By Bill Zeeble, KERA 90.1 reporter
Dallas, TX – Back in 1970, Sam Tasby, an African American living near Love Field, thought that it was wrong his two children were getting bused several miles to all-black DISD schools instead of walking to the nearby white school. Efforts to right that wrong ultimately led to the historic Tasby desegregation case. Sylvia Demarest was Tasby's lawyer.
Sylvia Demarest, Attorney for Sam Tasby, Tasby v. Estes: What we found was truly astonishing, because in almost all cases, the changes in school boundary zones preceded what was called at that time blockbusting - white flight - in that what the maps showed was that the school district would rezone a black school not to create an appropriate mix of students, but to include a white block that would then have to send their kids to an all-black school. And what would happen, there'd be absolute panic; houses would be sold, a lot of times for far under market value.
Zeeble: Federal Judge William Taylor found that Tasby and 20 other plaintiffs were victims of racial prejudice. He ordered system-wide desegregation of Dallas schools with "deliberate speed," and mandated programs designed to produce quality, integrated education. Today, exactly 30 years and seven weeks later, Dallas schools remain under federal desegregation oversight. It's generally agreed that some programs in the original order worked, like the creation of a tri-ethnic committee to monitor progress. Others, like busing, didn't.
[Ambient sound from James Madison High School.]
Zeeble: 44 year old Robert Ward, a product of DISD and now principal of James Madison High School near Fair Park, was among the first blacks to be bused.
Robert Ward, Principal, James Madison High School: We lost continuity of the neighborhood. We were being told our neighborhood could no longer properly educate us. We were told the hamburgers in those parts of the city tasted better than our part of the city. We were being told subconsciously that everything over there was better than where we came from. And society was saving us from ourselves. We knew better.
Zeeble: The original bus order lasted four years, then the Judge added elementary students to it. But by 1982, a few years later, busing largely went away. Many white students had left the district. Minority parents complained about busing too, and newer Supreme Court cases limited its role. The focus then turned to more equitable distribution of resources and personnel in minority schools, and less on a racial mix of students in class. To many, it was re-segregation and the doctrine of separate but equal all over again - this time with the court's OK. Ed Cloutman, Plaintiff's attorney, Tasby v. Estes: When we came to the juncture of returning the children to their neighborhoods, that's I guess where I had my first struggle with that concept.
Zeeble: Ed Cloutman was another plaintiff's attorney in the Tasby case.
Cloutman: Because we certainly were putting the children back into substantially segregated schools physically. What we weren't going to do was put them back into the dumps they left. And they really did leave some pretty poor - I don't mean just physically, I mean the way they ran, what was offered inside. Basically warehouses. That changed measurably.
Zeeble: The issue of re-segregation has not been a problem for principal Robert Ward. He said it gave minority communities, like the one surrounding James Madison High, a chance to become whole again. Madison is 92% African American and was recently rated acceptable by the State. Ward says schools like his will improve as long as they get adequate resources.
Ward: Sometime you have to be unequal to be equitable. What I mean is, if there's a situation with a history of deprivation, of disenfranchisement, we have to unequally distribute resources in order to make up for that. Zeeble: Ward's confident Madison will improve. But Gary Orfield is not. The education and social policy professor at Harvard University co-wrote "Dismantling Desegregation." He's among the nation's leading experts on desegregation in American schools.
Gary Orfield, Ph.D., Professor of Education and Social Policy, Harvard University: The neighborhood schools blacks and Latinos get are usually high poverty concentrated schools with all kinds of other problems. Being in a diverse middle class school is a very powerful advantage in terms of getting a level of competition, right kinds of courses, connections with college and many other things.
Zeeble: Right now 110 of DISD's 220 schools hold an overwhelming number of students from just one ethnic group. In 1971, the first year of the court order, there were also 110 schools with that kind of profile. Despite signs of apparent re-segregation, attorney Ed Cloutman praises the DISD for what it's accomplished. It built learning centers; focused on early childhood development; implemented magnet schools to specifically attract the broadest mix of ethnicities. It incorporated the constantly increasing Hispanic student population into the desegregation plan. And in 1994, Judge Barefoot Sanders declared the district "unitary," meaning it was no longer considered legally segregated. But he still maintained some oversight, pending the elimination of some problems. For example, the court ordered Townview Magnet School needs better technology. Facilities for talented and gifted students need upgrading. The district says within a year it could be out from under the judicial gaze, and would be better off.
Carol Francois, Chief of Staff, Dallas Independent School District (DISD): Any time you have to pay legal fees for a court order like this, you take away resources from classrooms and programs you want to fund. We spend time reporting to court. That's a drain.
Zeeble: Carol Francois is the DISD's chief of staff.
Francois: We put additional resources into those schools that are court-ordered. Those schools have a higher spending rate per pupil than an other campuses, but I think it would be more equitable if we could do that across the board, rather than from one particular program as opposed to another type of program.
Zeeble: A number of African Americans, though, aren't ready to end federal control. For one thing, the money Francois talks about could be directed away from many black schools. Some schools in the desegregation order receive nearly $10,000 a student, while others outside federal oversight get more like $2,500 to $3,000. Then there's Patty Bates and the Dallas Human Relations Commission. She says the district hasn't met the goals it set for itself seven years ago. She wonders what'll happen when judicial oversight is gone.
Patty Bates, Director of Programming, Dallas Human Relations Commission: If we're not doing it while he's watching, not many people are confident we'd do it when he's not.
Zeeble: Gary Orfield says Bates has a right to worry. Research tells him no district released from court oversight has improved. Therefore he has zero confidence Dallas will. But he realizes it's just a matter of time before the District submits a plan that will free it from the court. So does Patty Bates. So she's currently trying to organize a group of community, business, parent and other interested groups who will monitor the District when there's finally no more federal oversight.
Bates: It'll take an entire community coming together, not just giving input, but rolling up sleeves and getting down to work.
Zeeble: In the meantime, some Latino parents and activists know their children now make up the majority of students in the DISD. So Leonard Chaires, with the League of United Latin American Citizens, says Hispanic schools and students deserve more money than they're getting now.
Leonard Chaires, District Education Committee Chair, League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC): The economic pie has to get bigger, or it has to be, ah, taken away from the African Americans and some from the Anglos.
Zeeble: Chaires says LULAC's top issue is bilingual education. The better that is, he's convinced, the Hispanic drop out rate - which routinely exceeds 30% or more - would drop. He says interest in the desegregation court order has diminished in his community because it doesn't focus enough on Hispanics. He warns if Latinos don't get more of what they need, they'll file their own lawsuit in federal court. Meanwhile, the annual report from the desegregation monitor is due out in a week. It's expected to find a number of court orders are still unmet. For KERA 90.1, I'm Bill Zeeble.