Remarks by Hopkins on Boston School Committee Suit

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President 
§ Hon, Francis E. Rivers 

4 PRESS RELEA! Director-Counsel 
egal fefense und Jack Greenberg 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC a eskt out 
10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 » JUdson 6-8397 Septenber 6,19 te NIGHT NUMBER 212-749-8487 

Remarks by LDF Attorney Donald Hopkins 

Today, a suit has been filed in the United States District 

District Court on behalf of the residents of the Roxbury area to 

enjoin the holding of future elections of the Boston School Committee 

on an at-large basis. 7 

The black parents, through their a forneys from the NAACP 

Legal tefense and Educational Fund, Inc./Massachusetts Law Reform 

Institute @yy@Mehew are asking the Court to: 

1) preliminarily and permanently enjoin the operation 
and enforcement of Section 18 of the Boston City ’ 

Charter, the statute by which the school committee 

is elected; 

2) declare that the section is in violation of the 

Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. 

Constitution in that the purpose and effect of 

the at-large system is to deprive a minority 

racial group of effective exercise of their 

franchise; 

3) order the Mayor and City Council to petition the 

General Court for an amendment to the City Charter, 

providing for the election of School Committee 

members on a district basis and; 

4) to order the establishment of local governing 
boards to supervise and control the local func- 

tions of schools in the Roxbury area. 

The complaint alleges that the at-large election of the 

Boston School Committee was historically designed, in part, to 

keep minorities from exercising effective voting power and in- 

fluencing the decisions of the School Committee. 

The complaint further alleges that today the at-large system 

is being used to minimize, dilute and cancel the effectiveness of 

the black vote, heavily concentrated in wards 9 and 12, by ab- 

sorbing the black votes in the predominantly white city-wide vote. 

The result of the absorption of the black vote in the pre- 

dominantly white city-wide vote is to allow the School Committee 

to ignore the interests and desires of the black community in 

determining school policy. 

Various examples of traditional unresponsiveness of the School 

Committee to the black community are cited, such as the reluctance 

to admit the existence of segregated education in the Boston 

schools in the early nineteen sixties, and the School Committee's 

attempt to have the Racial Imbalance Act declared unconstitutional. 

The complaint alleges that as a result of these factors, the 

black parents and children of Roxbury are being denied the right to 

equality of educational opportunity and the right to effective 

exercise of the franchise which was the intent of the Fifteenth 

Amendment. 

Tt er alleges they are being unjustly discriminated 

against ii tion of the equal protection clause of the Fourt 

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