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Six days of testimony before Judge Marshall Berger ended this week, as he was urged to to order the State of Connecticut to remedy racial isolation in Greater Hartford to meet the goal of an 11-year-old Supreme Court ruling in Sheff vs. O’Neill. Judge Berger will set a date soon for final arguments by attorneys for the Sheff plaintiffs, as well as by the City of Hartford and the defending State of Connecticut. The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Connecticut, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) and cooperating attorneys argue on behalf of the plaintiffs that the state of Connecticut must honor its legal obligations to desegregate Greater Hartford’s public schools. “It has now been 11 years since the Connecticut Supreme Court declared that school segregation in Hartford was unconstitutional – how much longer must these children wait for their most basic rights?” said Dennis Parker, director of the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program and an attorney in the case. “Each day that passes is another shameful reminder of the state’s failure to act, a failure burdened by Hartford’s children.” In 1996, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled in Sheff v. O’Neill that Hartford’s racially segregated schools violated minority students’ constitutional rights to an equal education. Although the court urged the legislature and governor to put school integration “at the top of their respective agendas,” the progress of integration has been abysmal. An agreement between the Sheff plaintiffs and Connecticut, reached in 2003, stipulated a four-year plan by which the state would reduce the racial isolation faced by Hartford’s minority schoolchildren. But over a decade after the state Supreme Court's ruling, Hartford-area schools remain divided by race and class. Though interdistrict magnet schools and other programs have provided some of the region’s children access to quality, integrated educational opportunities, fewer than one in 10 Hartford-resident students of color currently attend an integrated school. A new agreement was recently reached by the plaintiffs and the state, but the Connecticut legislature failed to approve the plan. Meantime, the 2003 order and stipulated agreement have expired. The plaintiffs are now asking Judge Berger to order a remedy. Attorneys in the case are Matthew Colangelo of LDF, Parker and Larry Schwartztol of the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program, and cooperating attorneys Wesley Horton and Martha Stone.
Read the plaintiffs’ filing: Motion to Enforce Judgment More information on Sheff v. O’Neill is available at:
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