 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
ChronologyBy JOHN MARTIN © St. Petersburg Times, published March 20, 2001 Events in the history of Hillsborough County school desegregation: 1958: Four black parents, unable to get their children into white schools, take the school district to court in Mannings vs. the School Board of Hillsborough County. Four years earlier, in the landmark case Brown vs. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that separate schools were inherently unequal. 1962: A federal court finds Hillsborough County is operating an illegally segregated public school system. 1971: With little progress made over nine years, U.S. District Judge Ben Krentzman orders desegregation to begin in Hillsborough schools. Black and white students are bused to meet goals of student populations of 86 percent white and 14 percent black in high schools, 80 percent white and 20 percent black in junior highs and 79 percent white and 21 percent black in elementary schools. 1991: U.S. District Judge Elizabeth A. Kovachevich approves a "cluster plan" that allows the district to close single-grade centers over seven years and replace them with middle schools. The idea was to lessen disruption for students, who attended five schools in five years. The plan also included magnet schools with special curriculums to attract white students to predominantly black neighborhoods. 1994: The NAACP Legal Defense Fund takes the School District back to court, accusing it of failing to comply with the 1971 court order by allowing 16 schools to become more than 40 percent black. Some schools are between 70 percent and 90 percent black. 1995: Kovachevich declines to rule on the question of racially identifiable schools and instead orders a hearing to determine whether the district is "unitary" -- the legal term to describe a system that has become desegregated. 1996: Hearings on the desegregation order begin in October in federal court in Tampa before U.S. Magistrate Elizabeth Jenkins. AUG. 26,1997: Jenkins finds that Hillsborough schools have achieved "unitary" status and recommends the court end supervision of the school district. OCT. 26, 1998: Kovachevich rejects Jenkins' recommendation, ruling that the School Board had not done enough to eliminate all vestiges of segregation. SEPT. 20, 2000: The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals hears the School Board's appeal of Kovachevich's ruling. Three-judge panel prods NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorneys to explain what Kovachevich intended. NOV. 21, 2000: Hillsborough School Board approves a controlled choice plan to replace busing to maintain racial balance. The lone dissenter: Doris Ross Reddick, the board's only black member. MARCH 19, 2001: The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturns Kovachevich and orders her to declare Hillsborough school unitary. At the start of the school year, 26 Hillsborough schools were more than 40 percent black and 24 were less than 10 percent black. - Compiled from Times files by news researcher John Martin.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From the Times |
