United States v. Board of School Commissioners of City of Indianapolis

506 F. Supp. 657
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Indiana
DecidedJuly 9, 1979
DocketIP 68-C-225
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 506 F. Supp. 657 (United States v. Board of School Commissioners of City of Indianapolis) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Indiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Board of School Commissioners of City of Indianapolis, 506 F. Supp. 657 (S.D. Ind. 1979).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

DILLIN, District Judge.

I

This continuing action, filed May 31, 1968, is before the Court on its second 1978 remand from the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

By the first remand, 573 F.2d 400 (7 Cir. 1978), this Court was directed to determine whether or not certain acts passed by the General Assembly of Indiana in 1969 were enacted with a racially discriminatory intent or purpose. This Court was further directed to determine whether or not the action of the added defendant Housing Au *662 thority of the City of Indianapolis (HACI), as approved by the Metropolitan Development Commission of Marion County (MDC), in locating all of its public housing projects within the territory of the defendant Board of School Commissioners of the City of Indianapolis (IPS) was done with a racially discriminatory intent or purpose. If the answer to either of the foregoing was in the affirmative, this Court was further directed to consider the principles of Dayton v. Brinkman, 433 U.S. 406, 97 S.Ct. 2766, 53 L.Ed.2d 851 (1977), in providing an interdistrict remedy.

This Court complied with the foregoing mandate by its Memorandum of Decision dated July 11, 1978, 456 F.Supp. 183, answering both questions in the affirmative, and estimating that some 7,000 black pupils might well have been afforded a desegregated education in suburban schools had the public housing units been located outside IPS. The Court then entered a judgment which ordered IPS to transfer, and certain added defendant school corporations within Marion County to receive, certain numbers of black pupils; other orders were entered as to other added defendant.

All defendants and added defendants appealed, but the Court of Appeals deferred consideration of the appeals and again remanded the action on motion of the defendant IPS “for the limited purpose of hearing and deciding upon modifications of the July 11 judgment in the nature of alternative remedy, plans and related evidence proffered by IPS (as well as any alternatives, objections, modifications, and rebuttal of any opposing parties) and hearing and making additional findings upon further evidence offered by any parties on the issue of which alternative remedy (including pupil reassignment, ancillary relief, and allocation of desegregation costs) is necessary and equitable to overcome the combined effect of all the constitutional violations previously found by the district court.”

As stated, the limited remand was granted on motion of the defendant IPS, which came forward with an elaborate interdistrict desegregation plan (Plan C), prepared under the supervision of Gordon Foster, Ph.D., a professor in the School of Education at the University of Miami (Florida). This plan would mandate the exchange of some 52,000 pupils between IPS and the ten other school corporations in Marion County, requiring the busing of approximately 41,-000 students. Each school in the county would end up with a student body approximately 27% black—the current percentage of black pupils in the county as a whole.

IPS also submitted Plan A, as required by the Court, which plan would implement this Court’s previous order of July 11, 1978 directing the transfer of black IPS pupils to eight suburban school corporations in Marion County by identifying in Part I thereof geographic areas from which such pupils would be selected. Part II of such Plan A provides a plan for the final desegregation of IPS within its own boundaries following the implementation of Part I. IPS furthermore submitted Plan B, which would require the transfer from suburban schools to IPS of white students equal in numbers to those black students transferred to the suburbs under Plan A. The preference of IPS is for the adoption of its Plan C. (Although all of Marion County, except certain cities and towns, is now a part of the City of Indianapolis under Uni-Gov, this memorandum will sometimes refer to the added defendant school corporations as “suburban schools.”)

Pursuant to that part of the limited order of remand which permitted any party to submit an alternative plan of desegregation, the Metropolitan School Districts of Lawrence, Warren and Wayne Townships of Marion County (hereafter LWW) also submitted a partial plan of desegregation. By such plan, Warren and Wayne offer to accept the transfer from IPS of specified territory containing black students sufficient to raise the percentage of such students in their respective school systems to 7.5%. Such territory would be disannexed by IPS and annexed by Warren and Wayne, respectively, so as to become a part of their respective systems for all school purposes, including taxation and the right of voters *663 residing in the annexed territories to vote in school board elections in the townships. They would also agree, along with the Metropolitan School District of Lawrence Township, to accept voluntary transfers of black pupils from IPS, and to permit voluntary transfers of their own white pupils into IPS. The Metropolitan School Districts of Decatur, Pike, and Washington Townships, and the Franklin Township Community School Corporation later joined in the LWW plan to the extent of agreeing to the transfer policy, with Pike and Washington likewise agreeing to annex a limited amount of IPS territory containing black students.

The United States of America, the origin.1 plaintiff herein, did not present a plan. However, in its posthearing memorandum, filed March 21, 1979, it suggested that the most appropriate remedy would be to require IPS to devise a plan to annex all or portions of the Marion County suburban school systems leaving the extent of suburban involvement to IPS, in the first instance. Any annexation by IPS, the Government observes, would be subject under Indiana law to the right of residents of the annexed areas to file a remonstrance action in state court. If such remonstrance be filed, the Government next suggests that “the propriety of such remonstrance action could be properly judged by this Court from the standpoint of whether the remonstrance interferes with the court-ordered desegregation plan. See United States v. State of Texas, 356 F.Supp. 469 (E.D.Texas, 1972).”

The intervening plaintiffs Buckley, representing the class consisting of all Negro children of school age attending segregated schools in IPS, took a position in favor of Plan A, and adduced evidence in support thereof.

The intervening plaintiff Indiana State Teachers Association did not present a plan for desegregation of the IPS schools. Such plaintiff did, however, make a number of suggestions relative to ancillary relief, and as to the relief of teachers who might be rendered surplus as the result of a desegregation order.

A hearing was had November 6—Novem-ber 21, 1978 to take additional evidence on the foregoing matters. The parties were granted permission to file posthearing briefs, the last of which was filed March 21, 1979. An unusual feature of this most recent hearing was the role reversal on the part of the original defendant IPS.

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506 F. Supp. 657, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-board-of-school-commissioners-of-city-of-indianapolis-insd-1979.