Full opinion text
MEMORANDUM MERHIGE, District Judge. The hearing on the issues currently before the Court in this school desegregation case, which has been before the Court in one posture or another for many years, encompassed weeks of trial, involving eight separate groups of parties, each represented by a team of lawyers, and included the introduction of more than three hundred and twenty-five exhibits. The primary defendants in the instant issue are members of the Virginia State Board of Education; the State Superintendent of Public Instruction; and the members of the respective school boards and boards of supervisors of Henrico and Chesterfield Counties, both of which adjoin the City of Richmond, Virginia; and the School Board and City Council of the City of Richmond. The task of complying with the requirements of F.R.Civ.P. 52 in setting out the Court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law requires that this memorandum be divided generally into a brief history of the litigation, general findings of fact and conclusions of law, and a section containing precise and specific findings as illustrative instances of the more general findings. The Court has jurisdiction over all necessary parties in this appropriate class action, 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3) and (4); 42 U.S.C. § 1983; Rule 23(a) and (b) (2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Excerpts from this Court’s opinion in Bradley v. School Board of City of Richmond, D.C., 317 F.Supp. 555 (1970), establish the present stage of this litigation. At the time, the schools of the City of Richmond were being operated under a freedom of choice plan, and the plan was approved primarily to insure the opening of schools on the then planned date in September 1970. History of Litigation: [Excerpts from Bradley, supra] “On March 10, 1970, the plaintiffs filed a motion for further relief, based upon the mandates of our appellate courts requiring school boards to put into effect school plans which would promptly and realistically convert public school systems into ones which were unitary, nonracial systems, removing all vestiges of racial segregation. On March 12, 1970, the Court ordered the defendants to * * within ten days from this date, advise the Court if it is their position that the public schools of the City of Richmond, Virginia, are being operated in accordance with the constitutional requirements to operate unitary schools as enunciated by the United States Supreme Court.’ On March 19, 1970, defendants filed a statement to the effect that ‘they had been advised that the public schools of the City of Richmond are not being operated as unitary schools in accordance with the most recent enunciations of the Supreme Court of the United States,’ and further that they had ‘requested the Department of Health, Education and Welfare to make a study and recommendation as to a plan which would ensure the operation of a unitary school system in compliance with decisions of the United States Supreme Court,’ said plan to be ready by May 1, 1970. 'A pre-trial conference was held in open court on March 31, 1970, at which time the Court having some doubt as to the effect or intent of the defendants’ statement of March 19, 1970, ‘that they had been advised that the public schools of the City of Richmond are not being operated as unitary schools in accordance with the most recent enunciations of the Supreme Court of the United States,’ inquired as to whether defendants were desirous of an evidentiary hearing as to the plan they were then operating under, i. e. freedom of choice. The defendant school board, by counsel, advised the Court that such a hearing would not be necessary and admitted that their freedom of choice plan, although operating in accord with this Court’s order of March 30, 1966, was operating in a manner contrary to constitutional requirements. As a consequence thereof, the Court on April 1, 1970, entered a formal order vacating its previous order of March 30, 1966, and mandatorily enjoining the defendants to disestablish the existing dual system of schools and to replace same with a unitary system, the components of which are not identifiable as either ‘white’ or ‘Negro’ schools. The defendant school board was directed to file its proposed plan by May 11, 1970. Plaintiffs were to file exceptions by June 8, 1970, and hearings were set for June 19,1970. The Court heard and considered motions to intervene and permitted all who so moved to intervene, pursuant to Fed. Rules Civ.Proc. Rule 24(b), 28 U.S.C. Exceptions to the H.E.W. plan were filed by the plaintiffs and those intervenors described as Northside residents. The hearing on all proposed plans and exceptions thereto was commenced on June 19, 1970, and concluded on June 26, 1970, at which time the Court, recognizing the necessity for expeditious rulings and intending to file these more detailed findings of fact and conclusions of law, advised the defendant school board that its proposed H.E.W. plan was not acceptable — a conclusion which the Court felt then and still feels should have been patently obvious in view of the opinion of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 431 F.2d [138] (4th Cir. 1970), which had been rendered on May 26, 1970. STUDENT POPULATION BY RACE UNDER FREEDOM OF CHOICE IN EFFECT 1969-70 As of May 1, 1970, the Richmond public school system enrolled approximately 52,000 students. The racial composition of the school student population was roughly 60% Black and 40% White. The board operated 61 school facilities. High Schools Of the seven high schools, three were 100% Black; one was 99.26% White; one was 92% White; one 81% White and one 68% Black, the latter being John Marshall located on the Northside of the City. Middle Schools Of the middle schools, three were over 99.91% Black (99.92%, 100%, 100%); one was 88% Black; one 73% Black; three were over 91% White (91%, 97%, 98%), and one was 69% Black. Elementary Schools Seventeen elementary schools were 100% Black; four others were in excess of 99.29% Black; one was 78% Black; one was 37% Black; and another was 30% Black. Two schools were 100% White; thirteen others were 90% or better White; two others were 86% or better White; five others were between 53% and 70% White. As to the twelve schools with special programs, two were 100% Black; one was 92% Black; one was 83% Black; two others 60% or better Black; four schools had White students ranging from 78% to 100%; two others were 53% or better White. Faculty and Staff Out of a total faculty and staff of 2,-501, excluding special program schools, 4 had 100% White faculty and staff; 13 had 100% Black faculty and staff; 16 others had 90% or better White faculty and staff; 12 others had 90% or better Black faculty and staff; 8 others had 80% or better White faculty and staff; 4 others had 80% or better Black faculty and staff. Faculty and Staff Ity Area East End side of City 92.2% Black — 7.8% White Southside area 30% Black — 70% White Annexed Area 2.5% Black — 97.5% White West End — Northside 50.6% Black — 49.4% White There is little doubt that under freedom of choice Richmond public schools had not achieved a unitary system as required by law—see Green v. County School Board of New Kent, supra [391 U.S. 430, 88 S.Ct. 1689, 20 L.Ed.2d 716]. In 1965 the defendant school board was directed to desegregate the faculties and staffs of the public schools, Bradley v. School Board of City of