Hart v. Community Sch. Bd. of Brooklyn, NY Sch. D. 21

383 F. Supp. 699
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. New York
DecidedApril 2, 1974
Docket72 C 1041
StatusPublished
Cited by70 cases

This text of 383 F. Supp. 699 (Hart v. Community Sch. Bd. of Brooklyn, NY Sch. D. 21) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hart v. Community Sch. Bd. of Brooklyn, NY Sch. D. 21, 383 F. Supp. 699 (E.D.N.Y. 1974).

Opinion

*705 TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. SUMMARY 706

II. FACTS 707

A. The Area and Its Environs 707

B. Description of Mark Twain 710

C. Racial Imbalance at Mark Twain 711

D. Underutilization of Mark Twain 713

E. Segregation Within Mark Twain 713

F. Community Perceptions of Mark Twain 714

G. Action of School Officials Contributing to Present Situation 715

H. Inaction of School Officials Contributing to Present Situation 716

1. Rejection of Rezoning Plans 717
2. Failure of Free Choice Plan 717
3. Refusal to Follow Orders of Chancellor to Desegregate 719

4. Fear of Chancellor and Other Central School Officials That Whites Would Leave a Desegregated System 720

I. Public Housing in Central Coney Island 721
J. Impact of Public Housing 723
1. On Underutilization 723
2. On Racial Balance 724
III. LAW 726
A. Supreme Court Standards 726
B. De Jure — De Facto Distinction 728
1. Definition of Racial Segregation 732
2. State Action: School Board Action and Inaction 733
3. Illicit Motive 737
4. Harm from De Facto Segregation 739
5. Internal Segregation 740
6. Practicability 740
7. Contrary Decisions 741
8. Congruence of State Policy 741

C. Segregation is Not Constitutionally Acceptable Whether Desired By a Minority or a Majority 742

1. Minority Desire 742
2. Majority Desire 742
3. Impact of Available Research 743
D. Duty of Housing Authorities 747
1. State Authorities 747
2. Federal Authorities 749
3. Procedural Defenses 752

*706 IV. APPLICATION OF THE LAW TO MARK TWAIN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 754

V. REMEDY 755
A. Power to Eliminate Effects of Past Discrimination 755
B. Duty of Education Officials 756
C. Duty of Housing Officials 757
D. Duty of Other Officials 758
VI. SUPPLEMENTAL OPINION: POWER TO APPOINT SPECIAL MASTER RESPECTING REMEDY 758

WEINSTEIN, District Judge.

This first New York City school desegregation case to reach a federal court is a class action on behalf of children attending Coney Island’s Mark Twain Junior High School, Number 239. Defendants are the Community School Board of Brooklyn, New York, School District Number 21, its members and the Chancellor of the Board of Education of the City of New York. Claiming that defendants are maintaining Mark Twain as an unconstitutionally racially segregated and underutilized school, plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief. The defendant Board and its members contend that segregation, if it exists, is due to housing patterns fostered and maintained by the city, state, and federal authorities who have been impleaded as third-party defendants.

I. SUMMARY

The evidence shows that Mark Twain is segregated. That segregation was brought about partly through the ghettoization of the core of Coney Island. It is also due to deliberately zoning out of the school white middle-class children, enhancing segregative tendencies and leading to gross underutilization of Mark Twain’s physical facilities.

Both the Community School Board of District 21 and responsible city educational officials recognize that they have the power to desegregate Mark Twain. They have refused to do so because they believe that such action might cause white children from District 21 to leave the public school system by moving to the suburbs, or by transferring to private schools, or by various forms of subterfuge, increasing segregation in the schools of District 21. On the local level there is fear — substantially unjustified —for the safety of white children who would be transferred to Mark Twain, concern over the teaching environment in a school where average reading and mathematics levels are much lower than those in any other school in the district; and some latent concern at the prospect of children attending a ghetto school.

Public officials responsible for new housing in the area have exacerbated the situation by applying housing policies mechanically, discouraging integrated occupation of new housing by child-rearing families of a variety of socio-economic levels. Persons now moving into the thousands of publicly assisted new apartments in this area are overwhelmingly black and Hispanic. The whites are primarily persons beyond child-bearing age. The result has been to insure that local schools zoned to the immediate neighborhood will be segregated.

Housing and school patterns feed on each other. The segregated schools discourage middle class whites from moving into the area and the segregated housing patterns lead to segregated schools.

Nevertheless, this area of Coney Island remains fundamentally attractive as a place for all kinds of people to live and to raise and educate children. It is being almost completely rebuilt at a cost to the taxpayérs of the city, state and nation of tens of millions of dollars.

*707 Mark Twain, a school in excellent physical condition, is located in one of the potentially most attractive settings in the city. It is served by an experienced staff devoted to effective education and has a fine program. It can easily accommodate in safety, and educate well, hundreds of children from other parts of District 21 whose presence will eliminate unconstitutional segregation.

If ever there were a school and an area in New York City where desegregation could be accomplished with benefits to all the children who will attend the school and to the community, it is here. Educational, housing and other officials at all levels of government are required by the Constitution to cooperate in promptly eliminating the effects of segregation at Mark Twain Junior High School.

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Bluebook (online)
383 F. Supp. 699, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hart-v-community-sch-bd-of-brooklyn-ny-sch-d-21-nyed-1974.