and Welfare guidelines should be used as a point of reference in measuring the provisions of school desegregation plans. I also agree that they are not conclusive upon the courts and that we may approve something different. However, that “something different” should rarely, if ever, be less than what is contemplated by the H.E.W. standards. Rather, judicial criteria should probably be more stringent.
A school board which fails to act voluntarily forces Negro students to solicit aid from the courts. This not only shifts the burden of initiating desegregation, but inevitably means delay in taking the first step. As Judge Gibson observes, we are not here concerned with regulating the flow of Federal funds. Our task is to safeguard basic constitutional rights. Thus, our standards should be directed toward full, complete, and final realization of those rights.
*24Moreover, this should be accomplished immediately. The bell was tolled for segregated schools more than a decade ago, and at this late date all discriminatory systems should have been eliminated. The second Brown decision required segregation to be phased out with “all deliberate speed.” After eleven years of deliberation, discussion and delay, the courts should turn a deaf ear to arguments that now is not the “earliest practicable date.” Whatever administrative difficulties may have been present at the outset could have been resolved by this time if compliance had been commenced in good faith and without hesitation. Constitutional rights should no longer be permitted to remain in abeyance.