Jenkins v. Missouri Memorandum in Support of Motion to Dismiss

    IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE 
WESTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI 

WESTERN DIVISION

KALIMA JENKINS, et al. , ) V' \
) \  />.____ ....

Plaintiffs, ) < "7 .
)

v. ) Case No. 77-0420-CV-W-1-4
)

THE STATE OF MISSOURI, et al.,)
)

Defendants. ) -

MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF HICKMAN MILLS 
SCHOOL DISTRICT'S AND SUPERINTENDENT 

BLAINE E. STECK'S RULE 41(b) MOTION TO DISMISS

I. Preliminary Statement

In its separate pretrial brief filed herein on October 17, 
1983, Hickman Mills School District predicted that plaintiffs' 
evidence against it would consist of inferences, insinuation and 
innuendo. The prediction, of course, has now come true, as 
plaintiffs have rested their case against the Hickman Mills 
School District following 64 trial days of evidence without 
proving any constitutional violation by the Hickman Mills School 
District, let alone the Millikan requirement of constitutional 
violation by the Hickman Mills School District that produced a 
significant segregative effect in the Kansas City, Missouri 

School District.



II. The Plaintiffs' Evidence
In Sum

Although plaintiffs may accuse this defendant of over­
simplifying the issues, Hickman Mills School District believes 
that there are two glaring facts proven by plaintiffs' evidence 
which mandate dismissal of plaintiffs' case against Hickman 

Mills School District:
1. Hickman Mills School District never operated 

a dual school system and it never transported black 
students to other districts prior to 1954, as it had 
no black students living within its boundaries prior 
to the mid-1960's. (PI. Ex. 1785)

2. The black enrollment percentage in the Hickman 
Mills School District was 16.7% for the 1982-83 school 
year and 18.02% for the 1983-84 school year (PI. Ex.
53G and 2967)

Pre-1954

Plaintiffs' evidence introduced against Hickman Mills School 
District has been sparse indeed. Plaintiffs' pre-1954 case did 
not involve the Hickman Mills School District. Dr. Anderson 
admitted that although he searched, he was unable to find any 
reliable data that would place any blacks in the area of the 
Hickman Mills School District prior to 1954. (Tr. p. 4620)
Yale Rabin testified that from the maps he prepared for the 
Court from census data, he could not tell if there were any 
blacks in Hickman Mills School District. Without black residents,

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there could not have been transfers of black schoolchildren 

and Hickman Mills School District could not have been a part 
of plaintiffs' alleged (but unproven) interdistrict system.

Post-1954 Complaints

Plaintiffs have succeeded in finding three witnesses 
(Albert Byrd, Alvin Brooks and Herman Johnson) who had hearsay 
knowledge of individuals who believed that Hickman Mills School 
District's handling of a racial incident was not what it should 
have been in such individual's opinion. According to the 
hearsay testimony, two of the three incidents were precipitated 
by a fight between black and white students. No written com­
plaints were filed with any state or federal agency involving 
any of these incidents and no findings were ever made concern­
ing them. Further, the record is absolutely devoid of any 
evidence of any effect on anyone, much less the Kansas City, 
Missouri School District, of such complaints. Three unproven 
complaints over a period of fifteen years (Herman Johnson 
testified concerning a 1967 matter and Alvin Brooks testified 
concerning a 1983 matter) with unproven effects simply have 
no probative value as to the interdistrict or any other issue 

in this case.

