Court Opinion

ID: 9455667
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:29:14.31698+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:41.167484
License: Public Domain

VAN OOSTERHOUT, Chief Judge, and GIBSON, Circuit Judge,
dissenting in part.
Judge MATTHES’ carefully prepared majority opinion fairly sets out the pertinent facts and issues presented by the appeal and cross-appeal in this case. We are in agreement with his determination that the plan should be approved as to the faculty desegregation, and also with his affirmance on the cross-appeal. We likewise agree that the court properly retained jurisdiction of the case.
With reluctance, we find it necessary to dissent from the holding of the majority that the plan for student desegregation should be rejected. The late Judge Young, a very able and conscientious judge, heard this case. He advised the Board that the existing freedom of choice plan, which was being fairly administered, did not meet standards for desegregation set by the Supreme Court and he directed the Board to present a geographical zoning plan. After much study, the Board presented such a plan. An extensive evidentiary hearing was held at which school experts testified on behalf of each of the parties. The cause was well tried by able counsel for all parties. In due course, Judge Young filed a well-considered opinion setting forth the law, the evidence and his conclusions. Included in his findings of fact is the following:
“As shown by Defendants’ Exhibit 22, the Board’s plan for geographical attendance zones, assuming the legality of the neighborhood school concept, seems fairly and equitably drawn. There is no indication of gerrymandering.”
Such finding is not contested by plaintiffs. It is supported by substantial evidence and is not clearly erroneous.
Judge Young modified the plan in the manner set forth in the majority opinion. The principal effect of the modification was to impose upon the geographical zoning a freedom of choice option which would allow any student whose race was in the majority in any school to transfer to a school where his race was in the minority. As stated by Judge Young, this modification would permit Negro *1047students who would otherwise be locked into predominantly Negro schools to transfer to predominantly white schools. Other modifications made, which Judge Young conceded were gerrymandering, were designed to further racial balance in the schools. The Board’s plan as modified was approved. The court in its decree retained jurisdiction over the case and required the Board to report further upon the operation of the plan.
For the reasons assigned by Judge Young in his well-considered opinion, we believe the modified plan as approved meets constitutional standards. Everything has been done that could be done short of abandonment of the neighborhood school system to eliminate segregation. Plaintiffs have pointed to no existing state law that prevents desegregation or integration and we find no such law. It can no longer be fairly said that the desegregation process is impeded by state law.
Geographic attendance zones fairly laid out without racial discrimination by a unitary system should meet the constitutional standards set forth in Brown I and subsequent Supreme Court cases commanding a racially nondiscriminatory school system. There is no question here of dual attendance zones or of a state imposed pattern of segregation.
The neighborhood school concept, as shown by expert testimony in the record, is a well-established and acceptable means of providing a proper educational program in all sections of the country for people of all nationalities and races. President Nixon in a recent public statement has said neighborhood schools “will be deemed the most appropriate base” for an acceptable school system, and “transportation of pupils beyond normal geographical school zones for the purpose of achieving racial balance will not be required.” 1
The basic issue presented on this appeal appears to be whether upon the facts disclosed by the record a fairly established geographical zoning system for neighborhood schools must be abolished in order to attain racial balance and if so, whether such balance in each school must closely approach the percentage of each race in the district.
It would appear from the record before us that such racial balance could only be accomplished by pairing white and Negro districts, a considerable distance from each other. On this issue, Judge Young states:
“[T]he plaintiffs attack the neighborhood school principle, saying it has no validity and that the geographic attendance zones should run lengthwise the District. This, as they admit, would involve compulsory transportation of students by bus for distances at least six to eight miles. This is so because the schools in the central part of the City, including Central High, are largely integrated, and the great disparity between the races exists in the extreme eastern and western parts. Therefore, transportation of pupils would consist largely of transportation from the extreme east-to-west and vice versa, traversing the crowded traffic conditions of the middle section, including the downtown district. Thus, high school pupils from Horace Mann in the east would have to be transported past Central to Hall High in the west, or vice versa. The same would be true in a lesser degree with *1048the junior high and elementary schools.”
The District Courts and the Courts of Appeals are divided upon the constitutional validity of retaining geographical school zones fairly drawn without discrimination. Such issue can only be authoritatively answered by the Supreme Court. While broad language in some of the Court’s opinions could arguably be subject to an interpretation that some degree of racial balance is required, it is our view that the Supreme Court has not decided this issue. See Chief Justice Burger’s concurring opinion in North-cross v. Board of Education, 397 U.S. 232, 90 S.Ct. 891, 25 L.Ed.2d 246 (March 9, 1970).
The exhibits in the record reflect that in northern states as well as in the south, the Negro population is frequently concentrated in certain geographical areas and that as a result in many northern metropolitan areas some neighborhood schools serve predominantly only Negro students. Absent state law forcing segregation, as is the situation here, we see no racial discrimination or violation of equal protection. The Constitution should be applied uniformly in all sections of this country.
The approved plan has been in operation only a short time. Particularly in light of the freedom of choice option superimposed upon the geographical zoning, no reliable prediction can be made as to the effect of the plan on desegregation.
Moreover, any resident of a geographical school zone is entitled to attend the school serving his zone regardless of race. Federal law now prohibits racial discrimination in the sale of homes. It is quite possible that acquisition of homes by Negroes in predominantly white zones will promote racial balance in the schools. The approved teacher desegregation plan should also produce more racial balance.
The busing issue is subsidiary to the neighborhood school issue. Busing is of course, frequently provided to transport pupils living at a substantial distance from the schools, particularly in sparsely settled areas. Here a neighborhood school is at hand. Judge Young states that the evidence shows that the annual cost of busing in event of the proposed pairing of districts is $500,000, which apparently is exclusive of required capital expenditure. The busing issue presents the additional problem of whether such a substantial outlay could not be better used for educational purposes.
Absent authoritative guide lines from the Supreme Court as to the constitutional status of neighborhood schools in metropolitan districts, the Board upon remand would be at a loss to know what course to take in devising a desegregation plan. The remand for the proposal and consideration of a new plan for desegregation, absent more specific guide lines, would only create confusion and lack of stability in the Little Rock school system.
We would affirm the order and judgment of the trial court in its entirety.
*1049APPENDIX
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. The Gallup poll published in many papers on April 5, 1970, includes the following conclusions:
“By the lopsided margin of eight to one, parents vote in opposition to busing, which has been proposed as a means of achieving racial balance in the nation’s classrooms.
“Opposition to busing arises not from racial animosity but from the belief that children should attend neighborhood schools and that busing would mean higher taxes. This is seen from a comparison of attitudes on busing with those on mixed schools.
“When Negro parents are asked the same series of questions, the weight of sentiment is found tó be against busing.”