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What the lawsuit trying to desegregate NJ’s schools could mean for students
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Karen Yi
Published Jul 25, 2023
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By
Karen Yi
Published Jul 25, 2023
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Education advocates and school districts across New Jersey are awaiting a court ruling that could ultimately overhaul how the state determines where students attend public school.
A Mercer County judge is expected to decide soon whether the state is responsible for having some of the most segregated schools in the U.S. The case was filed by the Latino Action Network, the NAACP New Jersey State Conference and other nonprofits in 2018. The parties were last in court in March 2022, and while a ruling could come at any time, the court hasn't set any official timetable.
If a judge finds the state liable to fix its segregated schools, plaintiffs say they want the community involved in finding potential remedies that could look different for every district.
“We can't just keep going the way we're going and just letting all these students fall through and not realize that we're doing serious harm to all of our communities,” Javier Robles, president of the Latino Action Network, said.
Why are New Jersey’s schools segregated?
Nearly half of New Jersey’s Black and Latino students attended public schools that were 90% non-white in 2016, according to a 2017 UCLA Civil Rights Project study cited in the lawsuit. The case also references “intensely segregated” schools in major cities that overwhelmingly enroll students living in poverty.
At least four school districts in Essex County — East Orange, Irvington, Newark and Orange — were 90% nonwhite in the 2016-17 school year. In Passaic County, the schools in Passaic, Paterson and Prospect Park were also at least 90% nonwhite that same year, UCLA data shows.
The suit blames residential segregation, how districts are designed to mostly mirror municipal boundaries and state law that assigns students to a school according to where they live.
The Latino Action Network and affordable housing advocates say that’s further exacerbated by municipalities historically ignoring attempts to integrate communities, such as the state’s Mount Laurel Doctrine, the product of legal rulings meant to prohibit towns from using zoning laws to exclude poor residents. The doctrine requires towns to create more diverse housing stock to make room for moderate and low-income families.
“The failure of municipalities to kind of ensure the affordable housing requirement has kind of compounded and created these severely segregated schools where the majority of Latino students and Black students in New Jersey go to schools that are majority non-white,” said Jesselly De La Cruz, director of the Latino Action Network Foundation, which oversees programming, outreach and education for the organization.
What does the lawsuit allege?
The data cited by the plaintiffs says New Jersey sends 107,000 Black and Latino students to schools that are 1% white. The UCLA study found New Jersey was the 6th most segregated state for Black students and the 7th most segregated for Latino students.
The suit was filed against Gov. Phil Murphy, the state Education Commissioner and the state of New Jersey.
At issue is whether New Jersey is violating its own state constitution that bans segregated schools. In court papers, the coalition of plaintiffs argue New Jersey officials have permitted the de facto segregation by requiring students to attend school largely in the municipalities where they live — extending the legacy of redlining and other residential segregationist policies into the classroom.
“You can take a map from the 1950s, a redlined neighborhood like Newark or some other places and put today's map over it and very little has changed. We're systematically keeping young Black and brown kids in these neighborhoods without giving them a choice as to where they go to school, even if their schools are failing schools,’” Robles said.
He said by not actively working against these segregationist policies, the state has effectively allowed them to continue in the schools.
What has the state said?
Murphy hasn’t said much on the case, except that the state has to defend itself in any lawsuit that challenges constitutional matters.
Speaking on Chat Box with David Cruz on NJ Spotlight News in June, Murphy said the biggest contributor to any segregation in schools is whether families can afford to live in certain communities.
“Anyone who knows me knows that I stand completely for equal justice, social justice,” he said on the program
During oral arguments last year, the Attorney General’s Office, which is representing the state, said it didn’t dispute the raw enrollment numbers presented in the lawsuit but said the plaintiffs haven’t defined the threshold for what constitutes a segregated school. The office said de facto segregation couldn’t be proved solely through enrollment data.
In court papers, the Attorney General’s Office wrote that if the court orders the state to remedy the problem through solutions proposed by the plaintiffs, that would mean that the state’s school system would be “razed to the ground” and have to be “rebuilt brick by brick.”
The Attorney General’s Office declined comment on Monday.
What happens if a judge finds the state liable?
If a judge grants partial summary judgment to the plaintiffs, that would kick off a conversation about what the state needs to do to fix the problem. Finding liability is only the first step, as plaintiffs want to force the state to come up with a plan to fix it.
“The solution for one county or one township may not be the same solution for another township. They may have different ideas that might work for them and I think it's important to keep an open mind. What works in Newark may not work in Camden,” Robles said.
He said he hopes the judge gives both parties a one-year deadline to come up with local solutions.
De La Cruz from the Latino Action Network Foundation said the group’s members aren’t waiting for a ruling to begin having those conversations with community partners.
“There are communities that maybe do want to integrate, but they're not really sure how or how to go about it,” she said. “We're hoping that through our coalition-building and through our leadership, that we could actually influence some communities to take this on as a choice as opposed to a mandate.”
Any liability ruling could have major implications for districts across the state and be a national model for desegregating districts that are largely bound by municipal boundaries.
What are some of the proposed remedies?
It’s not clear how the judge would enforce fixes to the state’s education system, but the plaintiffs floated a series of remedies in the suit. That includes fixes that are already allowed in state statutes, such as voluntary consolidation among school districts, district consolidation ordered by the state Commissioner of Education and an expansion of districts’ authority to accept non-resident students.
Other proposed measures are drawn from solutions in other states, such as interdistrict enrollment in themed magnet schools or desegregation plans to transfer Black and Latino students to schools outside their districts, either voluntarily or mandatorily by lottery. Boston and Rochester have instituted such transfer plans.
The suit also points to Hartford, Connecticut where 39 specialized magnet schools were created to draw students from across districts in Hartford and surrounding suburbs.
This story has been updated to say the Attorney General's Office declined comment.
Segregated NJ
In study after study, New Jersey — despite its diverse overall population — has been found to have one of the most segregated public school systems in the country. More than a dozen newsrooms covering New Jersey have come together to explain how it came to this, what might be done about it and how segregation affects the student experience. The series, Segregated, includes reporting from Gothamist and WNYC, NJ Spotlight News, Chalkbeat Newark and newsrooms serving several communities. The continuing reporting can be found at SegregatedNJ.org.
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Race And Justice Unit
Karen Yi
Karen Yi covers homelessness and poverty. She joined the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom in 2020. Before that, Karen covered Newark for the Star-Ledger and spent almost a decade working for newspapers in New Jersey and Florida. She grew up in Miami and has a dog named Cashew. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 917-589-1460.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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