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Panel: Despite Sheff v. O’Neill, school segregation
has not eased
by Richard Veilleux - November 28, 2006
Ellen Ash Peters, the retired chief justice
of the Connecticut Supreme Court and author of the 1996 Sheff v.
O'Neill ruling that racial isolation in Hartford's schools was unconstitutional,
let more than 100 people attending a symposium on the ruling in
on a little secret: The court purposely left it up to the state
legislature to implement change.
“We made a decision to issue a mandate for cooperation
rather than confrontation,” said Peters, during a Nov. 9 symposium
at the law school marking the 10th anniversary of Sheff v. O'Neill.
“It was our opinion that courts rarely succeed
in enforcing decisions, and we would be even less [successful] ordering
the legislature to enforce it.”
Philip Tegeler, an attorney on the case for
more than 15 years and a panelist at the symposium, said that is
the main reason little has been accomplished since then.
“The biggest mistake the court made was to refer
the case to the General Assembly, and it continues to be the problem,”
he said .
“There is a lack of African American and Latino
political power, and it's compounded by the enormous power of suburban
legislators. Sheff deferred to that power, rather than confront
it directly.”
The symposium, organized and sponsored by the
law school's Black Law Students Association, brought together some
of the people who were involved in the landmark case from the beginning.
These included plaintiff Elizabeth Horton Sheff,
mother of named plaintiff Milo Sheff; and Wesley Horton, a 1970
graduate of the UConn law school and lead attorney in the school
finance case, Horton v. Meskill.
John Brittain, a former UConn professor of law
and lead attorney in the case, moderated the panels.
Tegeler's comments drew an objection from State
Rep. Andrew Fleishman (D-West Hartford), who joined him on a panel
discussing past and current legislative efforts. But most of the
speakers agreed with Tegeler's overall message – that despite the
court order, segregation in Hartford's schools has not eased.
James Thompson, an educational consultant and
former principal of Simpson-Waverly Classical Magnet School, said
there is at least one bright spot: people nationwide are talking
about the racial makeup of urban schools. “We have not improved
very much,” he said.
“But we have built magnet schools, and most
important, this case has opened up the discussion. We have forced
government to come to the table.”
Martha Stone, director of the Center for Children's
Advocacy, said that isn't enough.
“We haven't come far enough,” she said, toward
reaching a goal, agreed to in 2003 by all parties to the litigation,
to have at least 30 percent of public school minority students in
Hartford educated in racially desegregated settings by 2007.
“More needs to be done quicker and faster,”
she added, “for the sake of all children in Connecticut.”
Using different ways to count students, the
plaintiffs in the case say only 14 percent of Hartford's children
are now in desegregated schools, while state officials contend the
number is closer to 21 percent. Neither figure approaches the 30
percent goal.
Wesley Horton, who continues to work on Sheff
v. O'Neill, said he had been meeting with state officials, trying
to work out a successor agreement.
He said there are options other than extending
the agreement, but that none is particularly satisfactory.
Extending the agreement is unfortunate, because
“it puts things in the long run,” he said, but that is better than
nothing.
Horton Sheff said it's a never ending struggle.
“But there are things we can do, working together,
to help provide equal educational opportunities,” she said.
“Mostly, we have to keep the question alive
and out in the community.”
George Coleman, interim commissioner of education,
said the state has been working to improve conditions.
“I resent the charge that nothing has been done,”
he said. He cited the opening of nine magnet schools that could
ultimately handle more than 4,000 students; an Open Choice Program
that has increased the number of students studying in suburban towns
from 819 to 1,074 in the four years it has existed; and the distribution
of more than $2.5 million in interdistrict cooperative grants designed
to offset the cost of tuition in the suburbs.
Tegeler, now director of the Poverty & Race
Research Action Council, compared what has ensued since the Sheff
v. Neill case to the 15-year struggle that followed the U.S. Supreme
Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education.
“The bright spot to going slow,” he said, “is
that eventually the Connecticut Supreme Court will take it back,
and issue some real orders, like they should have done in the first
place.”
This article can be found at UCONN
Advance Online.
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