Richmond, 382 U.S. 103, 86 S.Ct. 224, 15 L.Ed.2d 187 (1965); yet out of a total of 658 faculty and staff members in the East End area schools, 607 were Black and 51 White; in the Southside area schools, 108 were Black and 252 were White; in the West End-Northside area schools, 459 were Black and 448 were White (even there the assignment of faculty and staff was such as to create in the separate schools disparities ranging from 57.1% White and 42.9% Black in one school to other schools in which there were either 100% Black or 100% White). That the respective Richmond public schools with rare exception, were as to student population and staff readily identifiable as either Black or White schools is too obvious to warrant any further discussion. The defendant school board’s admission in this regard was well warranted, and the Court so finds. De Jure Segregation The City of Richmond’s present pattern of residential housing contains well defined Black and White areas, which undoubtedly is a reflection of past racial discrimination contributed in part by local, state and federal government. The City of Richmond has itself described the residential pattern of development as being one in which there has been ‘a total isolation and segregation of the Negro.’ Schools have been built on land in which the deeds contain restrictive covenants precluding the use of property by any other than those of the Caucasian race. Seven years after the Brown decision the officials of the city, the school board and the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority were describing schools as Black or White. Urban renewal sites have generally been selected in well defined Negro residential areas; urban renewal is to a great extent sponsored by agencies of the Federal Government. Local housing authorities or urban renewal authorities such as the Richmond Redevelopment Authority present their proposals to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, who in turn review the proposals to ascertain whether they meet federal criteria for funding purposes. Prior to 1964 public housing projects were built in consideration of racial character and the ultimate uses thereof. They were built for either black or white occupancy. In Richmond they have been established according to racial identity. Between the passage of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1967, tenants’ selection policy could be generally characterized as a freedom of choice, and there was little change in racial character of occupancy of public housing projects. There is a direct relationship between the selection of sites for public housing projects and the selection of sites for public schools. Racially segregated housing patterns have resulted to a great extent in limiting options available to black persons to occupy such housing. The Blacks have generally been ‘locked in’ so to speak, by the additional factor that for a substantial portion of the time in which Federal Housing Administration operated separately from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, of which it is now a part, its policy was to refuse to insure home loans in those areas which were not racially homogeneous. Statutes such as we had in Virginia (and in other states, many outside the South), which required racial segregation in housing and schools, as well as restrictive covenants limiting the use and occupancy of land and dwellings to members of the Caucasian race, have long term effects which are not and have not diminished by the lifting of such restrictions. Indeed, even now, some 22 years after the outlawing of restrictive covenants, and years after the outlawing of discriminatory statutes and ordinances in Virginia, the facts are that there are only a few areas in the City of Richmond which are considered ones of a transitional nature. That private discriminatory actions have made their contribution to the racially segregated housing patterns in Richmond is evidenced by the fact that most subdivision deeds in the area contain racially restrictive covenants. Only four years ago the City purchased land for use by the school board the deed to which contained a racially restrictive covenant. Racially restrictive covenants were included by Lawyers Title Company in abstracts in the city right up to 1969. The City of Richmond has always permitted higher population densities in black areas than in its white areas. Knowledgeable people in the field of real estate are reasonably certain, or as expressed by one expert in the field ‘could probably guess, with good certainty, the racial acceptability, if you want to use that word, from almost any ad in the paper.’ As late as June 23, 1970, there were ads in the local newspapers stating at least two properties were available for sale to ‘anyone.’ While the requirements for membership in the Richmond Board of Realtors, a private group of real estate brokers, have no relation to race, there has been and still may be, according to uncontradicted testimony, a clause in the code of ethics of the realtors to the effect that one could not disturb the white community by selling property therein to blacks, although certain areas of the city would be offered to non-whites by all realtors once the board of realtors determined that an area was one of transition and a home had been sold to Blacks in a particular block, and that block was determined by the board to have been ‘broken.’ Defendants’ Exhibit 18 graphically shows that black areas are generally in the inner city and transition areas are without exception immediately contiguous to the already existing black areas. The combination of public and private discrimination which has been inflicted upon the Negroes is perhaps best described in the Model Neighborhood Planning Grant application made by the City of Richmond to the Department of Housing and Urban Development as recently as two years ago. In describing the virtually all Negro population of the area for which the application was made the City stated, ‘The racial profile of the Model Neighborhood does not provide an ethnic mix which is representative of total city population, but reflects the total isolation and segregation of the Negro within the city’s residential pattern of development;’ and later in the same application the City stated, ‘Community neglect of education is illustrated by the fact that only two of the eight schools in the Model Neighborhood area are less than ten years old, the other six are over thirty years old;’ and still further, ‘Children do not read and spell correctly. Dropout rate in the schools is too high. Children are not able to speak correctly. Racial discrimination and segregation is visible.’ In the same application in reference to housing the city stated, ‘Availability of housing is limited because of the pattern of racial segregation in the community;’ and still further, ‘Many Negroes with the ability to pay for better housing are confined * * * by social constraints;’ and ‘Housing available to Negroes in Richmond is limited as in most major United States cities by racial discrimination in the sale and rental of housing;’ and ‘Discrimination tends to polarize the Negro population into confined areas * * The same application stated, ‘As a rule, the Negro schools are older and occupy smaller sites than the white schools.’ H.E.W. Plan Pursuant to this Court’s order of April 1, 1970, directed to the defendant school board, to create a unitary system of schools, the board for all practical purposes referred the matter to the Division of Equal Educational Opportunities, associated with the United States Office of Education, Department of Health, Education and Welfare. A team from that division, headed by a program officer, commenced the preparation of a plan for the operation of the public schools of Richmond and presented their suggested plan to the school board on April 30, 1970. The board approved the plan as submitted, with a minor change concerning the incoming senior classes of the respective high schools in the system, and a change as to suggested faculty assignment. The board’s plan did not, as suggested by H.E.W., propose to assign teachers and staff so as to approximate, at each facility, the ratio of Black to White teachers in the system as a whole. The board amended that portion of the H.E.W. plan to provide that assignments of teaching and other personnel would be made so as to provide ‘substantial integration of same,’ which was interpreted by the board to mean a 20% variance on either side of the actual system-wide ratio. The H.E.W. team secured information from the school administration as to building capacities, enrollments, condition of the school buildings, acreage of the building playgrounds, etc. Each school in the system was visited by groups of two members of the team. Interestingly enough, no detailed transportation information was requested by the team of the school administration, nor was any furnished to them. The evidence disclosed that the H.E.W. team never conferred with the school board. Although it was aware that some limited bus transportation was provided by the school board, and that there was an existing public transportation network, no consideration was given to same by H.E.W. by reason of the fact that by unwritten H.E.W. policy, which apparently was then in effect, transportation resources which .could be utilized by a school board were not to be considered and, obviously, since no detailed transportation information was requested or furnished to the H.E.W. people, none was considered. While the H.E.W. team presumably drafted a plan to desegregate the existing dual system and to provide for a unitary school system with ‘as much integration, desegregation as possible,’ to quote the witness who testified that he was in charge of the development of the plan, amazingly enough no consideration was given as to the race of the children whom they sought to assign to the school facilities. The H.E.W. plan was basically a zoning plan, with some clustering of schools. In setting the zones for the various schools, the drafters of the plan considered the capacity of the school buildings, the proximity of the buildings to the pupil population, and factors such as the safety hazards on the immediate approaches to the schools in relation to where the pupils lived. The plan was, in essence, a neighborhood school plan— a plan which under certain circumstances undoubtedly would be commendable. By reason of the residential patterns in the City of Richmond, however, wherein there are with rare exceptions distinct White areas and distinct Black areas, a true neighborhood school plan of necessity can result only in a system in which there are Black schools and White schools and not just schools. As the Court has already stated and found as a fact, Negroes in Richmond live where they do because they have no choice. Housing is generally not available in other areas of the city. In the East End of the city, schools therein would be composed of the following: 4 schools would be 100% Black 9 schools would be between 93 and 99.65% Black 1 school would be 88% Black 1 school would be 68% Black 1 school would be 64% Black Included in the 16 schools aforementioned are two high schools, one of which would have a 96% Black student population and the other 88% Black student population. In the Southside area of the city the percentages would be as follows: 1 school would be 58% White 1 school would be 59% White 1 school would be 72% White 1 school would be 74% White 1 school would be 84% White 1 school (the Senior High School) would be 72% White In the West End and Northside of the city, the percentages generally would be as follows; with a total of 19 schools (8 schools being paired) the three high schools would be as follows: 1 school would be 91% Black 1 school would be 72% Black l school would be 72% White and of the elementary and middle schools: 3 schools would be 100% Black 1 school would be 97% Black 1 school would be 96% Black 1 school would be 92% Black 1 school would be 80% Black 1 school would be 64% Black 1 school would be 61% Black 1 school would be 54% Black 1 school would be 51% Black 1 school would be 83% White 2 schools would be 80% White 1 school would be 72% White 1 school would be 60% White It is patently obvious that the majority of those schools, as in the East End, are readily identifiable as either a Black or a White school. In the newly annexed area of the city, an area which is almost all White, under the proposed H.E.W. plan the percentages would be as follows: 1 school (the high school) would be 99.26% White 2 schools would be 100% White 6 schools would be between 95-98% White 1 school would be 89% White As a consequence, each of the schools is readily identifable as being a White school. The burden is upon the school board to erase the racial identity of schools, and this the H.E.W. plan has failed to do. Accepting the testimony offered by the school board in support of the H.E.W. plan in a literal fashion, the Court finds that (1) no consideration was given to race in the preparation of the plan — a theory which has long passed on; and (2) the plan was drawn in spite of the awareness of the school board of the pattern of residential segregation within the City of Richmond. The cases are legion in which the courts have consistently stated that regardless of the method used by a school board, whether it be freedom of choice, geographic zoning, pairing, or any other method, they may not continue the operation of a dual system of schools. Whereas, as heretofore pointed out by the Court, all of the difficulties which this Court now faces were not in whole created by the actions of the school board alone, it is patently obvious that school construction and faculty assignments, coupled with all of the other discriminatory practices engaged in and encouraged by local, state and federal agencies, as well as private discriminatory practices, require that the plan submitted be disapproved by this Court on the ground that, while the assignment of pupils to neighborhood schools is undoubtedly both a sound and desirable concept, it cannot in this Circuit be approved if residence in a neighborhood is denied to Negro pupils solely on the ground of color, as this Court has found. The City of Richmond and Annexation The City of Richmond is surrounded on all sides either by Chesterfield or Henrico County. On January 1, 1970, under an order of annexation entered in the Circuit Court of Chesterfield County, the City of Richmond was granted certain territories of Chesterfield County. The exhibits before this Court indicate that during the trial of that litigation it was represented by the City of Richmond that the entire area of the present city limits (including the area that was successfully annexed) is anticipated to be within a 30 minute maximum in travel time for one going into or out of the center of the