6. Ruling of the Court in Cisneros v. CCISD

On June 4, 1970, the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas ruled in favor of the plaintiff, Jose Cisneros.

In the excerpt below, Judge Woodrow Bradley Seals explains his decision that Corpus Christi’s public schools were in violation of the US Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision because they segregated Mexican American and Black students from their Anglo white counterparts.

The court did not, however, specify how desegregation would be accomplished. The verdict was a major victory, but it was not the end of the fight.

Seven years later, for example, the Texas Advisory Committee to the US Commission on Civil Rights reported that CCISD remained segregated--and pointed to deliberate delays by Superintendent Dana Williams and the CCISD school board...

“This Court reads Brown [v. Board of Education] to mean that when a state undertakes to provide public school education, this education must be made available to all students on equal terms, and that segregation of any group of children in such public schools on the basis of their being of a particular race, cult, national origin, or of some readily identifiable ethnic minority group, or class, deprives these children of the guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment as set out in Brown, and subsequent decisions, even though the physical facilities and other tangible factors may be equal.

Although these cases speak in terms of race and color, we must remember that these cases were only concerned with blacks and whites, but it is clear to this Court that these cases are not limited to race and color alone.

In this case, if the proof shows that the American, Mexican-Americans in the Corpus Christi Independent School District are an identifiable ethnic minority group, and for this reason have been segregated and discriminated against in the schools, in the manner that Brown prohibits, then they are certainly entitled to the protection announced in Brown. Thus Brown can apply to American, Mexican-American students in public schools.

Having decided that Brown can apply to Mexican-American students in public schools, the Court now must determine whether under the facts of this case the Mexican-American students in the Corpus Christi Independent School District do fall within the protection of Brown.

The court finds from the evidence that these Mexican-American students are an identifiable, ethnic minority class sufficient to bring them within the protection of Brown.

It is clear to this Court that Mexican-Americans, or Americans with Spanish surnames, or whatever they are called, or whatever they would like to be called, Latin-Americans, or several other new names of identification, and parenthetically the Court will take notice that this naming for identification phenomena is similar to that experienced in the Negro groups: black, Negro, colored, and now black again, with an occasional insulting epithet that is used less and less by white people in the South, fortunately. Occasionally you hear the word “Mex” still spoken in a derogatory way in the Southwest.

It is clear to this Court that these people for whom we have used the word Mexican-Americans to describe their class, group, or segment of our population, are an identifiable ethnic-minority in the United States, and especially so in the Southwest and in Texas and in Corpus Christi. This is not surprising; we can notice and identify their physical characteristics, their language, their predominant religion, their distinct culture, and, of course, their Spanish surnames. And if there were any doubt in this court's mind, this court could take notice, which it does, of the congressional enactments, governmental studies and commissions on this problem. And also, the opinions, such as Hernandez versus Texas, 347 U.S. 475, a 1954 case; Judge Allred’s decision in this case, Hernandez versus The Driscoll Consolidated Independent School District, Civil Action No. 13840; unpublished, Keys, et al, versus School District Number 1; the Westminister School of Orange County versus Mendez, 161 Federal 2d 774, Ninth Circuit, 1947; and also, and very importantly, the recent Federal Government's intervention in Marcos Perez, et al, versus The Sonora Independent School District, Number 6, 224 Civil, San Angelo Division of the Northern District of Texas.

This Court further finds that the Mexican-American students in the Corpus Christi Independent School District are now separated and segregated to a degree prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment in all three levels of the School System, elementary, junior high, and senior high. It is obvious to the Court from the evidence that the Mexican-Americans have been historically discriminated against as a class in the Southwest and in Texas, and in the Corpus Christi District. This Court is convinced that this history of discrimination as given by Dr. Thomas Carter, Dr. Hector Garcia, and Mr. Paul Montemayor is substantially correct.

Not only do I find that Mexican-Americans have been discriminated against as a class, I further find that because they are an identifiable, ethnic minority they are more susceptible to discrimination and this is not common to Mexican-Americans and Negroes alone, but it appears from history that any identifiable, minority group, that is, different persons, whether it be racial ethnic, religious, or national origin, may quite often suffer from this problem.

It seems to this court that the Mexican-American organizations, such as LULAC and the G.I. Forum, and now MAYO, were called into being in response to this problem. This is why, perhaps, we are having so many studies, so many hearings, so many Government Commissions studying these problems, and so many publications and books being published concerning this very real problem.

Fortunately, the objective manifestations of this type of discrimination is gradually disappearing from our society. Nevertheless, this historical pattern of discrimination has contributed to the present substantial segregation of Mexican-Americans in our schools. This segregation has resulted in a dual school system.

The court also finds that the Negro students in the Corpus Christi Independent School District are also segregated to a degree prohibited by law which causes this to be a dual rather than a unitary school system.

The court's finding that the Mexican-American and Negro students are substantially segregated from the remaining student population of this district is based primarily upon the undisputed statistical evidence. This is also, and I so find, true of the faculty.

The Court is of the opinion that by placing Negroes and Mexican-Americans in the same school does not achieve a unitary system. As contemplated by law, a unitary school district can be achieved here only by substantial integration of the Negroes and Mexican-Americans with the remaining student population of the district.”

SOURCE:

Cisneros v. Corpus Christi Independent School Dist., 324 F. Supp. 599 (S.D. Tex. 1970), Corpus Christi Public Library, Cities and Towns Cisneros vs CCISD C50, Box 1, Folder 8.