Spencer v. Kugler

Spencer v. Kugler (1972), a relatively minor case that the Supreme Court did not address on its merits, involved a challenge to New Jersey's practice of aligning school district lines with municipal boundaries. The plaintiffs claimed that the practice led to schools with disproportionate numbers of Black students and was therefore a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In the initial round of litigation, the federal trial court in New Jersey refused to grant the relief sought by the plaintiff parents. The U.S. Supreme Court, with Justice Douglas dissenting, summarily affirmed the opinion of the three-judge panel, refusing to find that there was segregation of Black students from White students in the schools. The plaintiffs contended that the racial patterns in the schools adversely affected the quality of education afforded to the Black students. With no assurance that population factors would remain static, the plaintiffs' proposed relief would require the board to make racial reassignments on a term-to-term basis. The trial court was of the opinion that the patterns that the plaintiff parents objected to did not constitute a constitutional violation.

As part of its analysis, the trial court pointed out that New Jersey's constitution provided for a thorough and efficient system of public schools under which each municipality was a separate school system. Thus, according to the court, school district boundaries coincide with municipal boundaries. The court clearly noted that racially balanced municipalities were beyond the ken of both the legislatures and the courts.

Acknowledging that in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) the Supreme Court required unitary school systems, absent any attempt by school officials in New Jersey to draw lines on racially discriminatory grounds, the trial court could not hold that basing district boundaries on municipal boundaries was unreasonable. Therefore, the court decided that the plaintiffs failed to present a cause of action for relief.

In its rationale, the court spent considerable time analyzing the requirements of Swann v. [Page 777]Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971), a dispute that dealt with systems that had histories of creating dual school systems and then instituting freedom of choice plans that did little or nothing to achieve unitary status. In Spencer, the plaintiffs unsuccessfully alleged that de facto segregation was a violation of their constitutional rights. The court rejected the plaintiffs' claim that the de facto segregation that took place, even though there was no state action, was tantamount to de jure segregation.

The historical significance of Spencer is the fact that it hinged on de facto segregation. The net result of Spencer and similar litigation that remains in effect is that courts cannot devise plans to deal with de facto segregation.