city. As a consequence of that annexation, it is common knowledge that it was estimated that there were brought into the city limits approximately 40,000 additional residents, and it was estimated during that trial, which was not concluded until July of 1969, that prior to the annexation the City of Richmond was composed of approximately 218,000 persons. Included in the newly acquired citizens of Richmond was a school population of approximately 8,135 students (it was anticipated that this would be the number from the annexed area attending Richmond schools commencing in September 1970). Of that total student population, 97.5% were of the White race and 2.5% (206) were Black. Therefore the Court concludes that the racial composition of the newly acquired territory is overwhelmingly White. The annexation decree provided that there would be turned over to the City of Richmond upon payment of certain sums thirteen school properties. Those buildings, which the city acquired from the county, would not have sufficient space to take care of all the student population living within the annexed area, there being 3,000 more students than there was building space, and it was agreed that the Richmond school board would provide transportation for children in the annexed area until such time as public transportation becomes available. The agreement provided that Chesterfield County would take care of the excess students at the elementary level until September of 1971, and the excess secondary students until September of 1972. The Court decree itself, which granted to Richmond approximately 23 square miles, provided that the City of Richmond would construct the necessary schools to serve the annexed area at an estimated cost of fifteen million dollars, which included reimbursement to the Chesterfield County school board for its costs in the construction of three elementary schools for which the Chesterfield County school board was to acquire sites approved by the city at prices to be approved by the city, and was to undertake to build the three elementary schools aforementioned to city specifications and design as directed by an architect selected by the city at contract prices approved by the city. In this connection, the sites have been acquired although no construction has been commenced by reason of an injunction entered by this Court. The Court finds that the site selection for the elementary schools was made without consideration of the city’s being required to effectuate a unitary school system. As one witness stated, most of the work in connection with that aspect of what apparently was a consent decree < * •* was done jn one night down at the Chesterfield Courthouse.’ The burden is on the school board to show that any new construction will effectuate and assist in the establishment of a unitary system as distinguished from hindering same. Of the school properties operated by the defendant school board, 28 have been constructed for over 50 years and one has been in use since 1881. Transportation There is nothing special about the utilization of buses in connection with the Richmond school system. For years school buses have taken students across the James River to classes while the schools were operated in a segregated manner. In the last school year students rode regular V.T.C. service routes across the James River to schools. While the Virginia Transit Company buses all display signs reading ‘Caution — School Children,’ their buses are not the conventional yellow school bus and hence do not meet the required standards of the Virginia State Department of Education in order to be classified as school buses under laws, concerning eligibility for reimbursement for operating costs. The Commonwealth of Virginia financially assists only county or city operated school bus systems which conform to certain regulations. Briefly, the legislature of Virginia appropriates a lump sum of money. This money is distributed according to a formula that the State Board of Education has adopted and actually amounts to a division of the funds on the basis of 40% for pupils transported in the previous year, 40% for miles the bus has traveled the previous year, and 20% for buses in use during the current year. The appropriations made by the legislature of Virginia for the past school year in assisting localities to defray the cost of transporting students was $9,-140,460.00. Over 60% of the students attending public schools in Virginia were transported on school buses as defined by the State Board of Education. The operating cost per student in those cities operating school buses throughout the state averaged $23.02 for the year 1968-69. This represented an average of 122 students per each bus operated. The operating cost per student for counties during that year was $30.61, based on an average of 87 students per bus. The average cost of operating a school bus in Virginia during the school year 1968-69 for cities was $2,814.00, for which the cities were reimbursed by the state sums approximating half of these operative costs. School boards may, under Virginia law, provide for the transportation of pupils. Over half a million students were transported throughout the state of Virginia during the school year 1968-69. During the school year 1968-69 the average number of pupils transported per bus in the cities of Virginia was 122; the average miles per bus per day was 42 — ranging from 18 to 90 miles. In order to be eligible for state financial assistance, a bus must travel a minimum of 16 miles per school day. Statistics show that children transported on school buses are safer than those who travel on foot. During the 1968-69 school year approximately I8I/2 million school children were bused to school each day in the United States. The 63-66 passenger capacity school buses heretofore referred to as having been purchased by the school board for use in transporting children in the newly annexed area were purchased at a cost of $7,500.00 per bus. Were the system for the operation of schools in the City of Richmond the same this coming year as the year 1969-70, it can readily be seen that it was anticipated that approximately 10,000 students would have been transported either by school board buses or V.T.C. on a daily basis during the school year, as contrasted with plaintiffs’ proposed plan which would require, if implemented, the transportation of approximately 15,000 students; and if all children living more than one mile from the school to which they would be assigned under the school board’s recently submitted plan, hereinafter referred to as the board’s second plan, were transported, transportation facilities would be required to accommodate 15,903 students. Assuming further that the school board’s estimate that of those 15,903, approximately one half, so it is anticipated, would provide transportation of their own in one foi*m or another, it still would require transportation of 7,951 students using the facilities of the Virginia Transit Company, plus the 4,991 to be transported under the direct auspices of the school board, for a total of 12,942 students. The Court finds further that unquestionably, regardless of what plan may ultimately be approved, the children in the newly annexed area of Chesterfield will require transportation by virtue of the physical surroundings, i. e. lack of sidewalks, etc. Defendant School Board’s Second Plan At the conclusion of the hearing on June 26, 1970, the Court