Columbus Board of Education v. Penick

Supreme Court of the United States
61 L. Ed. 2d 666, 1979 U.S. LEXIS 144, 443 U.S. 449 (1979)

ELI5:

Rule of Law:

Where a school board was intentionally operating a dual, segregated school system in a substantial portion of its district at the time of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), it is under a continuing, affirmative constitutional duty to dismantle that system. The board’s subsequent failure to fulfill this duty, combined with actions that have a foreseeable and segregative effect, constitutes a continuing violation of the Equal Protection Clause that can justify a system-wide desegregation remedy.

Facts:

Although Ohio law ceased to require or permit segregated schools in 1888, the Columbus Board of Education implemented policies that created segregated schools, starting with the establishment of an all-black school in 1909.
The Board gerrymandered attendance zones to ensure white students could attend white schools, even if black schools were closer to their homes.
By 1954, at the time of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, the Columbus Board of Education was intentionally operating an 'enclave of separate, black schools' through its policies on student and faculty assignment.
Following the 1954 Brown decision, the Columbus Board of Education did not take active steps to dismantle this dual system.
Between 1954 and 1974, the Board continued a practice of assigning black teachers almost exclusively to schools with predominantly black student populations.
The Board created optional attendance zones and discontiguous attendance areas, which allowed white students to avoid attending predominantly black schools that were geographically closer to them.
The Board selected sites for new school construction that had the foreseeable and anticipated effect of maintaining or exacerbating racial separation in the school system, despite warnings about the segregative impact.

Procedural Posture:

Fourteen students filed a class-action lawsuit on June 21, 1973, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio against the Columbus Board of Education and state officials.
The complaint alleged that the defendants pursued policies with the purpose and effect of creating and perpetuating racial segregation in the public schools, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
After a 36-day trial, the District Court issued a decision in March 1977, finding that the Columbus Board had intentionally operated a dual school system in 1954 and had failed to dismantle it, while also committing subsequent segregative acts.
The District Court concluded that the Board's actions had a current system-wide impact and ordered the submission of a system-wide desegregation plan.
The Columbus Board of Education, the appellant, appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's finding of a constitutional violation and its order for a system-wide remedy against the local defendants.
The U.S. Supreme Court granted the Columbus Board of Education's petition for a writ of certiorari.

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Issue:

Does a school board's failure to dismantle a school system that was intentionally segregated in 1954, combined with subsequent actions that had a foreseeable segregative effect, violate the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause and justify a system-wide desegregation remedy?

Opinions:

Majority - Justice White

Yes. A school board's failure to dismantle a dual system that existed in 1954, combined with subsequent intentionally segregative acts, violates the Fourteenth Amendment and justifies a system-wide remedy. The lower courts' finding that the Columbus Board of Education operated an intentionally segregated dual school system in 1954 was not clearly erroneous. This fact created a continuing 'affirmative duty' for the Board to desegregate. The Board not only failed to discharge this duty but also engaged in a series of post-1954 actions, such as faculty assignment, optional attendance zones, and school siting, that had foreseeable segregative effects and constituted proof of continued segregative purpose. The combined effect of the Board's past and present actions was a current, system-wide segregation that warranted the court-ordered system-wide remedy.

Concurring - Chief Justice Burger

Yes. While expressing 'serious doubts' about whether many of the Board's post-1954 actions were truly segregative, the District Court's factual findings were not 'clearly erroneous' and must be deferred to. The record contains sufficient facts to justify the conclusion that the school district was not being operated in a racially neutral manner and that the Board's actions affected a 'meaningful portion' of the school system under the standard set in Keyes. However, the majority's reliance on the 1954 'dual system' finding to establish an 'unknown and unforeseeable affirmative duty' is a novel legal standard with no foundation in prior decisions.

Concurring - Justice Stewart

Yes. The Court attaches too much importance to whether a 'dual school system' existed in 1954, as the prejudices and conditions of that era cannot be presumed to control the present. The proper basis for the decision is the ample evidence of the Board's recent and continuing discriminatory actions in the years leading up to the lawsuit. These actions, as found by the District Court, demonstrated intentional segregation in a 'meaningful portion' of the school system. Under Keyes, this created a prima facie case of a system-wide violation, which the Board failed to rebut, thus justifying the system-wide remedy.

Dissenting - Justice Powell

No. The Court's decision endorses a 'wholly new constitutional concept' that ignores the reality that modern urban school segregation results primarily from residential housing patterns, not the actions of school boards. The majority's 'chain of presumptions' is unreasonable and leads to system-wide remedies, such as massive busing, that are disproportionate to any proven constitutional violation. These remedies are often counterproductive, leading to 'white flight' and a decline in the quality of public education, and constitute judicial social engineering rather than principled constitutional adjudication.

Dissenting - Justice Rehnquist

No. The majority's analysis represents a 'radical new approach' that creates a perpetual 'affirmative duty' based on a nearly irrebuttable presumption that a dual system existed in 1954. This approach improperly relieves plaintiffs of their burden to show a causal link between a school board's intentionally discriminatory acts and the current racial imbalance in the schools. It effectively equates foreseeable impact with discriminatory purpose, contrary to precedents like Washington v. Davis, and transforms the neighborhood school policy into a constitutional violation. This logic emasculates the distinction between de jure and de facto segregation and results in an unwarranted federal judicial displacement of local authority over education.

Analysis:

This decision significantly expanded the scope of school desegregation remedies, particularly for Northern and Midwestern cities that lacked a history of state-mandated (de jure) segregation. It established that a finding of intentionally segregative policies (de facto segregation) at the time of Brown I created a continuing 'affirmative duty to desegregate,' similar to that imposed on Southern districts. The Court's acceptance of foreseeable consequences as strong evidence of discriminatory intent made it easier for plaintiffs to prove system-wide violations and secure system-wide remedies. The ruling lowered the bar for triggering judicial intervention and imposing comprehensive desegregation plans, like busing, outside of the traditional de jure context.

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