Bakersfield City School District and its Failure to Desegregate

Under the Reagan Administration the Bakersfield City School District (BCSD) came under federal scrutiny in 1984 for its segregated schools and practices to limit resources in minority neighborhoods for the benefit of White students (Cummings, 1984).  The scrutiny originally began in 1975 due to the deliberate busing of students to keep Black and White students separate (Barrientos, 2011 ).  In 1978, an administrative law judge also concluded that the segregation in BCSD effectively created a “dual school system” in which Blacks and Hispanics were isolated from White students (Pear, 1984).  In 1982, the U.S. Department of Education referred the case to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for judicial enforcement due to BCSD’s unwillingness to integrate its schools and reduce racial isolation.  

BCSD, threatened by DOJ with litigation, created a “Voluntary Desegregation” policy as a compromise to federal government intervention thus allowing local control to remain.  (Pear, 1984)   BCSD Assistant Superintendent Paul Cato said, ''the Bakersfield community wanted to use voluntary techniques and tried every avenue to prevent the Federal Government from coming in here with a mandatory busing program.'' (Pear, NY Times, 26 January 1984).  Instead of being subjected to mandatory busing or ceding federal control, BCSD would make “good faith efforts” to integrate schools through programs that would attract White students to attend schools in predominantly Black areas and also schools would reflect a more diverse student body.  (U.S. v. Bakersfield City School District, 2011)

Good faith efforts amounted to nothing substantial for children of color in BCSD.  Not only did schools remain segregated, students were even more isolated over the life of the Voluntary Desegregation Policy.  Schools such as Fremont, McKinley, Mount Vernon, and Owens elementary schools had Black or Hispanic demographics as high as 92% prior to the agreement.  Isolation has remained high and the targets to integrate were never met.

Voluntary Desegregation Policy was originally intended to be only a 3-year settlement (Moss, 1986).  Should BCSD be able to keep the racial demographics within the range of +/-20% of district averages, then it would be able to unilaterally declare “unitary status” without a court hearing thus being considered sufficient to no longer be under federal scrutiny for purposes of desegregation.

In 2011, DOJ and BCSD filed a joint motion declaring Unitary Status for the district citing that,

As of the 2009-10 school year, every school in the District except the Downtown School has a White/African-American/Hispanic enrollment ratio within +/- 20% of the system wide distribution, mostly within +/- 10% thereof, and at the "racially imbalanced schools" identified in the Decree the ratio is within +/- 6% of the system wide distribution . (E.D. Cal. Jan 11 2011)

Based on the data available through the California Department of Education database, the Bakersfield City School District never achieved this self proclaimed goal.  Each year, from the 1993-94 school year to the 2013-14 school years there are schools within the district that fail to meet the +/-20% threshold established in the Voluntary Desegregation agreement.  Here is a breakdown by the number of schools in the district that fail to meet that standard:

1993-94: 9

1994-95: 9

1995-96: 10

1996-97: 12

1997-98: 12

1998-99: 13

1999-00: 14

2000-01: 15

2001-02: 12

2002-03: 12

2003-04: 14

2004-05: 8

2005-06: 6

2006-07: 5

2007-08: 5

2008-09: 4

2009-10: 1

2010-11: 2

2011-12: 3

2012-13: 3

2013-14: 4

On its face, BCSD never meets the agreement and is never in compliance with its Voluntary Desegregation Policy.  During this same period, the district becomes even more isolated.  Using a myriad of segregation matrices all indicate a trend where Hispanics and Blacks remain isolated from White students.  Whites, ironically, are less isolated.  This is due to there being less white students in BCSD over this time period.  The data suggests that while there is an increase in Hispanic population, White students have left the district.

The Simpson Reverse Index also affirms that the district as a whole has become more segregated.  On a scale of 1 to 4 is used to gauge complete integration (4) or segregation (1)

As the SRI gets closer to 1, it is showing that BCSD is becoming a more segregated school in 2013-14 than in 1993-94.

BCSD is telling the public and the federal courts that it has achieved Unitary Status.  The School are still segregated and, in fact, never integrated as it was supposed to.  The irony in all of this is that Earl Warren, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who presided over the Brown v. Board (1954) decision is from Bakersfield.  In fact, he is a product of the Bakersfield City School District.  He attended Washington Junior High School and, in his memoirs and the court opinion, has spoken of the benefits of an integrated system.  That belief and core value was not espoused by BCSD.  

Mathematics and its Potential for Disconnect from Reality

I remember reading Enders Game by Orson Scott Card as a college student.  I hated science fiction and could not understand its applicability to my life.  Ender, the main character, is manipulated for his genius.  He is playing what he believes is a game (video simulation) but he's actually saving the world from disaster by killing aliens called the "Buggers". His entire life, he has been trained and groomed to eventually kill the enemy, unbeknownst to Ender.




This whole scenario is similar in my career in the military.  As a Field Artillery Officer, I learned Collateral Damage Estimate methodology.  What I was learning to do was quantify and assess how many people would be killed by engaging a specific target.  In my assessments, I would give a status to each target by which commanders could decide whether to authorize engagement of it or not.

The technical aspects of the job created a disconnect just as it had in Ender.  Living breathing human beings are relegated to nothing more than an equation and a status diluted through technical military jargon.  A "CDE 5 High" was a target that would result in so much carnage that the President of the United States or someone he has designated can authorize shooting that target.


This makes me think of the recent civilian deaths in Yemen and Mosul, Iraq.  For such carnage to occur, leadership has to be disconnected from the real life implications of war.  Specifically, killing civilians on the battlefield has become merely a cost of doing business.  When candidate Donald Trump promised to "carpet bomb" ISIS, he meant it.  This position was politically popular to his voting base, as well.

This disconnect runs through American society.  I attribute this to the byproduct of having a volunteer professional force where less than 1% of the U.S. populations serves.  By so doing, we have created a class of Enders willing to play the game of zapping Buggers.  People become targets on a virtual screen.  The methods by which they engage these targets becomes whittled down to a mathematical equation which needs to be solved.  The people actually deciding which targets to engage (i.e. which people to kill) have no attachment to the whole process.  The end result is the killing of innocent people done in the name of intellectual exercise by way of dehumanization.