Order Modifying Irwin Avenue School Transportation Plan

     [||a3a6d7b8-dea9-4b12-b866-3bb4d9bdadd0||] IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

FOR THE -WESTERN DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA 

Charlotte Division Hii 6a nen 

Civil Action. Fo. 1974 ia { 

  

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JAMES E ® SW: J ANN ? et al ? Plai pi Kp He F558 # ) i ~- 1 “a Ae lvoe ; 

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VS — ) ORDER : 

THE IARLOTTE~-MECKLENBURG BOARD ) : 

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OF Cie et al, ) | } 

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The School Board's amended plan for desegregation of : 

the Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools was approved el order Of i 

August 15, 1969. The Board has now tendered 

a modification to this plan which was filed today. August : 

29, 1959. 

The modification relates to the act ties to be pro- 

vided for those blac dren whose parents exercise freedom 

of choice to attend a black elementary school in the inner ! 

city instead of attending the whice schools listed in the 

July 29, 1969 plan which has already been, approved by the i 

court. ¢ 

The amendment calls for using the building of former i 

Irwin Avenue Junior High School with certain minor renova- 

tions, instead of Zeb Vance School, and a limit of six 

hundred students upon those who would be admitted to this 

program at Irwin Avenue School. This part of the motion | 

to amend is approved. The choice of i per se, is | 

a matter for the School Board, not the cou 

The amendment DROposss that the Irwin Avenue School 

an innovative school.” he court 

f by this phrase is meant 
& : 

81 —. 

would be operated "as 

does not know what this means. 

that anything will be done tO ma 

to the black students than the b 

attending, then. the program will constitute the location and 
ack schools they have been 

use Of a school facility for the purpose of promoting segre- 

gation which by orevious decisions of this and oti 

the defendants have been fully advised is unconstitu ; hg 
L 

      Felder, et atl, Vv. Harnett County, North Caro.lina 

1070 (4th Cironit, 19 STR April 22, 1969), ‘and cases 

cited therein. The addition of innovations” at Ixwin 

Avenue, Scheel will not be approved by the court unless 

these "i-novations” have been arranged and provided for 

211 the _ilack students who transfer TO white schools undcel 

the July 29. 1969 plan of the Board previously approved. 

The phrase » innovative” may refex to what the Board has 

 



  

heretofore called "compensatory education.” The court has 

not yet been advised of any performance by the Board in line 

with the undertaking in its July 29, 199 plan to provide 

"compensatory education" for pupils who lag behind their 

classmates in academic achievement. Unless and until the 

court can be informed and satisfied that this "ocompensatory 

education” is provided in the other schools, the court is 

of the opinion that providing it in the Irwin Avenue School 

would set up a magnet to attract black children away from 

desegregated assignments and therefore on the present record 

at least that part of the plan is disapproved. 

The proposal to provide transportation for any of the 

students attending Irwin Avenue School is expressly disapproved. 

The effect of providing transportation is to subsidize at tax 

payers’ expense those who are actively seeking to defeat the 

constitutional mandate to desegregate the schools. NO auth- 

ted to justify such a flagrant 

violation of the law, and none has been imagined by the court. 

The Board is expres trained from and enjoined against 

providing transportation in any form to any student in the 

system, black or white, which may OXY might enable him to 

travel any part of the distance from his home to or from 

any school elected by or for him under "freedom of transfer" 

or "freedom of choice," except that the Board may provide 

transportation as previously ordered by | this court to those 

students who elect. to transfer or who are transferred by the 

Board from a school in which thelr race{is in a majority to 

a school in which their race is in the minority. As this 

court pointed out before, bus transportation has too long 

been used as a tool to promote segregation. The year 1969 

is too late in the day to start using this tool for that 

purpose in new situations. 

This the 29th day of August, 1969. 

   

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[/ united States District Judge [||a3a6d7b8-dea9-4b12-b866-3bb4d9bdadd0||]