Court Opinion

ID: 8876478
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-26 19:14:11.0436+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:06:22.864848
License: Public Domain

SOBELOFF and J. SPENCER BELL, Circuit Judges
(concurring):
We concur in the result in this case, but for the reasons set forth in our dissents in Bradley v. School Bd. of City of Richmond, 345 F.2d 310 (1965), and Gilliam v. School Bd. of City of Hopewell, 345 F.2d 325 (1965), we cannot associate ourselves with the language of that portion of the opinion which discusses generally the School Board’s duty to desegregate. In Bradley we said:
“A plan of desegregation is more than a matter of words. The attitude and purpose of public officials, school administrators and faculties are an integral part of any plan and determine its effectiveness more than the words employed. If these public agents translate their duty into affirmative and sympathetic action the plan will work; if their spirit is obstructive, or at best negative, little progress will be made, no matter what form of words may be used.
“Affirmative action means more than telling those who have long been deprived of freedom of educational opportunity, ‘You now have a choice.’ In many instances the choice will not be meaningful unless the administrators are willing to bestow extra effort and expense to bring the deprived pupils up to the level where they can avail themselves of the choice in fact as well as in theory. A court, before approving a plan, must scruitinize it in detail to satisfy itself that the assumptions upon which the plan is predicated are actually present. The district judge must determine whether the means exist for the exercise of a choice that is truly free and not merely pro forma. This may involve considering, for example, the availability of transportation, the opportunity to participate on equal terms in the life of the school after the pupil’s arrival, and any other circumstances that may be pertinent.
“All recognize that the problems of education are not simple and are intertwined with problems in other areas of public and private activity. But *34while a complete solution does not lie in the hands of the present defendants, there is much they can do in their own sphere of responsibility to disestablish the heritage arising from imposed racial discriminations of the past.
“It is now 1965 and high time for the court to insist that good faith compliance requires administrators of schools to proceed actively with their nontransferable duty to undo the segregation which both by action and inaction has been persistently perpetuated. However phrased, this thought must permeate judicial action in relation to the subject matter.
“This is far from suggesting that children are to be uprooted arbitrarily and bussed against their will to distant places merely to place them with children of the other race. No such thing has been proposed or contemplated in Richmond or, so far as we know, anywhere in this circuit. The true alternative, however, surely is not abdication of Board responsibility and the leaving of accomplishment of a nonracial educational system to the unaided efforts of individuals who, even if not deliberately obstructed, lack the knowledge and mastery of the school system possessed by the Board. The authorities, not these individuals, have the duty and power to provide adequate leadership in reaching, with a minimum of personal frictions, alarms and frustrations, the constitutionally protected goal of equal educational opportunity for all children. See Fiss, Racial Imbalance in the Public Schools: The Constitutional Concepts, 78 Harv.L.Rev. 564 (1964).” 345 F.2d at 323-324. [Footnote omitted.]
In Gilliam we said:
“The neighborhood school concept is a legitimate one, and insofar as zone boundaries are drawn without racial discrimination along natural geographical lines we agree that they may be accepted as valid. We are conscious, however, that the size and location of a school building may determine the character of the neighborhood it serves. In applying the neighborhood school concept, the School Board, therefore, must keep in mind its paramount duty to afford equal educational opportunity to all children without discrimination; otherwise school building plans may be employed to perpetuate and promote segregation.” 345 F.2d at 329.
We adhere to these views and submit that they present a correct philosophy and the true measure of the School Board’s duty.