Morgan v. Hennigan
379 F. Supp. 410, 1974 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7973 (1974)
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Rule of Law:
A school board violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment when it knowingly carries out a systematic program of segregation affecting a substantial portion of the students, schools, teachers, and facilities, thereby creating and maintaining a de jure dual school system, even in the absence of a statute mandating segregation.
Facts:
- The Boston public school system was extensively segregated, with 84% of white students attending schools that were over 80% white, and 62% of black students attending schools that were over 70% black.
- The Boston School Committee constructed new schools and additions in locations that reinforced existing residential segregation, often building small schools tailored to the racial composition of the immediate neighborhood.
- Despite severe overcrowding in predominantly white schools and substantial available capacity in predominantly black schools, the Committee used portable classrooms to expand white schools rather than reassigning students to underutilized schools.
- The Committee established and manipulated 'feeder patterns' from junior high and middle schools to high schools, which channeled black students into certain citywide high schools (like English High) and white students into district high schools, rapidly transforming the racial composition of the receiving schools.
- The Committee administered an 'open enrollment' policy that functioned as an 'escape' for white students to transfer out of schools with increasing black enrollment, thereby exacerbating segregation.
- The Committee disproportionately assigned less experienced and uncertified 'provisional' teachers to schools with majority-black student populations and permitted more experienced white teachers with seniority to transfer out of those schools.
- For years, the School Committee actively resisted and evaded state-level efforts to reduce racial imbalance under the Massachusetts Racial Imbalance Act, rejecting redistricting proposals and sabotaging advisory committees.
- The School Committee's hiring and promotion practices, including the use of unvalidated standardized tests and an insular promotion system, resulted in a faculty and administrative staff with a very small percentage of black employees.
Procedural Posture:
- Black parents and their children filed a class-action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts against the Boston School Committee and state education officials.
- The complaint alleged that the defendants intentionally created and maintained a racially segregated public school system, violating the plaintiffs' constitutional rights.
- The city defendants filed a motion to join numerous surrounding suburban cities and towns as defendants, which the court denied.
- The city defendants' motion to stay the federal proceedings pending the resolution of ongoing state court litigation over the Massachusetts Racial Imbalance Act was denied.
- The case proceeded to a 15-day trial before the court on the issue of liability, separate from the issue of a potential remedy.
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Issue:
Do the official policies and actions of the Boston School Committee regarding school construction, student assignments, districting, feeder patterns, and faculty hiring, which resulted in widespread racial segregation, constitute intentional state action to create and maintain a dual school system in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment?
Opinions:
Majority - Garrity, District Judge.
Yes, the policies and actions of the Boston School Committee constitute intentional state action to create and maintain a dual school system in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court found that the defendants knowingly carried out a systematic program of segregation affecting all of the city’s students, teachers, and school facilities, and intentionally brought about and maintained a dual school system. The court's reasoning was based on a comprehensive review of the defendants' actions in six key areas: (1) Facilities utilization and new structures: The Committee built and utilized schools in a manner that perpetuated racial segregation, such as building small schools in racially isolated neighborhoods and using portable classrooms to prevent sending white students from overcrowded schools to underutilized black schools. (2) Districting and redistricting: The Committee drew and maintained school district lines to maximize racial separation between adjacent schools and repeatedly rejected viable redistricting plans that would have increased integration. (3) Feeder patterns: The Committee manipulated student assignment patterns from intermediate to high schools to channel black and white students into separate secondary schools. (4) Open enrollment and controlled transfers: The Committee administered a transfer policy that facilitated white flight from integrating schools and created numerous exceptions to a subsequent 'controlled transfer' policy to maintain segregation. (5) Faculty and staff: The Committee's practices led to the segregation of faculty, with black teachers concentrated in black schools, and also resulted in black schools being staffed with less experienced, less qualified, and less stable faculties. (6) Vocational and examination schools: Applying the presumption from Keyes v. School Dist. No. 1, the court found that the segregation in these specialized schools was also the result of intentional segregative actions, a presumption the defendants failed to rebut. The court rejected the defendants' defenses that segregation resulted from housing patterns and a neutral 'neighborhood school' policy, finding that the Committee had deliberately incorporated residential segregation into the school system and had manipulated the neighborhood school concept to perpetuate segregation.
Analysis:
This landmark decision is a critical application of the Supreme Court's holding in Keyes v. School District No. 1, extending the concept of de jure segregation to a Northern city with no history of statutory segregation. The case demonstrates that a court can infer segregative intent from a long-term pattern of administrative decisions across multiple areas of school operations—such as districting, feeder patterns, and faculty assignment—whose foreseeable consequence is to create or maintain racial separation. The ruling established that a 'neighborhood school' policy is not a valid defense when it has been selectively applied or manipulated to achieve segregative ends. The finding of a system-wide dual school system in Boston led to one of the most comprehensive and controversial court-ordered desegregation remedies, including extensive busing, fundamentally altering the legal and social landscape of the city and influencing desegregation litigation nationwide.