announced from the bench its inability to accept the H.E.W. plan for the reasons stated in the record of that hearing, and the Court adopts and incorporates herein its findings and conclusions as enunciated from the bench at that time. The Court did, as heretofore set out, grant leave to the school board to submit another plan if they so desired. That plan was filed on July 23, 1970, and a hearing on same was conducted on August 7, 1970. The plan itself, of necessity, was drafted with a view in mind to utilize transportation where required. The Court finds from the evidence that the Virginia Transit Company can accommodate such additional volume of transportation as may be required to implement this second proposed plan. While the Court must frankly state that more will have to be done to so conform to the law as interpreted by the Fourth Circuit and the United States Supreme Court, it is obvious that an effort has been made by the defendant school board to improve its former suggested presentation. For example, their plan now provides for majority to minority transfers at the cost of the school board. They have amended their suggested faculty assignments to conform to the requirements of law. High Schools Two of the high schools under the proposed plan are readily identifiable — Huguenot’s student population will be 71% White and 29% Black; John F. Kennedy’s student population will be 71% Black and 29% White. Two other high schools have a disproportionate number of Black to White students. Nevertheless, the progress that has been made is evidenced in the comparison of racial mix so designated in Appendix C. Middle Schools At the middle school level, certain of the schools remain identifiable as Black or White. Elementary Schools That portion of the proposed plan which the Court finds most difficult to approve has to do with the elementary level, for unfortunately almost 9,000 Black students attending 13 schools will be attending schools the population of which will be 90% or more Black, and 4 schools will remain all White. In addition, other elementary schools are racially identifiable. The Court, bearing in mind the rationale that a segregated school is inherently unequal and recognizing further that those students who have been and are being subjected to segregated education in the public schools are, regardless of race, having thrust upon them educational infirmities which are constitutionally impermissible, is much disturbed about the racial composition anticipated under the school board’s plan for the eight schools heretofore referred to. It must be understood that the Court would, in its opinion, be duty bound to reject the school board’s plan under consideration were the plan one which had been submitted for consideration in sufficient time for the board to accomplish that which is required by law for the opening of school in September. This plan, which the Court is approving on an interim basis, is being approved by reason of the fact that it is the school board’s plan, that they consider it educationally sound and capable of immediate implementation.” (End of excerpt from Bradley, supra.) Joinder of State and County Defendants: In December 1970, the Court granted leave to have the present State and County officials joined as party defendants. See, Bradley v. School Board of City of Richmond, D.C., 51 F.R.D. 139. By April 1971, the Court, after additional hearings wherein the further issues now before the Court in reference to the joined defendants were not raised, approved one of three plans then before the Court for the operation of the schools of the City of Richmond for the year 1971-72. See Bradley v. School Board, 325 F.Supp. 828 (1971). The plan, designated Plan III, is the one under which the city schools are currently operating. The vast amount of evidence taken at the latest hearing, and the seeming complexity of the issues raised, dictate that the Court’s treatment thereof cannot, unfortunately, be adequately set out in summary findings. The plaintiffs and the School Board of the City of Richmond, moving parties as to the issues under consideration, take slightly variant positions; their differences, however, are not significant for the purposes of this memorandum opinion. Briefly, these parties contend that the public schools of the existing city system, with a majority black population, are racially identifiable as currently administered, when viewed, as they contend it should be, as part of the state-wide educational plant which is dedicated in part to fulfilling the needs of the Richmond metropolitan area, including the city and the two adjoining counties. They allege further that discriminatory acts on the part of the now principal defendants have in the past and still do contribute to produce and maintain what when viewed in the context aforementioned, amounts to dual school systems. In addition, they contend that unless the requested relief is granted, the pupils of the City of Richmond schools, and particularly members of the plaintiff class, will not receive the equality of education to which they are constitutionally entitled. The proponents of the relief sought contend that a greater degree of desegregation can and should be afforded in what was, and even now is, a dual system. It is their position that the complained of situation has been brought about by, among other things, school division boundaries created and maintained by the cooperative efforts of local and central State officials. The defendants deny the factual allegations and challenge the legal conclusions. A principal, though not the sole, issue is whether the constitutional duties of appropriate officials, central and local, are of such limited extent as to preclude the granting of the relief called for. General Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law The Court concludes, in the context here presented, that the duty to take whatever steps are necessary to achieve the greatest possible degree of desegregation in formerly dual systems by the elimination of racially identifiable schools is not circumscribed by school division boundaries created and maintained by the cooperative efforts of local and central State officials. The Court also concludes that meaningful integration in a bi-racial community, as in the instant case, is essential to equality of education, and the failure to- provide it is violative of the Constitution of the United States. A brief examination of the current data and that of recent years showing pupil assignment patterns in schools of the three political subdivisions of Richmond, Henrico and Chesterfield, shows both great disparities in 1971 racial composition, making both individual facilities and entire systems racially identifiable and also a very recent history of the maintenance of a great number of one-race schools. Some such still exist. The recent statistical history of these school divisions is set forth in accompanying tables. Appendix “A”. Racial identifiability of schools and school systems is both a legal concept — a conclusion of law, ultimately- — and a fact of major significance to educators and lay persons. For the law’s demands parallel those of educators. Although some school authorities have been slow to accept the fact, it is true that the constitutional wrong condemned in Brown imposed, and continues to do so, genuine damage upon children in schools that educators see as racially identifiable. The goals long considered by educators to be necessary and valid purposes of public education cannot be achieved in them. The legal presumption follows close upon these discernible facts: No per se rule can adequately embrace all the difficulties of reconciling the competing interests involved; but in a system with a history of segregation the need for remedial criteria of sufficient specificity to assure a school authority’s compliance with its constitutional duty warrants a presumption against schools that are substantially disproportionate in their racial composition. Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, supra, at 26, 91 S.Ct., at 1281. Of great relevance to educators in evaluating and determining the identifiability — a perception of students, faculty and community perception — is the historical context within which a school of disproportionate composition exists. Where, as in each of the three political subdivisions here under discussion, authorities have maintained segregated systems, it is of little significance that a given facility may have changed from a school attended by whites to one attended by blacks, or may be in transition. In the context of a continuing dual system, such schools do not lose racial identifiability but are perceived by whites and blacks as ones which are “going black” or “black.” To say that such schools are “resegregated” implies not unfairly the continued official involvement in the creation and maintenance of schools identified as intended for one race. The process in the past has taken place by wholesale official reassignment of student bodies and faculties. More recently, under free choice and similar token approaches to desegregation, whereby most schools remain either all black or all white, the changes in school populations have been almost as rapid. Courts recognize that rapid changeovers of this sort also occur in systems under zone assignment plans which preserve the existing patterns to any significant extent. The law therefore dictates that school systems are not effectively desegregated either by piecemeal approaches or compartmentalization, or by separate consideration of particular geographic areas. See, e. g., Davis v. Board of School Commissioners of Mobile, 402 U.S. 33, 91 S.Ct. 1289, 28 L.Ed.2d 577 (1971); U. S. v. Board of School Commissioners of Indianapolis (S.D.Ind., Aug. 1971) ; Haney v. County Bd. of Ed. of Sevier County, 410 F.2d 920; Swann & Charlotte-Mecklenberg Bd. of Ed., 431 F.2d 138 (4th Cir. 1970), rev’d. in part 402 U.S. 1, 91 S.Ct. 1267, 28 L.Ed.2d 554 (1971); Yarbrough v. Hulbert-West Memphis School District No. 4, 329 F.Supp. 1059, 1065 (E.D.Ark. 1971). The weakness of such an approach, noted by courts, is that it preserves the racial identifiability of individual facilities. Racial identifiability, therefore, is a function of the composition of the school community and the pupil assignment scheme for the individual schools. Community Perceptions Schools the racial composition of which departs significantly from the community parity, educators agree, are perceived by parents, teachers, administrators, public officials, pupils, and the community at large as facilities designed and operated for one race or the other. Generally schools attended under these circumstances by disproportionate numbers of black students are perceived as inferior. Experts generally concur that this has adverse effects not only on black pupils and teachers, but the entire community. This impact affects both the cognitive and affective development of the pupils. Analogous effects impede the development of white students in disproportionately white schools. In the case of the black student, impairment in the affective domain, that of perception of one’s own ability to learn, to function in society, and to control one’s destiny, is coupled with failure to advance m the cognitive sphere. Experts agree that this adverse impact cumulates in effect and is most telling in the earliest years. The damaging stigma of inferiority carried by the identifiably black school is augmented by the community’s understanding of the official attitude toward the situation. In Virginia the state’s traditional policy of racial separation in all phases of public and private life, the historical policy of educational disparities, beginning with the refusal to afford any education to blacks, proceeding through limited, segregated education (see, e. g., Corbin v. County School Board of Pulaski County, 177 F.2d 924 (4th Cir. 1949)), the systematic obstruction of the rights enunciated in Brown, and the deliberate policy to perpetuate segregation through numerous techniques of circumvention, has in combination made clear to white and black members of the community the favor and satisfaction with which the state power views the continued segregation of the schools. Attitudes held throughout the citizenry affect the children in school. They are passed on by black parents, themselves most likely victims of discrimination, and by teachers, who are unlikely to associate the endorsement of containment with great academic expectations. These ideas are adopted by pupils, and the more so when they see them put into current effect in such instances as discriminatory treatment of black faculty members. The element of legal compulsion which lies behind state-mandated segregation strongly augments in fact the damage which ensues from racial isolation. Duty of Court Upon a finding of a Fourteenth Amendment violation it is the duty of a district court to intervene to “eliminate from the public schools all vestiges of state-imposed segregation.” Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1, 15, 91 S.Ct. 1267, 1275 (1971). “The district judge or school authorities should make every effort to achieve the greatest possible degree of actual desegregation and will thus necessarily be concerned with the elimination of one-race schools.” Id., 26, 91 S. Ct. 1281. In its task the Court’s goal must be dismantling of the dual system and the operation of facilities identifiable not as black schools or white schools but “just schools.” Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, supra. Duty of Officials It is in 1971 accepted law that a school system formerly operated on a basis of compulsory racial segregation will not in every case be found in compliance with the Constitution if an assignment system, perhaps nondiscriminatory when viewed alone or in some other context, is put into use within its jurisdiction. Freedom of choice or residential zone plans will not in every case prove legally acceptable, and in fact they must be abandoned if in practice they fail to dismantle the dual system. Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, 391 U.S. 430, 88 S.Ct. 1689, 20 L.Ed. 2d 716 (1968). The courts have not always so emphatically spelled out the extent of school authorities’ affirmative duty. Only a few years ago purportedly neutrally drawn zone lines or neutrally administered freedom of choice plans were accepted in fulfillment of the duty to desegregate. Gilliam v. School Board of City of Hopewell, 345 F.2d 325 (4th Cir. 1965); Bradley v. School Board of City of Richmond, 345 F.2d 310 (4th Cir.), rev’d. on other grounds, 382 U.S. 103, 86 S.Ct. 224, 15 L.Ed.2d 187 (1965). In the light of intervening Supreme Court rulings, such standards no longer apply where the racial identifiability of schools remains intact. Division Lines Attendance zone lines formulated by adhering to the most natural bounds of neighborhoods or according to strict proximity of pupils to facilities will not pass muster if the effect is to prolong the existence of a dual system of racially identifiable schools. This is so even though the application of such attendance plans might be more economical in time and transportation cost, might facilitate the operation of more extra-curricular school activities, and might make possible the rather uncertain benefits which some educators attach to the walk-in school. It is not that these may not be valid and rational educational goals; the point is that the end of desegregation may not be subordinated to them. Henry v. Clarksdale Municipal Separate School District, 409 F.2d 682 (5th Cir. 1969), rejected a zoning plan which, though formulated in good faith, did not work to desegregate the system. Motive was held irrelevant: It is irrelevant because the ultimate inquiry is not whether the school board has found some rational basis for its action, but whether the board is fulfilling its duty to take affirmative steps, spelled out in Jefferson and fortified by Green, to find realistic measures that will transform its formerly de jure dual segregated school system into a “unitary, nonracial system of public education.” Id., 687. Clarksdale is a peculiarly strong case because the “natural” obstacle of a railroad track was deemed insufficient to justify a zone line running along it. The line also coincided with the division between custom-segregated neighborhoods, thus carrying into schools the results of housing segregation. Rationality alone of the zone plan failed to justify this outcome. See also, Board of Public Instruction of Duval County v. Braxton, 402 F. 2d 900 (5th Cir. 1968), where zone lines following the historical bounds of segregated neighborhoods were found invalid. If further proof were necessary that even physical obstacles of the most natural sort will not be acceptable as zone boundaries when they produce racially identifiable schools, there is United States v. Greenwood Municipal Separate School District, 406 F.2d 1086 (5th Cir. 1969), which held insufficient a white school zone “bounded on the north by the Tallahatchee River and on the south by the Yazoo River,” Id., 1092. Safety considerations are entitled to weight in the formulation of zone lines, but where the same obstacles which are proffered as assignment barriers for children in a purportedly unitary system which were crossed with regularity under the dual system, the argument will fail. Officials can hardly assert the compelling nature of obstacles which they overcame earlier in order to perpetuate segregation: The Board’s concern for the safety of children who would have to cross railroad tracks or a bayou in order to attend school is entitled to weight, but we find it unconvincing in the context of developing a desegregation plan appropriate for Indianola. Until 1965, when the school board took its first action to comply with the Brown decision of eleven years earlier, students of both races freely crossed these hazards in order to maintain the racial purity of Indianola’s schools. United States v. Indianola Municipal Separate School District, 410 F.2d 626 (5th Cir. 1969). Davis v. Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County, supra, establishes definitively that existing physical features — there an interstate highway— should not impede efforts “to achieve the greatest possible degree of actual desegregation, taking into account the practicalities of the situation.” Id., 402 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 1292. If physical demarcations do not limit the duty of the court to use “all available techniques,” Id., 37, 91 S.Ct. 1292, so much the less should political boundaries, when they coincide with no tangible obstacles and are unrelated to any administrative or educational needs. Prior Practice The implications of this doctrine for the Richmond metropolitan area are obvious. The school division lines here, and in other parts of the state where similar separate political entities exist, have never been obstacles for the travel of pupils under various schemes, some of them centrally administered, some of them overtly intended to promote the dual system. The Court does not hesitate to advert to the crossing of school division lines in instances outside the Richmond metropolitan area, because the barriers here in existence do not coincide with substantial physical obstacles. They are political demarcations only. The State Board has never forbidden by regulation the exchange of pupils across political subdivision lines. It has promoted the crossing of lines for purposes of operating regional segregated schools. It has approved the merger of two political subdivisions into a single school division, for the purposes of facilitating the adoption of schemes of joint schools and the provision of education by contract for residents of one political subdivision by the officials of another. It has regulated in detail the operation of joint schools, approved the initiation of joint school operations, and approved contract systems within and between school, divisions. It has disbursed funds for transportation required under such systems and even paid for the shipment of pupils to other states in segregated groups. Earlier judicial opinions bear witness to Virginia’s policy permitting the transportation of pupils across political subdivision lines for the purposes of maintaining segregation. Buckner v. County School Board of Greene County, 332 F.2d 452 (4th Cir. 1964); School Board of Warren County v. Kilby, 259 F.2d 497 (4th Cir. 1958); Goins v. County School Board of Grayson County, 186 F.Supp. 753 (W.D.Va.1960); Corbin v. County School Board of Pulaski County, supra. The State Board has been deeply implicated in the administration of the tuition grant and pupil scholarship programs, which were operated completely independently of the wishes of local school officials and resulted in mass movement of pupils across political boundaries in the Richmond area and throughout the state as well, to the extent that it was necessary to appeal to local school boards to confer in order to coordinate the exchange of pupils. In the Richmond area, notably, when the scholarship program was at its height, support for local school expenditures in the counties was high as well. These instances — and there are others —of the education of pupils of one political subdivision in schools run in whole or in part by officials of another demonstrate as a matter of historical fact the insubstantiality of any argument that strong state concerns support their maintenance as barriers to the achievement of integration. For the State has countenanced much more than the plaintiffs seek here. Standard practice has encompassed schemes under which students are educated in systems financed and operated by local officials wholly irresponsible, in the political sense, to residents of the students’ home area-. Centrally-enforced uniformity in certain educational practices has no doubt helped to make this acceptable. But here the plaintiffs do not demand that desegregation take place by means that render school authorities politically irresponsible to the parents of the children they teach. Means are available, such as the consolidation form presented in Virginia law, by which representatives of each political subdivision will have a role in management of a combined school