Civil rights groups asked a federal judge Thursday to reject the Chicago Public Schools’ new integration proposal, saying the plan is not specific enough and does not sufficiently address segregation problems in the schools.
In a brief submitted to District Judge Charles Kocoras, the groups said the plan, submitted in November, lacks details about how the system will accomplish integration. They also charged that the schools’ plan to eliminate an outside monitoring commission could be detrimental.
“The lack of independent monitoring is of particular concern because of the mutually recognized and long-standing non-compliance of CPS and the historical lack of intervention by the United States,” the brief states.
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The 24-page response was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights.
The school system never admitted it segregated students but entered into a voluntary agreement in 1980 to avoid a lengthy legal battle with the U.S. Justice Department, which continues to monitor the schools.
The desegregation plan asks Kocoras to release the schools from court supervision on integration matters no later than June 2007. The plan, developed by the schools and federal attorneys, includes a promise to monitor whether the district spends as much in racially isolated neighborhood schools as it does in elite magnet schools.
“There are some aspects of their plan that are fine, but others that need to be changed,” said Sarah Vanderwicken of the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights. “One of the things that we are most worried about, and seems unclear in this plan, is what the [school] board has to do to get out of the consent decree. We want that clarified.”
School officials could not be reached for comment.
Kocoras will review the case and the filings before deciding whether to accept the schools’ plan.
Since the 1980s, the demographics of the school system have changed dramatically. White students now account for less than 10 percent of the enrollment, and black students have declined to 51 percent. Hispanics have become the fastest-growing group, accounting for 36 percent of the student body.