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The judge said in his decisionwhile he saw some signs ofdeliberate segregation intentwhen he found, without a trial,there was de facto (actuallyexisting) segregation in May1971, it was new evidence whichestablished the pattern of 40years of segregation in Oxnardschools.This new evidence, Pregersonsaid, came from school boardnunutes of the 1930s introducedat the September trial byNowlin and Edelman showing the “Oxnard school board notonly established and maintained segregated schools, but also established and maintained segregated classrooms within a school.”The judge cited the “odious” school board minutes of Nov. 4, 1986 which read in part: “President Dockstader stated that the board was in favor of the principle of segregation, although it might not be entirely practical at this time.”The judge found, based on theschool board minutes of 1938 and 1939, “the board continued to be obsessed” with segregation plans to separate Mexican-American and Anglo . -children.-In 1940, when the board built fftunona School “for the convenience of the Mexican population,” the judge noted **its conveniences were few.Its floor consisted of blacktop rolled over bare earth, its illumination came from a cingle bare bulb, its roof leaked, toilet facilities were ^dteplorable,” Pregerson noted..Eleven years later Juanita ^Jiphool was built in the Colonia relieve overcrowding atIRfcmona Before the 1971 integration order “few so-called► JCnglo youngsters ever attended ' Wjese two segregated barrio schools,” the judge said., That “open discriminatoryIntent of the 1930s and 1940sv '“extended in more subtle forms into the 1950s and 1960s,”Pregerson said.He cited the testimony of «*5iipt. Harold Ft. De Pue, who^fgfved from 1961 to 1965 andsaid “the same mentality that.motivated the school board ^taring the late 1930s and early **840s . . . existed into the 1960s.£/‘Although De Pue wanted toSrintegrate the Oxnard schools, he testified that the board chose to follow a ‘do nothing’ policy,” the judge said. “The conflict in philosophies resulted in De Pue’s departure from his post as superintendent,” the judgeadded.“The existence of this ‘do-nothing’ policy to preserve segregation spawned in the 1930s is corroborated by other witnesses,” the judge found.Pregerson cited the testimony of former Supt. Dr.Richard M. Clowes, who served from 1949 to 1961 and who testified the school board “took no action to integrate the schools or relieve segregation during his term as Oxnard’s superintendent.”The judge noted in the 1960s “a number of desegregation plans, which were administratively and educationally sound and feasible, were presented to the board and rejected.”Even board member Thomas Kane, who served from 1963 to 1971, “admitted the board took little positive action to correct segregation during the 1960s,” the judge said.In conclusion, the judge said “the segregation which in fact existed in the district’s elementary schools prior to the implementation of the court-ordered desegregation plan, was caused by the school board’s intentional, deliberate and purposeful policy of racial segregation.”The judge did not only rule for the plaintiffs, 10 Colonia children who first brought the suit, on the basis there was a deliberate intent to segregate, causing a constitutional violation of the right to equaleducation.He also found the school board was in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and of the state law outlined by the State Supreme Court in the 1963 Pasadena case.Under the Civil Rights Act, because the school district receives federal funds, the judge found the school board “has the affirmative duty to overcome the effects of discrimination,” even if these were the result of no purposeful design to segregate or were theresult of nrior sooreontinn
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