Washington State v. Seattle School District No. 1 Brief Amici Curiae

    No. 81-9

IN THE

Supreme Court of the United States

October Term, 1981

STATE OF WASHINGTON, et al. , 
Appellants,

v.
SEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1, et al.,

Appellees.

ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES 
COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

BRIEF OF AMICI CURIAE
Grant L. Anderson, Lee Bailey, Edward 
Diamond, D.V.M., H. Eugene Hall, M.D.,
Mark E. Hoehne, Levy S. Johnston, Roy E. 
Jorgensen, Walter H. Lewis, Roger H. 
Lincoln, Margaret R. McCarthy, Robert W. 
Randall, Philip B. Swain, Dale W. Thompson, 
Ollie Mae Wilson

HENRY M. ARONSON 
420 New England Building 
219 First Avenue South 
Seattle, Washington 98104 
Attorney for Amici Curiae 
Anderson, et al



TABLE OF CONTENTS
1

Table of Contents i
Table of Authorities ii
Motion for Leave to

File Brief as Amici 1
Interest of Amici 3
Summary of Argument 6
Argument 7
Conclusion -_r 14



• •11

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Cases
Martin _Charlotte-Mecklenburg

Bd. of Educ., 626 F.2d 1165 
(4th Cir. 1980), cert. denied 
68 L.Ed.2d 238 (1980)

Miscellaneous
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 
With All Deliberate Speed: 
1954-19?? at 1 (1981)
Rossell, School Desegregation 
and Community Social Change, 
57~Law & Contemp. Probs. 133, 
163-67 (1978)

14

8, 9

11



No. 81-9

IN THE
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

October Term, 1981

STATE OF WASHINGTON, et al., 
Appellants

v.
SEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1, et al.,

Appellees.

ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES 
COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE 
BRIEF AS AMICI CURIAE '

This motion for leave to file the 
accompanying Brief as amici curiae is 
respectfully made pursuant to Rule 36 of 
this Court. Written consent to the filing 
of this brief has been granted by appellee 
school districts and appellee Seattle 
intervenor plaintiffs, and a true copy of



2
such consent is attached to the certificate 
of service filed herewith. Amici expect 
that written consent of the other parties 
to this proceeding is forthcoming.

The nature of amici's interest in this 
matter and amici's reasons for seeking this 
leave are stated in the accompanying brief 
under "Interest of Amici"; that discussion 
is incorporated in this motion.

Dated January 25, 1982.

Respectfully submitted, 

HENRY M. ARONSON

Attorney for Amici Curiae 
Anderson, et al



3
No. 81-9

IN THE
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

October Term, 1981

STATE OF WASHINGTON, et al. , 
Appellants

v .

SEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1, et al.,
Appellees.

ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES 
COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

BRIEF OF AMICI CURIAE 

INTEREST OF AMICI
Amici Grant L. Anderson, Lee Bailey, 

Edward Diamond, D.V.M., H. Eugene Hall, 
M.D., Mark E. Hoehne, Levy S. Johnston, Roy 
E. Jorgensen, Walter H. Lewis, Roger H. 
Lincoln, Margaret R. McCarthy, Robert W. 
Randall, Philip B. Swain, Dale W. Thompson, 
and Ollie Mae Wilson are individual



4
citizens of the State of Washington who 
believe in the educational value of deseg­
regated public schools. Each of these 14 
amici is one of the 15 members of the 
Washington State Board of Education ("State 
Board"). With the exception of one indi­
vidual, who in his official capacity 
represents Washington State's private 
schools on the State board, amici represent 
a geographical cross-section of private 
persons in the State of Washington, since 
the State Board consists of two persons 
from each of Washington's seven Con­
gressional districts. In their official 
capacities, the members of the State Board 
neither authorized nor consented to the 
filing on their behalf of the appeal in 
this case, see J.S. D-3.

The State Board of Education in 
October 1978 adopted the language of the 
Joint Policy Statement with the Washing­



5
ton State Human Rights Commission, J.A. 
65-69, defining racial isolation and 
declaring the responsibility and duty of 
Washington school boards "to assign chil­
dren to buildings in ways which result in 
the maximum desegregation possible by 
whatever means that are necessary." 
These amici as individuals subscribe to the 
views expressed in the Joint Policy State­
ment .

Also in October 1978, the State Board 
passed a resolution condemning Initiative 
350 as "motivated by the sole purpose of 
overturning the Seattle Plan for desegrega­
tion of that District's schools" and 
"harmful for education." J.A. 69-70 (The 
Joint Appendix fails to clearly indicate 
the division (in the middle of J.A. 69) 
between the Joint Policy Statement and the 
Resolution, and omits the word "harmful" at 
J.A. 70. ) See PI. Ex. 117.



6
Amici seek to present to the Court 

some of the educational and social policy 
reasons for public school desegregation, 
including the views of the U.S. Commission 
on Civil Rights, which the parties, due to 
their concentration on legal issues, have 
not emphasized.

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT
Amici believe that this Court should 

affirm the Court of Appeals' judgment in 
this case, 633 F.2d 1338 (9th Cir. 1980), 
so as to encourage the voluntary action of 
local authorities designed to promote equal 
educational opportunities and protect 
constitutional rights. First, there are 
important and significant educational 
advantages for all children, and especially 
minority children, in a school system which 
is desegregated. Second, the argument that 
mandatory desegregation is counterproduc­



7
tive because it causes massive "white 
flight" is a dangerous myth, often cited 
as a reason to maintain segregation, which 
must be dispelled. Third, if laws like 
Initiative 350 are permitted to stand, then 
the most effective desegregation plans—  
those devised and supported by local school 
authorities— will give way to exclusively 
court-ordered plans, which are not infre­
quently accompanied by hostility and 
turmoil. This Court must not block the 
successful, voluntarily-enacted desegrega­
tion plans of Seattle, Tacoma, and Pasco, 
and plunge those cities into the years of 
racially polarizing, divisive litigation 
that would certainly follow.

