Tasby v. Wright

520 F. Supp. 683, 1981 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13887
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Texas
DecidedAugust 3, 1981
DocketCiv. A. 3-4211-H
StatusPublished
Cited by23 cases

This text of 520 F. Supp. 683 (Tasby v. Wright) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Tasby v. Wright, 520 F. Supp. 683, 1981 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13887 (N.D. Tex. 1981).

Opinion

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. 686 History of the Case

II. The Parties: Who's Still Here 689

*686 III. Demography and Geography: The city, the

school district, and the students 690

A. The City of Dallas 690

B. Scholastic Enrollment 692

C. Subdistrict Organization 695

D. Summary 699

IV. Relevant Cases and Principles 701
V. The Constitutional Violation 705
VI. ' Constitutional Adequacy of the Existing Plan 707
VII. Kindergarten-Third Grade Schools 713
A. Demographics of the K-3 Schools 714
B. Time and Distance Study, K-3 Grades 724
C. Impact of Busing on K-3 Education 730
D. Opposition of Minority Parents to K-3 Busing 732
VIII. High Schools 733
IX. Fourth through Eighth Grade Schools 736
X. East Oak Cliff 739
A. Background of the East Oak Cliff Subdistrict 740
B. Implementation of the 1976 Court Order 741
C. Feasibility of Transportation to Desegregate East Oak Cliff 743
XI. Magnet High Schools 744
XII. Majority-to-Minority Transfers 748
XIII. Remedy 749

OPINION OF THE COURT

SANDERS, District Judge.

Today the Court decides that vestiges of state-imposed racial segregation remain in the Dallas Independent School District (DISD). The Court holds that additional systemwide transportation is not a feasible remedy for the existing constitutional violation. The Court believes, however, that effective remedies can be fashioned and directs the parties to prepare and file desegregation plans for the Court’s consideration.

I. History of the Case

This case is before the Court on remand from U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Tasby v. Estes, 572 F.2d 1010 (1978), reh. en banc denied, 575 F.2d 300 (1978); cert. dismissed, Estes v. Metropolitan Branches of Dallas NAACP, et al., 444 U.S. 437, 100 S.Ct. 716, 62 L.Ed.2d 626 (1980). The Circuit has directed this Court to make specific findings regarding the feasibility of using the desegregation techniques approved in Swann v. CharlotteMecklenburg Board of Educ., 402 U.S. 1, 91 S.Ct. 1267, 28 L.Ed.2d 554 (1971) (Swann), to reduce the number of one-race schools in the Dallas Independent School District.

*687 This ease was originally filed in October 1970, Plaintiffs seeking the development of a comprehensive desegregation plan for DISD. The case was.tried in July 1971, Tasby v. Estes, 342 F.Supp. 945, aff’d in part, rev’d in part, and remanded with directions, Tasby v. Estes, 517 F.2d 92 (5th Cir. 1975); tried again in 1976, Tasby v. Estes, 412 F.Supp. 1192; and remanded again in 1978, Tasby v. Estes, 572 F.2d 1010 (5th Cir.), with directions to make “findings to justify the maintenance of any one-race schools that may be a part of” a new student assignment plan. 572 F.2d at 1018.

The DISD was no stranger to desegregation litigation when this action was initiated, having been involved in several similar lawsuits 1 since the 1955 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown II. Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U.S. 294, 75 S.Ct. 753, 99 L.Ed. 1083 (1955). A “stair-step” (one grade per year) plan for desegregation was ordered by the federal court in 1960. Implementation began at the first grade level in the 1961-62 school year, and thereafter, the DISD converted from dual attendance zones to single zones on a grade-a-year basis until 1965, when the Fifth Circuit ordered the process accelerated to include all six elementary grades as well as the twelfth grade. Dual zones were eliminated for junior high schools in 1966 and for the remaining grades ten and eleven in 1967. The “stair-step” plan merely called for the elimination of racial criteria from the school system’s admission policies. The courts did not direct DISD (and DISD did not volunteer) to take affirmative action to eradicate the vestiges of the former statutory segregated system. So, while it can fairly be said that DISD, like many another school district, moved with maximum deliberation and minimum speed to carry out the 1955 desegregation mandate of the U.S. Supreme Court, it should also be said that the federal court moved at the same pace; DISD did what the Court ordered — no more, no less. 2

Since the filing of Tasby v. Estes ten years ago, a number of complex issues have been raised and resolved in this Court and the appellate courts.

(1) Elements of the former dual system were found to remain, in violation of the Constitution, as evidenced chiefly by the number of segregated schools present in 1971. 342 F.Supp. at 947.
(2) The Court was unable to find that de jure segregation had been practiced against hispanic students; nevertheless, it determined that any remedy or plan ultimately adopted would be triethnic in scope and treat hispanics as a distinct ethnic minority group for purposes of student assignment. 342 F.Supp. at 948; aff’d, 517 F.2d at 106-07.
(3) The issues relating to metropolitan, interdistrict violation and remedy were separately litigated. Plaintiffs failed to make the showing of “significant segregative effect” required under Milliken I, 3 with respect to the suburban Highland Park I.S.D., thereby foreclosing the possibility of multidistrict remedy. 412 F.Supp. at 1188-91; aff’d, 572 F.2d at 1016. Plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed their complaints against six other suburban school districts.

In 1976 this Court (Taylor, J.) after considering desegregation plans submitted by *688 DISD, Plaintiffs, a court-appointed expert and others, adopted the plan submitted by amicus curiae, the Dallas Alliance.

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520 F. Supp. 683, 1981 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13887, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/tasby-v-wright-txnd-1981.