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School segregation case closed
By STEPHEN HEGARTY
© St. Petersburg Times, The 43-year-old federal case that forced Hillsborough County to dismantle a segregated school system and affected where children went to school for 30 years ended quietly on Monday. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the 1958 case. That leaves in place a March decision by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which declared that the school district was free of segregation and that the case should be closed. It leaves no more legal options for the plaintiffs to keep the case alive. "That's the end of that case," said Norman Chachkin, legal director for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in New York. The school district no longer will operate under the supervision of a federal judge to see to it that the schools do not discriminate against black children. "We need to do it on our own now," said Doris Ross Reddick, the only African-American member of the Hillsborough School Board. "Now it's our responsibility as School Board members to see to it that we are giving an equal education to all children." Though the ending seemed all but inevitable, some on the plaintiff's side said Monday they believe the job is far from completed. "I'm not surprised, but I'm disappointed. We've made some gains, but we've slipped back too," said Andrew Manning, the plaintiff for whom the case is named. "We're seeing our schools go all black and all white again. Just like it was." Manning was 6 years old when his mother agreed to join in a lawsuit and lend her son's name to the case. It was given case number 58-3554 and was called Manning vs. the School Board of Hillsborough County. The Hillsborough case was filed with help from a lawyer named Thurgood Marshall, who went on to become the first African-American on the U.S. Supreme Court. It had been the oldest active case in the Middle District of Florida. At times the case boiled over into controversy. In 1971 the school district closed down historically black high schools, Middleton and Blake, and began busing students far from home to achieve racial balance. At other times it seemed a routine, if inconvenient, part of doing the district's business. The beginning of the end of the case came in 1994 when the NAACP Legal Defense Fund accused the district of allowing schools to become nearly all black. Rather than answer that limited question, U.S. Judge Elizabeth Kovachevich decided to take on the larger issue of whether to end the case altogether. Seeing the end in sight, the district crafted a school "controlled choice" plan to maintain diversity in schools. The $80-million plan, set to take effect in 2004, relies not on busing to maintain desegregation, but encourages students to attend schools outside their neighborhoods. "It is up to us and the community to see to it that our schools remain diverse and desegregated, and the choice plan we have developed, I believe, will do that," said Earl Lennard, superintendent of the Hillsborough County schools. Lennard, who was a sophomore at Brandon High School when the desegregation case got started, countered Manning's disappointment by pointing to some hopeful signs. After years of lobbying and arm-twisting, the alumni of the city's black high schools -- lost in the early years of desegregation -- have succeeded in bringing their schools back, at least in name. Blake High has been re-established as a magnet school along the Hillsborough River, and soon Middleton High School will be reborn as well. Lennard also pointed to the most recent census data which show many neighborhoods becoming more integrated. "It's been a long time," Lennard said, referring to the desegregation case, "but many things have changed. The community itself is changing."
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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