School Desegregation Suit in San Jose: L.A. Case May Be a Parallel

For 13 years, the San Jose Unified School District fought off a desegregation suit filed by two Latino parents.

The district had twice won in federal court trials, where a generally liberal judge had concluded that school officials “never acted with segregative intent.”

The judge agreed that the schools were “ethnically imbalanced,” as the plaintiffs had charged: The downtown area schools had mostly Latino students and the suburban ones were nearly all Anglo.

Through the years, however, the board had “consistently adhered to a neighborhood school policy,” assigning students to the schools nearest their home. Because the imbalance arose from neighborhood patterns, not from school board actions, the schools “are, therefore, not unconstitutionally segregated,” Judge Robert Peckham ruled in 1976 and again in 1981.

In a turn of events that could have an ominous parallel for Los Angeles school officials, however, an appeals court abruptly reversed both rulings.

On the 30th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Brown vs. Board of Education decision, which outlawed school segregation, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals declared, on May 17, 1984, that the San Jose school board “intentionally maintained segregated schools.

Motivation Cited

Looking at the evidence put before Peckham, the 11-member appeals court concluded that the board’s “stubborn adherence” to a neighborhood school policy “was motivated, at least in part, by a desire to avoid desegregation.”

The San Jose case illustrates the unpredictability of desegregation trials. In the end, the case usually turns on the presumed motivation of school officials, and federal judges often view the same school board actions in different lights.

For example, in reaction to the 1971 earthquake in the San Fernando Valley, the San Jose school board decided to knock down and rebuild 13 schools that were judged to be unsafe.

In all cases, the board rebuilt the schools on the same sites or nearby. When presented with this evidence, Peckham concluded that the schools were ethnically “imbalanced” before and after, so the school board was not guilty of creating the segregation.

The appeals court said, however, that the board could have built the schools in areas that were more integrated. Because officials chose not to do so, they perpetuated school segregation, the appeals court decided.

The case could have significant implications for the Los Angeles school district, which is facing a trial in federal district court alleging that the schools were intentionally segregated.

Appeal Expected

No matter what the outcome, however, the Los Angeles case almost certainly will be appealed to the 9th Circuit Court, which in recent years has been regarded as the most liberal of the 11 federal appeals courts.

Earlier this year, the San Jose district had appealed the 9th Circuit ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the justices, as they often do, refused without comment to hear the case.

Bowing to the wishes of the appeals court, Peckham said that by Dec. 31, he will order a desegregation plan for the 30,000-student school district.

The two proposed plans--one from the school district and one from the legal aid group representing Latino parents--seem, however, to have satisfied practically no one.

The geography of the district poses an obstacle to a simple solution. The district is long and narrow, with no freeway running between the downtown area in the north and the suburban communities in the south.

The district’s plan, released in September, relies on magnet schools and voluntary busing to achieve what it calls “maximum interracial exposure.”

‘More Desegregation’

“With the voluntary plan, we think we will get more desegregation and keep more white students,” said Ken Yamasaki, director of the desegregation planning office, adding that school districts with mandatory plans ended up losing most of their white students.

About 57% of San Jose’s students are white, 31% are Latino, 8% Asian and fewer than 3% are black.

In what now appears to have been a blunder, however, school officials also proposed to close the 122-year-old San Jose High School, the district’s smallest and most heavily Latino high school.

Because of its location and ethnic make-up, district planners said they could not integrate it. Latino parents and the general public have rallied against the proposed closure, however, saying they do not want their children bused from the neighborhood.

Two weeks ago, the Legal Aid Society of Santa Clara County proposed to divide the district into three segments and integrate them through what it calls “controlled choice” assignments of students.

“Our plan will have more mandatory busing,” said Cynthia Rice, attorney for the legal aid society, estimating that about one-fourth of the students will be reassigned if their plan is accepted by the court.

“We think theirs (the district’s plan) is too little, too late,” she added.

Point of Agreement

The school district said it will get 75% of students into desegregated schools within five years; the legal aid group said its plan will desegregate all the schools immediately.

Both sides agree on one point: The plans will be costly. The school district, in what it labeled a “very conservative estimate,” said its plan will cost $30 million over five years. The legal aide group estimated that its plan will have a similar cost.

If a plan is put into effect by the end of the year, both sides said, they expect that the state Department of Education will pick up the tab.

It is assumed that the school district will, however, have to pay the attorneys’ fees for the legal aid group, which date to 1971. The attorneys said they expect their bill to “run into seven figures.”

The desegregation controversy occurs at a particularly inopportune time for the San Jose district.

In 1983, the San Jose school board declared bankruptcy, having earlier agreed to a teachers’ union contract that it could not afford.

After rounds of school closings and staff cutbacks, the board sought out a new superintendent who wanted to take on a challenge.

Reputation for Success

It found such an administrator in Ramon Cortines, who, through nine occasionally turbulent years as the school chief in Pasadena, earned a reputation as a superintendent who could make the schools work.

In his first months on the job in San Jose, Cortines worked out a plan with the teachers’ union to settle the bankruptcy problem. He had also pressured the individual schools to show results and put special emphasis on improving education in the largely Latino schools.

Perhaps most important, Cortines, with his confident, up-beat manner, seemed to have revived a demoralized education system.

He had not counted on having to contend with a desegregation case.

“I guess lightning does strike twice,” Cortines said in an interview, referring to his years in Pasadena, when desegregation dominated the business of the school district.

“We had the bankruptcy behind us,” Cortines said. “I put some accountability into the schools. Our test scores were going up. And just as I was achieving something, this comes along.”

Although frustrated by the court ruling, he faults the San Jose board for not having moved toward desegregation in the mid-1970s.

“They took the easy way out. They didn’t do anything,” he said.

He believes, however, that the plans being proposed, including his own, are flawed.

Issue ‘Is Numbers’

“Right now, the issue is not education. It is numbers. We’re still trying to find a ‘60s remedy to an education problem,” Cortines said. “I can make this (desegregation) work, but I have a difficult time understanding what the civil rights movement is after.”

The legal aid attorneys said they are seeking both integration and a beefing up of educational programs for the most disadvantaged children.

“It will take time to remedy the injury of segregation,” Rice said. “Were it not for this lawsuit, this would not be a priority for this school district.”

Peckham will hold a hearing on Dec. 11 to examine both plans. Although both are detailed and exceedingly complex, the judge has promised to decide on one by the end of December.