1963-64 KCMSD Annexation Issue

Plaintiffs have raised a completely false issue regarding 

the 1963-64 effort of some of the patrons of Hickman Mills

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School District to annex Hickman Mills School District to 
Kansas City, Missouri School District. Plaintiffs simply 
proved that the Hickman Mills School District Board appointed 
a citizens committee of 25 persons, chaired by a board member, 
to study the pros and cons of annexation to Kansas City, 
Missouri School District. (Tr. p. 4763-64) Following the 
study, a majority of the committee recommended to the Board 
of Hickman Mills School District that it call an annexation 
election if presented with a proper petition seeking such 
election. (Tr. p. 4764, PI. Ex. 522) Shirley Dobbins, a 
proponent of annexation to Kansas City, Missouri School 
District, testified that a petition seeking annexation of 
Hickman Mills School District to Kansas City, Missouri School 
District was filed with Hickman Mills School District after 
the committee's report was completed and that an election 
was thereafter called. (Tr. p. 4765) Ms. Dobbins further 
testified that the Board of Hickman Mills School District 
and its administrators remained neutral on the proposed 
annexation, thus leaving the issue to be decided by the 
voters in the Hickman Mills School District. (Tr. p. 4765) 
Although Ms. Dobbins testified that "race was an issue" in 
the election in the minds of some voters, this speculation 
or fact does not bear on the issues in this case. The voters 
in the Hickman Mills School District decided the annexation 
issue as required by state law and are not defendants in 

this lawsuit.

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Betty Sapp

Plaintiffs' witness, Betty Sapp, testified that she was a 

former black teacher with Hickman Mills School District who 
believed she had been discriminated against and that there 
were unfair disciplinary and class assignment practices at 
one junior high school in the Hickman Mills School District.
The complaints of Ms. Sapp have not been clarified or supported 
by any documentary evidence and Ms. Sapp proved herself to be 
lacking in any credibility in at least two instances: (a) she
took the Fifth Amendment, refusing to "incriminate herself" 
during cross-examination, and (b) she claimed knowledge as to 
the total number of black teachers in the Hickman Mills School 
District in 1979 and testified that there were 5 such black 
teachers. Yet plaintiffs' own Exhibit 990 proves that Hickman 
Mills School District had 11 black teachers that year.

Finally, even if the Court believed Ms. Sapp's allegations, 
the allegations concern intradistrict matters only and have 
absolutely no probative value as to interdistrict liability or 

effect.

OCR Compliance Review

In 1979, OCR conducted a compliance review of Hickman Mills 
School District regarding class assignment of minorities, and 
plaintiffs' Exhibit 2444 indicates that OCR initially concluded

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that Hickman Mills School District was lacking in the area of 
neutral class assignments of minorities. Plaintiffs will no 
doubt make much of this intradistrict fact, but will in all 
likelihood ignore the first page of plaintiffs' Exhibit 2444 
which explains that students were assigned classes by a random 
computer selection. Because the computer did not take race into 
account, certain of the classes in Hickman Mills School District 
did not have the racial balance which OCR desired. The matter 
was corrected and OCR was satisfied, the computer assignment 
methods apparently convincing OCR that race had not been a factor 
in class assignments. In short, the alleged problems were 
immediately resolved and had no proven effect, either within or 

without the Hickman Mills School District.

Trailer Courts and Apartments

Plaintiffs have argued that the fact that Hickman Mills 
School District occasionally opposed the rezoning of various 
properties for use as trailer courts and apartment buildings is 
somehow significant. There is not one shred of evidence in the 
record indicating that any such opposition had any significant 
effect either within or without the Hickman Mills School 
District and thus, the entire issue is irrelevant. There is 
no evidence that opposition was formally registered by a 
representative of the Hickman Mills School District, or that 
any such opposition affected the decision makers regarding 
zoning matters. Even if the Court considered the matter

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relevant, the deposition testimony of Joseph Nesbit (p. 107) 
and Billy T. Wall (Vol. II, p. 50) indicate clearly that the 
reason that Hickman Mills School District opposed any such 
proposals was its belief that the tax revenues from such 
developments were insufficient to adequately support the per 
pupil expenditures for children from those developments.

III. Common Sense

The few complaints referred to in hearsay testimony, the 
Kansas City, Missouri School District annexation issue, Betty 
Sapp's testimony, the OCR compliance review (which was resolved 
one day after the Hickman Mills School District was notified of 
the problem), and concern regarding trailer courts and apartment 
construction with no proven effect, simply add up to nothing.

