Arthur v. Nyquist

W.D. New York

Arthur v. Nyquist

547 F. Supp. 468, 6 Educ. L. Rep. 698, 1982 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14538

CourtDistrict Court, W.D. New York

DecidedAugust 27, 1982

DocketCiv-1972-325C

StatusPublished

Cited by7 cases

This text of 547 F. Supp. 468 (Arthur v. Nyquist) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook

Arthur v. Nyquist, 547 F. Supp. 468, 6 Educ. L. Rep. 698, 1982 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14538 (W.D.N.Y. 1982).

Pincite

Opinion

CURTIN, Chief Judge.

In what threatens to become an annual ritual, the Buffalo Board of Education [the Board] is forced to ask this court to order its codefendants, the Mayor and the Common Council of the City of Buffalo [City defendants], to provide additional funds to the Board for implementation of this court’s school desegregation orders.

For the 1982-83 school year, the Board requested a budget of $162,302,979. Pursuant to the budgetary process of the City charter and section 2576 of the New York State Education Law, the Mayor received this request from the Board. The Mayor and his staff reviewed the budget, held a public hearing, and recommended that the estimate be reduced to $150,000,000. After conducting additional public hearings, the Common Council added $629,822, bringing the total to $150,629,822. This is the sum currently appropriated for Board use. Approximately $149,100,000 is to be used for Board operations and maintenance, and the remainder for capital expenditures.

Under the law, the Board is financially dependent upon the City for funds. The Board has since indicated that it could operate on a minimum budget of $156,500,000. The Board cannot, however, make up the difference between the amount it needs and the amount allocated in the budget but must look to the City for adequate funding.

Because of the large gap in funds, plaintiffs filed a motion requesting that the court order the City to provide additional funds. Last year, the same dispute arose regarding funds. On July 30, 1981, the Board filed a similar petition asking for more money. Last year’s dispute was settled amicably. After several meetings and much discussion, the court was able to enter an order upon consent of the parties directing the City to provide an additional $3,100,000 to the Board.

This year, there was no such agreement. The Board joined in the plaintiffs’ motion, and at the court’s direction, the parties conducted settlement negotiations for six days. These negotiations were ultimately unsuccessful, and the court was forced to order an evidentiary hearing. The hearing commenced on July 2, 1982, and continued for six days. Upon review of the transcript and exhibits and the post-hearing briefs, the court is ready to issue a decision.

In approaching the current controversy, some of the history of this ten-year-old school desegregation case should be kept in mind and bears repeating.

In April of 1976, the Buffalo Board of Education was found to have engaged in deliberate and unconstitutional segregation of the Buffalo Public School System [BPSS]. See Arthur v. Nyquist, 415 F.Supp. 904 (W.D.N.Y.1976), aff’d in part, rev’d in part, remanded in part, 573 F.2d 134 (2d Cir. 1978). After this finding of liability, the court and the parties immediately set out to devise a fair and effective program to remedy the effects of the prior unconstitutional segregation. As early as May, 1976, the court held hearings to help formulate a remedial plan. Further hearings were held throughout the spring and summer of 1976. From that time on, the court has had numerous hearings and dozens upon dozens of meetings with the parties to hammer out the details, to further refine, and to set in motion an adequate plan for desegregation. 1

After the liability finding, the court ordered the Board to submit an initial plan for desegregation, and the Board responded by coming forward with Phase I. This plan *470 closed ten schools in an effort to save money and to integrate previously all-majority schools. In addition, Phase I opened two Magnet Schools, the Waterfront School and City Honors.

In September of 1977, Phase II was implemented. Phase II included eight Magnet Schools. Phase II was designed to insure that each school had at least 20 percent minority students in attendance.

In June of 1979, the court ordered that complete desegregation take place. The court ordered the Board to design a system-wide remedy and held that a school would not be considered as desegregated and acceptable to the court unless there was over 30 percent and under 55 percent minority population.

In November of 1979, the Board of Education submitted a proposed Phase III plan. After the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit was issued in January of 1981, see 636 F.2d 905 (1981), the court ordered the Board to comply with the directives of the Second Circuit and establish a plan that could be put into effect on an expedited basis. Phase III thus became known as Phase IIIx, and its provisions were put into effect a year earlier than originally scheduled. This court approved the implementation of Phase IIIx on May 14, 1981. 520 F.Supp. 961 (W.D.N.Y.1981), and the plan went into effect in September, 1981.

The results of these efforts is the highly successful Buffalo model of school desegregation. Under the direct administration of Buffalo Board of Education Associate Superintendent Joseph T. Murray and the supervision of the Superintendent of the BPSS, Eugene T. Reville, the system has implemented several innovative programs. These programs include the Magnet Schools, the Early Childhood Centers, and the Academies. 2 In addition, the BPSS has utilized innovative concepts, such as “clustering of schools,” and “feeder patterns,” so that children attending any one of a number of certain schools in the lower grades will be sent to a specific high school, thus insuring that at both levels the grades will be integrated. Through implementation of these programs, the BPSS has achieved a significant success, and the programs themselves have been applauded by educators throughout the country.

A key to the success of the plan is the fact that for the most part, the integration of the schools has been achieved by voluntary means. Through the use of innovative educational techniques, the need for fixed assignments and mandatory busing of students has been kept to a minimum. There has been no disruption of the schools, no violence, and no massive “white flight” of majority students from the City. 3 Instead, *472 the City schools have improved through the use of these programs, and the proportion of majority to minority students has remained steady, even as the population of the City has decreased.

*471

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