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Winter 00/01 (v4#3)

Judge Gives Green Light to Second Historic Lawsuit
NYCLU lawsuit proceeds on behalf of New York students of color

In an effort to force New York to eliminate a two-tiered system of education, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) has filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the 80,000 students attending high-minority New York schools outside of New York City. Although the lawsuit was filed in December 1998, the case received a major boost recently when federal District Court Judge Lawrence McKenna rejected efforts by the state to dismiss the case on legal grounds.

The NYCLU, the New York State affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), is alleging that the New York’s education system violates the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964. The lawsuit, Ceaser v. Pataki, is one of the most recent of many suits brought by the ACLU and others concerned about racism and education. And consistent with its long history of promoting educational reform in New York, the Educational Priorities Panel is supporting the lawsuit.

The New York State public school system is starkly segregated. Of the state’s approximately 4,100 schools, nearly 30 percent have student bodies in which 80 percent or more of the children are African American, Latino, or otherwise non-white. Almost half of the state’s schools have student bodies that are 80 percent or more Caucasian. For those familiar with the racial discrimination that pervades our society, it will come as no surprise to learn that the educational experiences of the students in these two groups of schools are quite different.

For the past 10 years, the New York State Education Department (SED) has collected and published voluminous information about the performance of and educational resources available to students in state schools of varying racial compositions. Each year, this information is documented and reported to the New York State Legislature. These documents reveal that high-minority schools have far fewer educational resources than low-minority schools and, not surprisingly, those students in high-minority schools perform far worse than do students in low-minority schools.

According to the SED’s 2000 annual report, there is "a dismaying alignment of disadvantaged students (disproportionately children of color), schools with poorest educational resources (fiscal and human), and substandard achievement." That report made the following further observations:

"Consider these contrasts between low- and high-minority schools. Schools with the highest percentages of minority children–who are frequently also poor–have the least experienced teachers, the most uncertified teachers, the lowest salaried teachers, and the highest rates of teacher turnover. On an average day, 95.3 percent of students in low-minority schools, but only 87.5 percent in high-minority schools, are at school. Only 26 percent of black and Hispanic fourth-graders–compared to 61 percent of white fourth-graders–met the standard on the English arts assessment for elementary-level students. Students in low-minority schools were more than twice as likely as students in high-minority schools to pass the Regent’s English examination."

The lawsuit focuses on five substantive educational areas–certified teachers, remedial services, libraries, school buildings and grounds, and Regents courses and diplomas–and alleges that, in each of these areas, the state has failed to maintain personnel and resources sufficient to assure that all schools have these critical services. As a result of this failure, students in high-minority schools are far more likely to have uncertified teachers, to be denied remedial services, to have inadequate libraries, to have inadequate school buildings and grounds, and to have an opportunity to take Regents courses and pass Regents examinations.

In legal terms, the contention is that the state’s failures qualify as "methods of administration" that are having a "disparate impact" on students attending high-minority schools and that this disparate impact violates federal civil rights law. Judge McKenna noted that "[a] method of administration or discernible administrative policy may involve a policy of inaction as easily as affirmative conduct." He also rejected the state’s contention that the NYCLU could not represent the class of tens of thousands of children attending high-minority schools outside the city, thus assuring that the suit will have a statewide impact.

The state has not appealed this decision, and the NYCLU therefore can proceed to trial with it race-discrimination claims. Given the size of the case, trial preparation will consume at least a year, but the NYCLU hopes that Judge McKenna’s ruling will spur the state to focus its energies on remedying the problems it admits exists rather than on prolonged litigation.

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