system. Flexible state law provisions for financing exist as well. The State cannot insist that compliance with its own statutory policy violates some substantial interest. This is so especially in the light of the recurrent successful use of the joint system of school management, which entails the operation of facilities by a committee of control, having representatives from participating school divisions, with financing provided by the political bodies of each. Segregation Patterns Not only do the existing barriers have no relation to natural obstacles or substantial governmental interests, but they are related to strict housing segregation patterns, maintained by public and private enforcement and owing their genesis in substantial part to the manner in which the three school divisions have been operated and expanded. Thus by the maintenance of existing school division lines the State advantages itself of private enforcement of discrimination and prolongs the effects of discriminatory acts of its own agents. Brewer v. School Board of City of Norfolk, 397 F. 2d 37 (4th Cir. 1968), holds that zone lines unjustified by the existence of natural impediments to movement across them are usually unacceptable where they result in segregation. Moreover, the Court said in Brewer, they are unacceptable on another ground when they work to assign pupils according to their residence in neighborhoods which are homogeneous by reason of privately enforced housing segregation. The proof here overwhelmingly establishes that the school division lines between Richmond and the counties here coincide with no natural obstacles to speak of and do in fact work to confine blacks on a consistent, wholesale basis within the city, where they reside in segregated neighborhoods. School authorities may not constitutionally arrange an attendance zone system which serves only to reproduce in school facilities the prevalent pattern of housing segregation, be it publicly or privately enforced. To do so is only to endorse with official approval the product of private racism. It is tantamount to the reestablishment of the dual system under a new regime and falls well below the affirmative action necessary and required to desegregate a biracial system. For a School Board to acquiesce in a housing development pattern and then to disclaim liability for the eventual segregated characteristic that such pattern creates in the schools is for the Board to abrogate and ignore all power, control and responsibility. A Board of Education simply cannot permit a segregated situation to come about and then blithely announce that for a Negro student to gain attendance at a given school all he must do is live within the school’s attendance area. To rationalize thusly is to be blinded to the realities of adult life with its prejudices and opposition to integrated housing. Davis v. School District of City of Pontiac, 309 F.Supp. 734, 742 (E.D.Mich.1970), aff’d. 443 F.2d 573, cert. denied, 404 U.S. 913, 92 S.Ct. 233, 30 L.Ed.2d 186 (1971). See also, United States v. Board of Education, Independent School District No. 1, Tulsa County, 429 F.2d 1253, 1256 (10th Cir. 1970); United States v. School District 151 of Cook County, 404 F.2d 1125, 1131 (7th Cir. 1968); Board of Education of Oklahoma City Public Schools v. Dowell, 375 F.2d 158, 165 (10th Cir. 1967); Taylor v. Board of Education of City School District of City of New Rochelle, 294 F.2d 36 (2d Cir. 1961); Bradley v. Milliken, 338 F.Supp. 582 (E.D.Mich., 1971), slip opinion at 10, 12; Johnson v. San Francisco Unified School District, 339 F.Supp. 1315, 1318 (N.D.Cal., 1971). When school authorities, with knowledge that other available opportunities for pupil assignment will produce less segregation, deliberately select one employing zones drawn in coincidence with housing segregation, their action by inference is discriminatory, and evidence to rebut such a finding must be “clear and convincing,” Brewer v. School Board of City of Norfolk, supra, 397 F.2d 41. No such showing has been made in this case, and the conclusion of segregatory intention from this, as well as other evidence, is unavoidable. For the power to temper the marked racial identifiability of the three school systems exists, and it has gone unused. Educational Deprivations Housing segregation and resultant educational deprivations are in another sense traceable to discrimination by school authorities. Where, as here, there has been an historical practice of making available to blacks an inferior public education in terms of conventional, tangible measures and also in terms of the intangible benefits resulting from an integrated education, effects of these educational policies remain observable today and have a discernible impact upon the extent of housing employment, and school segregation. To appreciate fully the impact of segregation on the effective and academic sides of an individual, as several educational experts said, it is necessary to study the course of his entire life. Inferior education limits achievement. Employment discrimination aside, it depresses earning power and restricts the choice of employment. This in turn narrows the range of housing options, confining its victims to low-cost central city sites located near public transportation and low-skilled jobs. When the parents’ housing is so fixed, so is the child’s. Inferior education also confers on the parent and the child the burden of low socio-economic status, with consequent demonstrated adverse effects on achievement in school. These are the products of past wrongs by educational authorities of the State. The duties of current educators are affected by such violations of the Constitution. In Gaston County v. United States, 395 U.S. 285, 89 S.Ct. 1720, 23 L.Ed.2d 309 (1969), the Supreme Court affirmed a ruling that an “impartial” literacy test could not be applied as a qualification for voting without the “purpose or . . . effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color,” 42 U.S.C. § 1973(b), in a county where blacks historically had been provided with a segregated and inferior education. The same “readily inferable” impact on literacy attainment for voting purposes is here shown to affect achievement generally, insofar as it determines job opportunities and social status. When, likewise, the State’s educators impose “impartial” methods of school division organization on the black children of families, heads of which were deprived, as they well knew, by themselves or their official predecessors of an equivalent education to that given whites, they continue knowingly a system which prolongs its own discriminatory and segregatory policies. In other contexts courts have likewise recognized the enduring effects of educational deprivation upon specific opportunities. In Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 91 S.Ct. 849, 28 L.Ed. 2d 158 (1971), the Supreme Court rejected under the 1964 Civil Rights Act educational attainment and aptitude test qualifications for employment which effectively eliminated from consideration far more blacks than whites and had no relation to job performance. Blacks’ relative difficulty in surmounting the obstacles appeared, the Court said, to be “directly traceable to race. Basic intelligence must have the means of articulation to manifest itself fairly in a testing process. Because they are Negroes, petitioners have long received inferior education in segregated schools and this Court