Equal Opportunity in the Fort Wayne Community Schools: A ...

facilities, lack of comparability in teacher recruitment,and different grade plans for predominantlywhite and predominantly black schools. Review of1973-74 enrollment data found that 5 elementaryschools had minority enrollments above 90 percent,4 others were more than 50 percent minority,and 19 had less than 3 percent minority students.More than 73 percent of the district'sminority students were in schools with minorityenrollments of 50 percent or more. In 1971, 39 of66 black elementary school teachers were in nineschools with over 50 percent black enrollment.Seventeen elementary schools had no minorityteachers, and 7 of these had a minority enrollmentof less than 3 percent. A similar pattern was foundfor the 1973-74 academic year with respect toteacher assignments. According to HEW, byFebruary 1975 student racial imbalances in the juniorand senior high schools were substantiallyreduced. Improvements were reportedly also madein the grade plan used in predominantly blackschools. 4In 1975, in the case of Brown v. Weinberger*HEW was sued for: (1) failure to initiate investigationsof discrimination in school districts where racialimbalances gave cause to believe that certaindistricts were violating Title VI; (2) failure to actexpeditiously in completing investigations of allegedTitle VI violations that the Department hadinitiated; (3) failure to commence enforcementproceedings in certain cases where violations werefound and voluntary compliance had not beenreached; and (4) failure to commence enforcementproceedings against schools determined byHEW to be ineligible for Emergency School AidAct (ESAA) funds because they were practicingsegregation and discrimination. Forty-six schooldistricts, including 15 in Region V, were included.The Fort Wayne Community Schools was one ofthe districts, found to be in violation of Title VIby HEW, in which voluntary compliance had notbeen achieved and where enforcement proceedingshad not been initiated. In July 1976, United StatesDistrict Court Judge John J. Sirica ordered HEW,within 60 days, either to commence enforcementproceedings against Fort Wayne or to make an administrativedetermination that the district was incompliance.A conference was held in Cleveland betweenAugust 13 and 15, 1975, to discuss the then pendingBrown case. Among those attending the conferencewere Martin Gerry (Acting Director,OCR), Kenneth Mines (Region V Director, OCR),and Orrie Barr (Region V Education BranchChief, OCR in Cleveland). At that conference adecision was made to drop the student assignmentissue and to pursue the teacher assignment issue.The decision to drop the student issue was madein part because Fort Wayne had reduced racial imbalancesat the junior high school level, 6 accordingto HEW documents. According to Kenneth Mines,it was determined at the Cleveland conference thatthe evidence was insufficient to support a Title VIviolation. 7Subsequent reviews of the Fort Wayne schoolsituation, and of the situation in other schools includedin the Brown decision, call into questionOCR's handling of its investigation. FrankKrueger, attorney with the HEW Office of GeneralCounsel (OGC), who negotiated the teacher assignmentissue with Fort Wayne, said in March1977 he believed at that time, and still believes,that there is a student assignment case whichcould be made. According to Krueger, the juniorhigh school reorganization did not resolve theissue satisfactorily. When the Fort Wayne case wasreferred to Krueger, however, it was simply ateacher assignment case. Krueger said that accordingto his recollection of the situation, student assignmentpatterns constituted a Title VI violationandthat he could probably convince OCR to initiateadministrative proceedings if he had the timeto review the situation. 8William L. Taylor, director of the Center forNational Policy Review and attorney for the plaintiffsin the Brown case, also believes there may stillbe a Title VI violation based on student assignment.(See appendix B for a summary of thecenter's assessment of the Fort Wayne situation.)Taylor also expressed concern about the fact thatthere is no written record indicating why the studentissue in Fort Wayne and in several otherBrown-related school systems was dropped. Accordingto Taylor, there is nothing in the Brownfiles explaining why this issue was dropped. 9 Inresponse to a memo from Frederick T. Cioffi(Chief, Operations Branch, Office of the Secretary,HEW) to Orrie Barr, asking for documents thatwould explain why the student assignment issuewas dropped, Cioffi was informed that "no docu-3