ARGUMENT
A . Initiative 350 Would Interfere with the 

Nation11 s Essential Task to Desegregate 
Public Schools
Amici agree with the U.S. Commission

on Civil Rights that



8
school desegregation is the single 
most important task confronting the 
Nation today in the field of civil 
rights. Any retreat in our efforts to 
achieve this goal will seriously harm 
our efforts to move forward in other 
civil rights areas. Further, ... 
progress in desegregating our Nation's 
schools will not be achieved without 
the clear support and leadership of 
government officials at the national, 
State, and local levels. ... [T]hose 
in positions of responsibility [must] 
make such a commitment.
The commitment ... must be made today 
so that children may be educated in 
environments where they will come to 
know one another as human beings and 
to learn that all people are truly 
created equal....

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, With All 
Deliberate Speed; 1954-19?? at 1 (1981)
(hereinafter cited as With All Deliberate 
Speed).

There is no longer serious doubt that 
school desegregation can be correlated with 
long-term achievement gains for minority 
students, with no corresponding decline in 
white students' performance. See, e.g.,



9
the studies cited in With All Deliberate 
Speed, supra, at 40-44. And of equal or 
greater significance than scores on stan­
dardized tests is th<e fact that minority 
students who have attended desegregated 
schools succeed in college at signifi­
cantly higher rates than those who have 
attended segregated schools and have 
greater social mobility, id^ at 43-44.

It does not deemphasize the importance 
of teaching fundamental skills to all 
children to point out that the public 
schools have yet another critical task: 
preparing young people to become citizens 
in this Nation's ethnically diverse democ­
racy. We think it self-evident that 
enhanced interracial understanding, so 
crucial to curing some of the Nation's 
social ills, can only occur through the 
prolonged exposure, from an early age, to 
persons of different backgrounds. Respect



10
and appreciation for different ethnic 
groups simply cannot be taught strictly 
from a book —  it must be learned from 
first-hand experience.

B . School Desegregation is a Prerequisite 
to Achieving Residential Integration
All who believe in public school 

desegregation would prefer that it could be 
accomplished without "busing". But re­
search shows that without school desegrega­
tion, housing segregation will only worsen.

It is nearly an article of faith in 
the popular media that busing causes so 
much "white flight" from public school 
systems that it is counterproductive. Much 
of this misconception is attributable to 
failure to recognize that with or without 
desegregation, white enrollment in urban 
areas has declined sharply over the past 
two decades and continues to do so. But in 
fact, while there is no dispute that white



11
enrollment loss increases in most school 
systems in the year of implementation 
of a mandatory desegregation program, the 
long-term effects of school desegregation 
appear neutral or even positive. Rossell, 
School Desegregation and Community Social 
Change, 57 Law & Contemp. Probs. 133, 
163-67 (1978). As initial apprehensions
decrease and income constraints take 
precedence, some whites return to the 
public schools from private schools. More 
importantly, however, the guarantee of 
desegregated schools helps retain white 
families who would otherwise move out of 
minority or "transition"-area schools. 
Over time, segregated schools result in as 
much or more white enrollment loss than 
desegregated schools, because without 
school desegregation, whites in greater 
numbers leave the areas undergoing change 
from majority to minority status, and are



12
not replaced.

Thus, failure to desegregate schools 
only feeds the relentless, mutually rein­
forcing dynamic between school and housing 
segregation, and guarantees that schools 
will become more segregated. The District 
Court in this case, after extensive testi­
mony and voluminous documentary evidence, 
recognized these facts. J.S. at A-25 
(Finding of Fact 11.3). See, e .g ., PI. 
Ex.. 36, Tr. 133; PI. Ex. 37, Tr. 132; Pi. 
Ex. 93, Tr. 357; and PI. Ex. 138, Tr. 2005.

Because residential segregation 
will only worsen without school deseg­
regation, and in turn intensify 
school segregation, school desegregation 
must continue so as to permit residential 
integration to occur.
C . Locally Controlled Rather than

Court-ordered School Desegregation 
Must be Favored.'
Finally, if this Court upholds



13
Initiative 350, it will likely be replicat­
ed all over the country. As a result, only 
court-ordered, and not school board- 
adopted, desegregation will occur in the 
future. This Court should encourage and 
protect the efforts of local officials 
toward school desegregation, especially 
since local leadership is such a critical 
element in the success and peaceful imple- 
mentation of desegregation plans. The 
experience of Seattle, Tacoma, and Pasco, 
where desegregation has been peaceful and 
has successfully been "institutionalized" 
by the school system, stands in sharp 
contrast to the experience in Boston, 
Cleveland, and other cities where local 
political leadership fomented resis­
tance to court orders and fanned the fires 
of racial fears.

Once cities have desegregated their 
schools and experienced desegregation's



14
benefits, there is widespread distaste for 
returning to segregation. See, e^g^,
Mar t in_v_._Char lotte-Mecklenburg Bd ._of
Educ., 626 F .2d 1165 (4th Cir. 1980), cert, 
denied, 68 L.Ed.2d 238 (1980) (upholding
school board's authority to continue 
desegregation plan where federal court's 
equitable powers have lapsed).

CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated above, amici 

respectfully submit that the judgment of 
the Court of Appeals should be affirmed.

Dated this 25th day of January, 1982.
Respectfully submitted,

HENRY M. ARONSON

Attorney for Amici Curiae
Anderson, et al