Citations
- 351 F. Supp. 1279
Full opinion text
MEMORANDUM OPINION
MECHEM, District Judge.
Plaintiffs are minors of Spanish-surnamed heritage represented by their parents in this suit which they have brought as a class action. They seek declaratory and injunctive relief, invoking jurisdiction here under 28 U.S.C. Sections 1343, 2201 and 2203. Plaintiffs assert that defendants have discriminated against them and the members of the class they claim to represent in failing to provide learning opportunities which satisfy both their educational and social needs. They claim deprivation of due process and equal protection guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and of their statutory rights under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, specifically Section 601 (42 U.S.C. § 2000d).
The City of Portales is divided by railroad tracks. The Spanish-surnamed population is concentrated on the North side of these tracks. One of the City’s four elementary schools, Lindsey School, is located in that area. For the 1971-1972 school year Lindsey School had a student enrollment of 86.7% Spanish-surnamed students. The ethnic composition of the three elementary schools South of the tracks, Brown, James and Steiner, during the same year was predominately Anglo, with 78% to 88% Anglo enrollment. Spanish-surnamed children comprise 34.-5% of the student population of the four elementary schools in the Portales school district. There is one junior high school and one senior high school in the district. The junior high school enrollment is 70.2% Anglo and 28.8% Spanish-surnamed. In the senior high school, 82% of the students are Anglo and slightly over 17% are Spanish-surnamed.
The focal point of this action pivots around the education offered in the Lindsey School where the Spanish-surnamed children comprise a large majority. While plaintiffs assert that educational discrimination exists throughout the Portales school system, iius alleged to be most evident at Lindsey .¿plaintiffs claim discrimination is the result of an educational program within the Portales school system which is tailored to educate the middle class child from an English speaking family without regard for the educational needs of the child from an environment where Spanish is the predominant language spoken. Such a program, it'is claimed, is a denial of equal educational opportunity to the Spanish-surnamed children/N
Plaintiffs do not claim that the program in the Lindsey School is inferi- or to that offered in any other school within the district. In fact plaintiffs contend that the educational program at Lindsey is substantially the equivalent of that offered at tjie Brown, James and Steiner schools. \It is the similarity of these programs which is the crux of plaintiffs’ claim of inequality of educational opportunity \
Although the programs offered at-Lindsey are similar in many regards with programs offered at Brown, James and Steiner, plaintiffs are not correct in their assertion that the education offered at Lindsey is the same as that offered in the other schools. In the current school year, six Spanish-American teachers are employed at Lindsey. \The school is continuing a bilingual-bicultural program for first graders which was instituted in the 1971-1972 school year and also provides a limited program in English as a second language which reaches approximately 40 students in the second through sixth grades.'Neither of these programs or any other bilingual-bicultural program is offered in the other Portales elementary schools nor are any Spanish-surnamed teachers employed in those three schools.
[Defendant school district asserts that tlm programs which have been established at Lindsey and the increase in the numbej- of teachers with a Spanish surname indicate its awareness of the needs of the Spanish-surnamed children and constitutes sufficient affirmative action to remedy whatever deficiencies may have existe