33 Pa. Commw. 129 | Pa. Commw. Ct. | 1977
Opinion by
In Hayes v. School District of Pittsburgh, 33 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 71, 381 A.2d 193 (1977), we considered a petition to intervene by parents of public school children in a class action brought by other school children against the appellants. We are now asked to deal with the merits of the principal suit and the propriety of the issuance of an injunction in that case.
I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND
Homewood-Brushton is a section of the city of Pittsburgh located in the northeast portion of the city, the residents of which are almost entirely black. The School District of Pittsburgh (District), whose boundaries are coterminous with the boundaries of the city, has an established policy of assigning students to neighborhood schools despite an order of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission (Commission) issued in 1972, affirmed by this Court and the Supreme
In August of 1975 several students who lived in Homewood-Brushton and expected to be assigned to Baxter filed a class action against the District and its superintendent seeking to enjoin the opening of Baxter as a middle grade center. After a preliminary hearing, the parties agreed to court-supervised negotiations in an attempt to resolve their differences. These negotiations continued throughout most of the school year. When it appeared the parties were unable to reach a settlement the Court below filed an adjudication and decree on March 1, 1976 which ordered Baxter closed as a middle grade center, the reassignment of its students to 12 designated schools, and directed the Board to either begin construction of a middle grade center at the present site of Sunnyside Elementary School
Exceptions were filed to the adjudication on March 12, 1976 and on April 5, 1976 parents of students of Sunnyside filed a petition to- intervene in the case. This petition was denied by the court below on July 2, 1976. See Hayes v. School District of Pittsburgh, supra. A final hearing on a permanent injunction was held on July 13, 14 and 15, 1976. On July 28, 1976 the court below issued a final decree ordering Baxter closed as a middle grade center, the reassignment of students to certain designated schools and either the construction of a middle grade center at Sunnyside by September, 1978, or the submission of a reorganization plan to desegregate the District’s schools within 15 days of the order.
II. LEGAL ANALYSIS
This appeal concerns the remedial relief encompassed in the decree of the chancellor. We will consider the issues raised by the appellants seriatim.
Appellants first contend that a decree in the form of a mandatory injunction should not have been entered because the record does not show that appellants abused their discretion or acted in an arbitrary or capricious manner. It is true, as appellants suggest, that a mandatory injunction, because it commands a de
. It should be noted that the action of the Board here is not analogous to cases cited by appellants where injunctive relief was refused because the requested relief involved a matter in which the legislature had vested a discretionary power in school boards. See Zebra v. Pittsburgh School District, 449 Pa. 432, 296
Appellants next contend that even given a constitutional or statutory violation, the remedy decreed by the chancellor was improper.
In testing the appropriateness of judicial remedies with respect to the myriad and complex problems of school desegregation we are guided by the Supreme
In ordering Baxter closed as a middle grade center the chancellor properly addressed the wrongful act of the Board, the violation of the Commission’s order by opening the school without assuring a racially-balanced student enrollment. This order was amply supported by findings of fact regarding the student enrollment at Baxter and the order of the Commission. The chancellor further ordered, however, that' students previously assigned to Baxter be reassigned to 12 designated schools. "We note initially that the chancellor made no findings of fact with regard to the racial balance of student enrollment at these schools as required by Pa. B.C.P. No. 1517(a). But we are constrained to add that the record, including detailed student census records supplied by the appellants, shows that five of the schools designated by the chancellor to receive the reassigned Baxter students had ratios of black students enrollment far in excess of the guidelines established by the Commission to achieve racial balance.
We next turn to that portion of the chancellor’s decree which ordered the appellants to:
[immediately either commence the construction of a facility at the location of the present Snnnyside [Elementary] School, exercising all due diligence so that the same may be completed on or before September 1978, which facility shall be equal in both physical plant and educational programing to other middle schools operated by the defendants, or, in the alternative, submit a plan of reorganization to the Court within fifteen (15) days from the date here of.
It was clearly within the power of a court of equity to order the submission of a plan that would have established a racially-balanced middle grade center or school to which the former students of Baxter Middle Grade Center would thereafter attend. See Swann, supra. We do not believe, however, that a court of equity has power to order the construction of a new facility as a remedy to correct racial imbalance.
Section 701 et seq. of the Public School Code of 1949 (Code), Act of March 10, 1949, P.L. 30, 24 P.S. §7-701 et seq. grants local school boards broad powers to select property and construct school buildings and Section 1310 of the Code, 24 P.S. §13-1310, grants
Additionally, the chancellor’s decree with respect to Sunnyside must be vacated for failure to comply with Pa. R.C.P. No. 1517(a).
Accordingly, we will enter the following
Order
And Now, December 19, 1977, the decree of the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, No. G-.D. 75-19178, dated July 28, 1976, is hereby vacated and the record remanded to the trial court to conduct an evidentiary hearing consistent with our opinion in Hayes v. School District of Pittsburgh, 33 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 71, 381 A.2d 193 (1977) and to make findings of fact and conclusions of law and modify its decree consistent with any additional testimony and with this opinion.
See Philadelphia School District v. Human Relations Commission, 6 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 281, 294 A.2d 410 (1972, aff’d subnom., 455 Pa. 52, 313 A.2d 156 (1973) (the school districts of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh did not join in the petition for allocatur).
As a middle grade center, Baxter housed students in grades seven and eight. As a middle grade school, Reizenstein housed students in grades six through eight.
In the chancellor’s adjudication, the court also concluded that by opening Baxter as an all-black middle grade center the appellants violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Where segregation is “de facto,” rather than “de jure,” the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits only intentionally discriminatory acts. Keyes v. School District No. 1, Denver, Colorado, 413 U.S. 189 (1973). In turn the remedy for such action by school officials must be limited to the segregative effect of such action measured against the racial distribution had there been no official school action. Dayton Board of Education v. Brinkman, U.S. , 97 S.Ct. 2766 (1977). Appellant argues that since the students assigned to Baxter were previously assigned to neighborhood schools that were also predominantly black there was no additional segregative impact on the racial distribution in Pittsburgh schools. Since we find a private litigant may seek compliance with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, guidelines and orders of the Commission, see Section 12(b) of the Act, 43 P.S. 962(b) ; Everett v. Harron, 380 Pa. 123, 110 A.2d 383 (1955), we need not decide the constitutional issues presented in this appeal. Although the Commission has not sought enforcement of its order with this Court and the District has pending an appeal with our Supreme Court, we believe private parties could nonetheless seek enforcement of the order.
The black enrollment at these schools were as follows: Frick, 94.5%; Herron Hill, 99.4%; Holmes, 59.2% ; Remington, 99.2% ; Rogers, 76.1%. In addition three other of these designated schools had black enrollments above the black enrollment of 42% for the school district as a whole but within the guidelines established by the Commission.
The rule provides:
The adjudication shall consist of (1) a statement of the issues; (2) a closely condensed chronological statement, in narrative form or in separate findings, of all the facts which are necessary to be known in order to determine the issues; (3) a discussion of the questions of law involved and the courts conclusions of law and (4) a decree nisi.
Pa. R.C.P. No. 1517(a).