Plaintiffs' Exhibits 53G and 2967 show that the black en­
rollment percentage in the Hickman Mills School District has 
gone from less than 1% in 1968 to 18.02% in 1983. The 18.02% 
black enrollment in Hickman Mills School District in 1983 exceeds 
the 14.53% black population of the Missouri portion of the SMSA 
(plaintiffs' Exhibit 32A) by over three percentage points. One 
of the plaintiffs' chief experts, John Kain, admitted under 
cross-examination that the Hickman Mills School District had 
reached the percentage black enrollment he predicted on plain­
tiffs' Exhibit 1265P if race were not a factor. It simply

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cannot be said that any of the complained of actions or inac­
tions of the Hickman Mills School District had any significant 
segregative effect on KCMSD, Hickman Mills School District or 
any other defendant district. In fact, Hickman Mills School 
District is living proof that the myriad types of evidence 
plaintiffs have offered against defendant districts and the 
State of Missouri ranging from alleged individual complaints 
of racial discrimination, lack of sufficient numbers of black 
teachers, to realtor practices, to failure to endorse other 
groups' metropolitan education plans is irrelevant. Blacks 
have chosen to move to residences within the Hickman Mills 
School District in the last 15 years. The growth has been 
steady as reflected in plaintiffs' Exhibit 53G which disproves 
any relevance which plaintiffs would like to attach to their 
de minimus evidence as to individual incidents allegedly 
having a discemable effect. Further, no part of the Hickman 
Mills School District is adjacent to or connected with the 
principal black contiguous area defined by Yale Rabin in his 

testimony.
The growth of the black population in Hickman Mills School 

District has been natural, is not connected to an extension 
of the so-called Southeast corridor and has not been connected 
to government actions and inactions. Plaintiffs' Exhibit 9, the 
1980 metropolitan black population distribution map, together

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with plaintiffs' Exhibit 36, the school district boundary overlay, 

shows increases in the black population in every census tract 
within the Hickman Mills School District; yet none of those 
tracts are adjacent to the principal black contiguous area 
defined by Mr. Rabin. Plaintiffs' 1980 census map (Exhibit 9) 
really should be Exhibit 1 in all defendants' motions for dis­
missal as it graphically shows the dispersal of blacks across 
the metropolitan area--further proof of the lack of any signi­
ficant effect as to any of the actions or inactions complained 

of by plaintiffs.
Common sense tells us that the steady growth of the black 

population in the Hickman Mills School District over the past 15 
years would not have occurred if the alleged acts or omissions 
of Hickman Mills School District and the State and Federal 
defendants had any significant effect on blacks within the 
Kansas City, Missouri School District. The truth of the matter 
is that to the extent that the numbers of blacks in the Hickman 
Mills School District and other defendant districts are increas­
ing while the number of blacks in Kansas City, Missouri School 
District is decreasing (PI. Ex. 53G and K2), the actions of the 
Hickman Mills School District and other defendants are having a 
desegregative effect on Kansas City, Missouri School District 

rather than a segregative effect.

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IV. Adoption of Brief of School District 
Defendants (Excluding KCMSD)

Hickman Mills School District, in an effort to conserve 
judicial time and avoid duplication, adopts the Suggestions in 
Support of School District Defendants' (excluding KCMSD) Motion 
to Dismiss.

KURANER & SCHWEGLER

Jeffyrfejr L 7 Lucas 
5(tfO/ypW«ce Bank 
/22fywalnut Street 
Kansas City, Missouri 
816/221-3443

No. 24485 
Building

64106

ATTORNEYS FOR DEFENDANT HICKMAN 
MILLS SCHOOL DISTRICT

I hereby certify that a copy 
of the foregoing was hand- 
delivered this 13th day of 
March, 1984, to all counsel 
of record.

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