Quest for Unitary Status: The East Baton Rouge Parish School Desegregation Case

• Author: Jessica E. Watson
• Pages: 953-989

Page 953

Recipient of the Vinson & Elkins Best Student Casenote or Comment Award, 2001-2002. The author extends special thanks to Professor Paul R. Baier, George M. Armstrong, Jr. Professor of Law, Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University, for his insight and guidance in the creation of this casenote.

This scarecrow of a suit has, in course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it means. The parties to it understand it least . . . . ¹

The fog of confusion created by the school desegregation case in East Baton Rouge Parish has loomed over the school system for more than forty-five years. In this modern-day Jarndyce v. Jarndyce,² the battle between the private citizens of East Baton Rouge Parish and the School Board has continued to draw media attention as the parties "duke it out" in the federal court system to rectify the injustices of past and present discrimination within the school system. Although the case has remained very active on the docket of the District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana during this time, little progress has been made in restoring the school system to the control of local authority.

Since the inception of school desegregation in the 1950s, the United States Supreme Court has continued to manifest a desire for schools to be returned to the control of local authorities, but the Supreme Court has been slow to enumerate legal standards necessary for the termination of judicial control. However, in the past decade, the fog has begun to lift as the Court has gradually revealed what is required for a school system to be released from judicial control and granted unitary status.

This note will show that the East Baton Rouge Parish School System is ready to be released from the control of the district court. Part I lays out the facts and history of the East Baton Rouge Parish school desegregation case. Part II provides a history of the federal court's role in school desegregation. In Part III the concept of unitary status as established by the United States Supreme Court is discussed, Page 954 as well as the evolution of the standards established by the Court for determining whether a school system should be released from judicial control. Part IV reviews the recent trend in the United States circuit courts of relaxing the application of these standards, indicating the courts' growing interest in returning schools to local control. Finally, Part V examines the application of these standards to the East Baton Rouge Parish desegregation case including what evidence the school board will need to bring forth in order to finally be granted unitary status and freed from the control of the U.S. District Court.

I The Fog Sets In: Davis V. East Baton Rouge Parish School Board

The East Baton Rouge Parish school desegregation case³ was filed in 1956 in response to the United States Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education.⁴ In 1960, the Federal District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana issued an order prohibiting the East Baton Rouge School Board from continuing to operate a racially segregated school system.⁵ Upon order of the court, the school board submitted a "freedom of choice" desegregation plan that was adopted by the court in 1963.⁶ The plaintiffs to the litigation appealed the plan's approval, and the decision was reversed at the appellate level.⁷In 1969, Dr. D'Orsay Bryant and Mr. Alphonso O. Potter, active officers within the National Association for the Advancement of Page 955 Colored People (the NAACP), were allowed to intervene as plaintiffs.⁸ In their motion to intervene, they alleged that the interests of local black children were not being properly represented.⁹

In 1970, the school board established a biracial committee to formulate a plan addressing the problems of student and faculty desegregation. The committee proposed a "neighborhood zoning" desegregation plan that was unanimously approved by the board and subsequently adopted by the district court.¹⁰ The plan provided for desegregation of faculty, staff, transportation, extracurricular activities, student body composition, and school facilities. Also, in the 1970 plan, "[s]tudent assignment was based primarily on the neighborhood school concept," supplemented by a majority-to- minority (MTM)¹¹ transfer provision.¹² This plan for desegregation was later struck down as ineffective and, in 1981, another plan devised by the court was implemented in an attempt to "dismantle the dual educational system 'root and branch' as required by the Constitution."¹³ During the next decade, dozens of orders were approved by the court to modify aspects of the 1981 plan, but the basic principles of the plan remained unchanged throughout the 1980s. In 1990, the school system began experiencing serious overcrowding problems, and the school board commenced looking for a solution to the problems of overcrowding without distorting its primary objective of desegregation.¹⁴

By the end of the 1995-1996 school year, the 1981 plan had failed to dismantle the dual school system.¹⁵ Thus, in 1996, the Board proposed a new plan Page 956 designed to raise and equalize the level of quality of the educational experience provided to the students attending the East Baton Rouge Parish Public School System, reduce the number of racially identifiable schools, stabilize and increase the number of students in the system, increase the number of students enrolled in desegregated schools, and increase interracial exposure among students.¹⁶

On August 2, 1996, the district court approved this Consent Decree after both the Board and the plaintiffs agreed to the provisions of the new plan.¹⁷ Although relatively brief, the new plan contained eight major provisions, including provisions addressing community sensitive attendance zones, faculty enhancement of "racially- identifiable" black schools, and facility enhancements at "racially- identifiable" schools.¹⁸ Since its implementation in 1996, numerous disputes have arisen regarding the interpretation and modification of the 1996 Consent Decree. Although the case has seen much activity, no explicit attention has been given to the termination of the desegregation case; instead, the parties continue to focus almost exclusively on procedural and remedial issues.¹⁹

On July 25, 2001, Judge John Parker, United States District Judge for the Middle District of Louisiana, resigned from the East Baton Rouge desegregation case.²⁰ Judge Parker, who had presided over the case for twenty-two years, expressed his dissatisfaction with the case's progress and the school board's lack of effort to comply with the 1996 Consent Decree. After Judge Parker stepped down, the case was assigned to United States District Judge James Brady, a recent addition to the federal bench.²¹ Although Judge Brady has only been Page 957 involved with the case for a few months, he has indicated a desire to work with the parties to devise a solution to the desegregation problems in the parish. In an effort to ensure progression of the case, Judge Brady has set up informal meetings with the School Board, the original 1956 plaintiffs, the local NAACP, the U.S. Justice Department, as well as representatives from the Citizen's Task Force on Education Improvements²² to discuss the objectives of each party to the case and to notify the parties of his expectations of the respective parties as the case continues.²³

As is evidenced by the most recent pronouncement of the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals regarding the School Board's appeal of a decision calling for the inclusion of pre-kindergarten students in school enrollment limits, the court has grown impatient with the perpetuity of the case and desires its expeditious resolution. As Judge King, Chief Judge of the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, so eloquently stated during oral arguments for the recent appeal, "[w]e can't micromanage this case."²⁴ However, the Fifth Circuit panel was also quick to point out that the responsibility for judicial supervision lay with the district court, not with the appellate court; and the district judge's rulings were to be given substantial weight upon review at the appellate level.

The Fifth Circuit also suggested that since Judge Brady is now presiding over the case, the parties might benefit from the possibility of his interpreting the duties of the School Board to desegregate in a different manner than Judge Parker had previously. Because desegregation jurisprudence is so broad, it allows the presiding judge much discretion in interpreting the standards as he or she personally sees fit for declaring unitary status. After all, "judicial choice is inescapable . . . 'There is no guarantee of justice except the personality Page 958 of the judge.'"²⁵ Based on this potential for Judge Brady to be more sympathetic to the School Board's cause as well as the imminence and necessity of ending the federal court's supervision, the school board must take...