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Thursday, October 9. 1986 / University Daily Kansan
Case has revived old issue
By SHANE A. HILLS Staff writer
Desegregation of public schools is not a dead issue in Topeka even after 32 years.
The Supreme Court, in Brown vs. the Topeka Board of Education, ruled that it was inherently unequal to provide separate public schools for blacks and whites.
After handing down the 1954 decision, the Supreme Court demanded that Topeka desegregate its schools.
That mandate, 32 years later, is being disputed again this month in federal district court in Topeka.
Francis Heller, KU professor of constitutional law, said the judge had significant latitude in deciding what remedy should be applied if he finds reason to change anything about the Topeka school system's policies.
The Supreme Court never officially closed the Brown case. The case cannot be closed until a federal judge is satisfied that the Topeka school system has conformed to the court's mandate to desegregate its schools.
In the 1954 case, a black woman challenged the Topeka Board of Education because her daughter, Linda Brown, was not permitted to attend an elementary school in their neighborhood. Blacks were
Lawyer's memo enters Brown case
TOPEKA — A Topeka school district lawyer yesterday used an internal memo — accidentally included in a box of other documents — as he attempted to show that plaintiffs in the revived Brown vs. Board of Education case set out to prove preconceived notions.
United Press International
Board lawyer K. Gary Sebelius successfully admitted the memorandum as evidence in the revival of the historic desegregation case, over the objection of his author, Christopher Hansen. Hansen, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer from New York, is lead counsel for the plaintiffs in the revived case.
Sebelius used the Sept. 7, 1984, memo as part of his attempt to discredit the plaintiffs' first witness in the trial, William Lamson, a racial demographics expert from Jackson, Miss. Sebelius said the memo was found in a box of documents provided to defense attorneys at the time Lamson gave his preliminary court deposition.
The school board lawyer cited statements by Hansen in the memo indicating that Lamson would need to develop evidence showing racial identifiability of schools in the district at all levels.
The case was reopened in late 1979 on the motion of a coalition of civil rights and minority groups. Plaintiffs include 17 Topека school children, including two grandchildren of the Rev. Oliver Brown, who filed the original lawsuit in 1951 in the name of his daughter, Linda Brown Smith.
The ACLU lawyer argued that the memo, to his closest advisers in the revived Brown case, was his first "quite frank" attempt to organize his thoughts on the case since he became lead counsel in 1984. He said admission of the memo would prejudice the case against the plaintiffs.
Rogers allowed the memo to be considered since Lamson had apparently read and considered it in the preparation of his report on racial makeup of Topeka schools since the 1954 Brown decision in which the Supreme Court abolished separate-but-equal educational facilities for blacks.
Under cross-examination Tuesday, Lamson backed off statements made earlier in the day that the three Topeka high schools were racially identifiable. Under questioning from Sebelius, Lamson said his own statistical data could not show the three Topeka high schools to be identifiably black or white.
then required by law to attend all black schools
Again, in 1986, the defendant is the Topea public school system. And again the plaintiff is Linda Brown Smith, who added the last name Smith after she married.
effectively desegregated its schools.
This time, however, the litigants have taken seven years to prepare for the trial, which is expected to last one month.
The U.S. District Court in Topeka agreed in 1979 to hear the case again. Linda Brown Smith contends that her children, Charles and Kimberly, who were Topeka students in 1979, were deprived of educational opportunities because Topeka had not
The American Civil Liberties Union is representing Linda Brown Smith. The Topeka school system, according to a Sunday report in the Topeka Capital-Journal, has spent more than $350,000 since 1979 in lawyer fees and staff time to gather evidence for defense.
The ACLU hopes to prove that the school system has deliberately discriminated against blacks by not taking effective action to desegregate the schools.
It will use statistics that indicate a higher concentration of blacks in some schools than in others. It
hopes to prove that the Topeka school system hasn't drawn school boundary lines that distribute the proper number of blacks to all schools.
Heller said the most difficult task for the ACLU would be to prove that the Topeka school system intended to discriminate against blacks during the last 32 years.
Lawyers for the Topeka school system probably would try to show that a school board cannot be expected to constantly adjust its policies to changing population patterns, which ultimately affect the number of blacks and whites at a given school, he said.
Fraternity denies negligence charge
By a Kansan reporter
The Phi Gamma Delta fraternity last week denied charges that a former member filed against the fraternity in the Douglas County District Court on August 13.
McGivern charged the fraternity with negligence in maintaining the
house and failing to provide storm windows or screens on the windows.
Timothy McGivern, Topeka junior,
is seeking more than $20,000 in damages from the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, 1450 Louisiana St., for injuries he suffered after falling out of the house's second-story window in February 1985.
Clifford T. Mueller, attorney for the fraternity, filed an answer Oct. 3 denying all charges filed by McGivern.
The defendants acknowledged that the window McGivern fell from did not have any screens or storms windows, but they asserted that the accident was due to McGivern's own negligence.
McGivern, who lived in the house at the time of the accident, would not comment.
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October'86
Scheduled Events Calendar
9 Champions Club: 6:30 Trail Room every Thursday
11 Homecoming: Chuck Berg and Friends LSU at KU
13 Strat-o-matic Baseball: 6:30 p.m. every Monday
14 SUA Forums: "Gubernatorial Forums Hayden/Docking 8 p.m.
15 Late Night with Larry Brown: Burge Union
17 Outdoor Rec: Octoginta Moonlight Ride So. Park 9 p.m.
18 Octoginta: 8 a.m. Breakfast at Baldwin;
9 a.m. Time Trial
1 p.m. Clinton Lake; 7 p.m. BAK Slides
19 Octoginta Bike Tour: Haskell Juco 8 p.m. Bridge Club: 7:30 p.m.Trail Rm.every Tuesday
22 SUA Forums: Kurt Vonnegut Hoch Aud., 7:30 p.m.
26 Outdoor Rec: Orienteering Meet at Perry Lake 29 KU Sailing Club: 7 a.m. every Wednesday
31 Mount Dread Masquerade Ball 8 p.m.
Student Union Activities * Kansas Union * 864-3477