United States v. Bd. of Educ. of City of Chicago

621 F. Supp. 1296, 29 Educ. L. Rep. 70, 1985 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14901
District Court, N.D. Illinois·Decided October 15, 1985·No. 80 C 5124·Published·Cited by 7 cases

Opinion

PRELIMINARY MEMORANDUM OPINION

ASPEN, District Judge:

INTRODUCTION

The dispute over the Consent Decree in this unique desegregation case returns to the district court for the third time. The case is here, assigned to a new judge, following the Seventh Circuit’s second opinion in the case. See United States v. Board of Education of Chicago, 744 F.2d 1300 (7th Cir.1984) (“Second Opinion”), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 105 S.Ct. 2358, 86 L.Ed.2d 259 (1985). Although the United States won the appeal, the Court of Appeals concluded its opinion with an admonition to the United States that its conduct in connection with the case had been less than honorable:

In the circumstances of this case, we deem it important to note that the actions of the Executive Branch described above and reflected in the hearings below could be interpreted to contravene *1304 the spirit of the . Decree. Such actions, while perhaps within constitutional limits, cannot enhance the respect to which this Decree is entitled and do not befit a signatory of the stature of the United States Department of Justice. The Executive Branch initiated this critical litigation and bears a continuing shared and special responsibility for its eventual outcome, regardless of changes in personnel and ideology that will inevitably accompany the passage of time.

744 F.2d at 1308. Such conduct continues. The United States continues its hard line approach to its obligations under 1115.1 of the Consent Decree, which provides:

Each party is obligated to make every good faith effort to find and provide every available form of financial resources adequate for implementation of the desegregation plan.

Rather than make this “good faith effort,” the government has made and continues to make every possible effort to minimize its obligations under If 15.1, even as narrowed by the Second Opinion. In this opinion, we hold that the United States has violated the letter, as well as the spirit, of the Decree.

A consent decree is both an enforceable contract and an order of the court. 1 It quickly became clear to this Court that the United States has had little respect for U 15.1, whether viewed as contractual promise or judicial command. As the Court of Appeals implicitly recognized, 744 F.2d at 1308, changes in administration and philosophy since 1980, when the decree was signed, have been largely responsible for generating the conflict in this case. This change in philosophy apparently includes the belief that promises made by previous administrations need not be honored and that court orders need not be followed if they contradict prevailing ideology. If such a belief exists, it will not prevail, as this opinion will explain.

Since receiving the case, the Court has had to quickly learn the complex history of the case, and resolve pre-trial disputes, see 610 F.Supp. 695 (1985); 610 F.Supp. 702 (1985), as the parties feverishly worked to prepare evidence and supporting material for this merits opinion. We appreciate the hard work of the parties and their briefs, which were very long — totalling about 450 pages, not counting the thousands of pages of appendices — but very helpful.

Remarkably, the parties devoted well over 150 pages of their briefs to arguments over what the Court of Appeals meant in the Second Opinion, which itself spanned just nine published pages. Obviously, much of this case hinges on our interpretation of the Second Opinion. Accordingly, before entering our Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law concerning the evidence submitted by the parties, we set forth first an extensive preliminary opinion, which interprets the Second Opinion, thereby defining the context shaping the Findings and Conclusions which follow.

Technically, pending before the Court is the Board’s motion for declaratory and injunctive relief, which essentially alleges that the United States violated H 15.1 of the Consent Decree in many ways in 1984 and earlier years. For the reasons stated in the Preliminary Opinion and the Findings and Conclusions that follow, that motion is granted in large part.

PART I: ANALYZING THE SECOND COURT OF APPEALS OPINION

1. Background

The focus of this remand proceeding is the meaning of the United States’ obligation under If 15.1 of the Consent Decree, *1305 which is quoted above at 1. In this preliminary chapter of the opinion, we resolve the continuing dispute over which federal funds were “available” to the Board under 1115.1; in the concluding chapters we decide whether the United States has made “every good faith effort to find and provide” these funds, with particular scrutiny on fiscal year 1984.

The Consent Decree embodying the unique funding provision was entered and approved by the Court on September 24, 1980, the same day that the United States sued the Board for allegedly operating racially segregated schools in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and Titles IV and VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The history surrounding the Consent Decree is detailed at length in previous opinions and repeated in part in Chapter I of our extensive Findings of Fact below. For present purposes, we need only repeat the undisputed proposition that the desegregation plan envisioned by the Decree and the funding provisions of the Decree were unique and pioneering. The Plan ultimately developed by the Board, endorsed by the United States and approved by the District Court, see United States v. Bd. of Education of Chicago, 554 F.Supp. 912 (N.D. Ill.1983), created a broad range of costly educational programs designed to remedy the effects of past segregation on Chicago’s black and Hispanic students. The Plan eschewed forced desegregation methods, e.g. busing, in favor of voluntary desegregation made possible by the Plan’s educational programs. The Plan recognized that Chicago’s demographics made complete and lasting desegregation impossible. Thus, the Plan as approved by the Court created compensatory educational programs targeted to those schools which would remain segregated. These programs are intended to remedy the past and continuing effects of segregation. See, e.g., Findings of Fact (“Findings”) 106-107.

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United States v. Bd. of Educ. of City of Chicago, 621 F. Supp. 1296, 29 Educ. L. Rep. 70, 1985 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14901 (N.D. Ill. 1985).

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