1961 US Commission on Civil Rights Report Book 2 - University of ...

y school authorities. All these powers obviously may be used to create
or preserve a pattern of racial segregation.
GERRYMANDERING
A few cases have arisen recently in which it was contended that school
authorities had deliberately established or maintained school attendance
zones to promote segregation. In demons v. Board of Education of
Hillsboro, Ohio, 21 a Federal district court found that an elementary
school zone had been established to insure the continuance of the Lincoln
School exclusively for Negro children. The facts showed that the
Lincoln zone, established by resolution of the board of education, was
made up of two completely separated areas, one in the northeast, and
one in the southeast section of the city. Nevertheless the court refused
to interfere lest it disrupt the orderly administration of the schools.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed
the decision and instructed the district court to order immediate relief
for the plaintiffs and to provide for the end of all school segregation at
or before the beginning of the next school term. In his concurring
opinion judge (now Mr. Justice Stewart) declared: 22
. . . The Hillsboro Board of Education created the gerrymandered
school districts after the Supreme Court had announced its first
opinion in the segregation cases. The Board's action was, therefore,
not only entirely unsupported by any color of State law, but in
knowing violation of the Constitution of the United States. The
Board's subjective purpose was no doubt, and understandably, to
reflect the "spirit of the community" and avoid "racial problems,"
as testified by the Superintendent of Schools. But the law of Ohio
and the Constitution of the United States simply left no room for
the Board's action, whatever motives the Board may have had.
In Henry v. Godsell, 23 another Federal district court found no basis
for the plaintiff's allegations that school attendance zones in Pontiac,
Mich., had been changed to compel, or achieve racial segregation. 24
. . . The board of education has altered and modified attendance
areas from time to time to accommodate changes in population and
as a result of the erection of new schools and additions to existing
schools.
. . . In the absence of a showing that attendance areas have been
arbitrarily fixed or contoured for the purpose of including or ex-
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