Long-Awaited School Desegregation Case Comes to Trial in Connecticut : Schools: Lawsuit threatens to erase the hitherto inviolate borders that have kept urban and suburban children--and races--apart.

Noelle Grattan and Natasha Thorpe have much in common: They both are high school seniors, they live within a few miles of each other, and they have little chance to meet youngsters of other races in school.

Thorpe is black, and attends Weaver High School in Hartford, which is nearly 100% black; Grattan is white, and attends suburban Wethersfield High School, which is 95% white.

This state of affairs does not trouble Grattan. “Maybe we’re being cheated out of learning about different cultures,” she said, “but I don’t think that’s education.”

But others find the situation intolerable. And the result is a lawsuit that comes to trial Tuesday--and threatens to erase the hitherto inviolate borders that have kept city kids in the city and suburban kids in the suburbs.

Hartford Superior Court Judge Harry Hammer must decide whether racial segregation and the heavy concentration of poor students in Hartford’s city schools violates state constitutional guarantees of an equal education.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs--17 white, black and Puerto Rican children--will try to prove that for the last 20 years, the state has done nothing to correct the socioeconomic patterns that caused the segregation and should be forced to integrate the city and suburban schools.

“It’s not just a question of Hartford suffering,” said Wesley W. Horton, an attorney for the plaintiffs. “Our view is that the suburbs are suffering too. For white students to go to schools that are lily-white is not society today. We have to prepare students to live in a modern society--and modern society is integrated.”

The case focuses on Hartford. But if the plaintiffs win, it could eventually affect thousands of children and radically alter city and suburban school boundaries across the state. It also has drawn nationwide attention because dozens of other urban areas share Hartford’s problem of segregated city and suburban schools.

“I think most people in the school desegregation community are following this case closely,” said James S. Liebman, a professor and expert on school desegregation law at Columbia University Law School. “This is the first trial in which the court is going to have a state definition to use as a measure of whether students are getting an equal education.”

Sheff vs. O’Neill, as the case is known, was filed in April, 1989. It is named after the chief defendant, then-Gov. William O’Neill, and the lead plaintiff, Milo Sheff, who was in fourth grade at Hartford’s Annie Fisher School at the time.

University of Connecticut law professor John C. Brittain, another of the 10 civil rights attorneys representing the plaintiffs, said about 75 witnesses, including about 30 desegregation experts, will testify in a months-long trial. Desegregation cases traditionally have been filed in federal courts, where plaintiffs must prove that the conscious policies of state or school officials led to a segregated school system.

But in Sheff vs. O’Neill, the plaintiffs don’t argue that the state created the situation. Rather, they maintain only that the segregation exists and is illegal under the state Constitution.

“In other words, it doesn’t make a difference why the town lines are wrong. It doesn’t make a difference who’s responsible for the problem,” said Horton. “The point is the state has an affirmative duty to provide an equal opportunity for a free public education.”

Though state officials acknowledge and deplore the racial disparity, they contend that no state law has been violated. They also say they don’t believe the courts can--or should--solve the problem.

“As a matter of public policy, I think it’s critical that the state act promptly and effectively to end as much as possible (unintentional) segregation,” state Atty. Gen. Richard Blumenthal said. “But as a matter of law, the existing situation is not a violation of the state Constitution.

“The state has not in any way caused or created or contributed to the lack of full integration or disparities in educational performance,” he said. “We feel very strongly that court systems are not well-suited to run school systems. Judges should not determine where our kids go to school.”

State officials, who twice have failed to block the case from going to trial, say the solution lies in voluntary desegregation programs that provide financial incentives to school districts that participate.

Education Commissioner Vincent Ferrandino has formed an Office of Urban Affairs to develop a plan to encourage more voluntary integration. In October, he outlined plans for limited school choice involving regional magnet schools, and financial bonuses for city and suburban districts that build joint schools.

“While none of the proposals taken individually are going to solve the problem, I think if they’re taken as a package they’re going to go a long way,” Ferrandino said.

But the plaintiffs’ attorneys contend a court order is needed to force state officials to make progress toward integrating the schools.

“If they say that the remedies have to be limited to voluntary means--well, they don’t work,” Brittain said. “We’ve had them for more than 20 years.”