L.A. School Desegregation

Peter W. James (legal counsel for the Los Angeles Board of Education in the NAACP suit before United States District Judge A. Wallace Tashima, to be heard on Aug. 22) distorts Los Angeles history of desegregation in his letter (July 8).

He claims “most of the desegregation that could theoretically be achieved . . . has in fact resulted from the district’s voluntary plan,” when in fact whatever development or progress has taken place has come after constant resistance by the board to court orders for the past 25 years since the filing of the original complaint!

James accepts the idea that desegregation of schools in Los Angeles cannot accomplish more than what “exists now” and rather completely overlooks the unanimous United States Supreme Court Brown vs. Board of Education (1954) decision, holding “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal”; that “prompt and reasonable start toward full compliance” be made.

Furthermore, his statements interpreting Judge Tashima’s order filed June 27, as an “agreement to terminate” the case, misreads that order.

The official document lists it as an “order on local defendants’ motion to dismiss or other alternative relief” and provides for proceedings to utilize the proposed settlement under federal law.

Grover C. Hankins, general counsel of the NAACP, informed me in a telephone conversation that a “fair hearing” would be held. I do not know if this includes community participation or input.

In such a hearing, some of the latest figures from the school district’s fall 1987 Ethnic Survey Report require examination for they indicate the probability that the local school system has some of the most segregated schools in the U.S.

There is no doubt that the extremely high costs of litigation are playing a part in the obvious desire of both the Board of Education and the NAACP to try and settle their differences and to settle the case.

The costs to both parties have been enormous.

Desegregation cannot be accomplished overnight or even in a few years, but we cannot head more and more toward the two societies described in the Kerner Report of 1965, without serious “dislocations” and a tearing of the social fabric of our country.

We cannot give up efforts to achieve the desegregation of our schools, and at the very least explore all alternatives.

H. ROSIE ROGOSIN

Hollywood