1987 Start for Desegregation Trial Forecast

A federal court trial in a case seeking to bring mandatory busing to Los Angeles will not begin before 1987, according to an agreement by opposing attorneys announced Monday.

Attorneys also said they are still unsure of the exact complaint against the Los Angeles school district and whether or not the trial will take into account events before 1969.

Four years after the case was filed, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed last month that a trial could proceed on the question of whether the school system intentionally segregated students after 1969, the year the state desegregation trial ended.

Judge A. Wallace Tashima said Monday he was eager to start the trial and expressed disappointment about the “leisurely pace” set by the lawyers.

However, Joseph Duff, counsel for the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, said he needs more time to examine documents and interview witnesses in the local school district and the state Department of Education.

This “initial phase of discovery” will take until June 30, 1986, Duff told the court Monday.

Afterward, school district attorneys said they will need “another nine months” to examine what Duff has uncovered and to interview his witnesses.

Tashima agreed with that schedule, but only after voicing some irritation with the slow pace of events.

‘All Deliberate Speed’

“It seemed to me that we had cleared away everything that stands in the way of trial. I think we should proceed, not to coin a phrase, ‘with all deliberate speed’ toward a trial,” he said.

He referred to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 order which called for the schools to move “with all deliberate speed” toward desegregation, a phrase that took on an ironic twist as the nation’ move toward desegregation proved to be deliberate but not speedy.

Tashima also ordered the attorneys to be back in court July 21, 1986, to report on their progress.

Left unanswered was the question of whether actions before 1969 will become part of the trial.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in one of the procedural rulings, said the case against the Los Angeles district should be limited to the period after 1969, but it also authorized the lower court to examine whether the state played a role in keeping city schools segregated.

Attention to History

Duff, the NAACP counsel, said Monday that he plans to focus on a “statutory history of segregation” in California and “administrative actions after 1945.” By doing so, the civil rights attorney hopes to prove that the state caused, in some way, the segregation of the city schools.

If the state is found guilty, the court could order it to pay the costs of further desegregation, or possibly even order busing of students across school district lines.

“It is a different type of case against the state than against the local defendants,” Duff said, in arguing for the broader time period in building a case against the state.

Tashima said the NAACP attorneys could begin examining historical documents, but he did not rule on whether the trial itself will cover actions before 1969.