‘63 School Desegregation Suit Moves Near Dismissal

A federal court judge today granted a conditional dismissal of the NAACP’s long-festering desegregation lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District and gave the two parties 60 days to work out a settlement before the decision becomes final.

Judge Wallace Tashima granted the district’s motion to dismiss the largest desegregation lawsuit in the country after more than 20 years of costly and bitter legal battles that began in state court in 1963 and moved to federal court in 1981.

District counsel Peter James said the judge’s action “arises out of the recognition that . . . precious little can be accomplished” to desegregate a school system that, in 1988, is only 18% white.

“It also is a recognition that we can get more results for the money through a settlement” than through a court trial, James said.

Grover G. Hankins, general counsel for the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, said he was pleased with the dismissal and hopeful that negotiations over the next two months will “offer some substantial relief” to minority students.

Hankins said he did “not necessarily agree” that desegregating a district that has an 82% minority enrollment was impossible, but he declined to discuss specific alternatives.

Tashima granted the 60-day stay to encourage the district and the plaintiff time to try to settle their differences out of court. The dismissal will be final sometime after the 60 days, following a hearing to allow other interested parties a chance to comment on the dismissal.

Attorneys for both parties expressed optimism that a compromise can be achieved. The settlement will focus on devising programs that will offer opportunities for “educational enhancement” to minority youngsters.

One proposal the district may offer is to expand a year-old pilot program that operated in 10 chronically low-achieving inner-city elementary schools, called the 10 Schools Project, James said. The program involved overhauling the administration and teaching staffs of each school and implementing a new curriculum that emphasized reading and writing in an attempt to improve the schools’ academic performance.

James said the district has some evidence that test scores at the 10 schools are rising.

The district and the NAACP will assemble panels of education experts to help develop other programs that would target underachieving minority schools.