congressional_record: CREC-1994-12-20-pt1-PgE26
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| CREC-1994-12-20-pt1-PgE26 | 1994-12-20 | 103 | 2 | RECOGNIZING THE LATE JUDGE FRANK BATTISTI OF CLEVELAND | HOUSE | EXTENSIONS | FRONTMATTER | E | E | [{"name": "Louis Stokes", "role": "speaking"}] | 140 Cong. Rec. E | Congressional Record, Volume 140 Issue 150 (Tuesday, December 20, 1994) [Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 150 (Tuesday, December 20, 1994)] [Extensions of Remarks] [Page E] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov] [Congressional Record: December 20, 1994] From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] RECOGNIZING THE LATE JUDGE FRANK BATTISTI OF CLEVELAND ______ HON. LOUIS STOKES of ohio in the house of representatives Tuesday, December 20, 1994 Mr. STOKES. Mr. Speaker, on October 19, 1994, the Cleveland community suffered the loss of a legal giant. I rise today to honor the late U.S. District Court Judge Frank J. Battisti, who passed away on that date at the age of 72. Judge Frank Battisti was the lifelong jurist, both in and out of the courtroom. His devotion to law carried him from Youngstown to Harvard Law School, and eventually to an appointment on the U.S. district court in Cleveland by President John F. Kennedy. At the age of 39, he was the youngest Federal judge in the country. Judge Battisti's legal career was driven by his head and fueled by his heart. He was a respected, and sometimes feared, judge who felt a passion for the court that he was able to translate through his decisions. Judge Battisti clearly understood the responsibility of his position, and the weight of fairness and jurisprudence. He considered how the law would affect people, not just how a decision would fit neatly into legal theory. In short, Judge Frank Battisti had the human touch. Mr. Speaker, Judge Battisti never backed down from controversial cases. From the acquittal of the Ohio National Guardsmen after the Kent State shootings to a plan to desegregate public housing, he found answers to very tough problems in very troubled times. His unblinking eye on social and racial injustice helped him focus on the legal injustice he saw in his courtroom. His human touch never shone brighter, and the criticism never roared louder, than after his controversial and historic decision to desegregate Cleveland's school district in Reed against Rhodes. Judge Battisti simply believed that children, regardless of race, religion, or background, had an equal right to an equal education in the Cleveland public school system. His maverick stand clearly had the children's interest at heart, and he never wavered in the firestorm of protest that followed Reed against Rhodes. Nearly two decades later, it still remains to be seen whether Reed against Rhodes was the right answer, but the underlying principle Judge Battisti defended in that decision showed his remarkable courage and determination. Mr. Speaker, as a former practicing attorney in Cleveland, I had the utmost respect and admiration for Judge Battisti. The passing of Frank Battisti is a loss to the legal community, a loss to Cleveland, and a loss to the never-ending quest for equality, fairness, and justice. He did not simply sit on the bench, he embodied law. He was every bit a judge, in every sense of the word. Mr. Speaker, I ask that an editorial from the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper that pays tribute to Judge Battisti be entered into the Record for my colleagues to read. I also ask that my colleagues join me in recognizing the late Judge Frank Battisti. [From the Plain Dealer, Oct. 20, 1994] Judge Frank J. Battisti Some admired him. Some reviled him. Few would deny the powerful impact U.S. District Judge Frank J. Battisti, who died yesterday at age 72, had on Cleveland. On his name and on his most famous ruling--which found that Cleveland public schools had violated the law by practicing racial segregation--countless candidates premised their campaigns for public office. In his name and in the name of his most famous ruling, tens of thousands of black schoolchildren learned one of the most important lessons of their lives: that the Constitution's protections extended to them. To understand Battisti is to gain greater knowledge about a vital, unfinished chapter of Cleveland history and one of its central characters. By 1976, when Battisti issued his finding against the school district, black children in Cleveland already had learned about meanness, hatred and prejudice. The U.S. Supreme Court had decided in the 1954 case of Brown vs. Board of Education that state laws allowing racially segregated schools violated the constitutional right to equal protection. Many big-city school districts began addressing racial patterns soon after that landmark decision. Cleveland was not among them: Officials continued practices that deliberately separated black and white students. In fact, even after a class action was filed in U.S. District Court in 1973, the black school board president and the white superintendent fought against disassembling ``black'' schools. The Cleveland and Boston school districts reacted with the most extreme defiance to court desegregation orders, said Gary Orfield, a professor of education and social policy and the head of the Harvard Project on School Desegregation. The rancor did not stop after the ruling. Battisti's comprehensive order had 14 components intended to bring an equal education to all of the city's students. One of the provisions, reassigning students to achieve integration, overshadowed all the rest. A single word summed it up: busing. When Battisti required student reassignments, he used one of the most favored methods of the day for integrating schools. But neither the schools nor the city were the same after the order. Whites and blacks fled as soon as they could afford to do so. Busing became a lightning rod for some incumbent and aspiring school board members who blamed it for all of Cleveland's ills. The rest of Battisti's order, which forced neglectful district officials to install more responsible management and promote improved student achievement, was forgotten by the public and cruelly ignored by a succession of school boards and administrations. Now, 20 years after Battisti's finding, 40 years after Brown vs. Board of Education, Cleveland schools are predominantly one race and nearly all the children are getting an equally insufficient education. Schools cannot integrate in cities with such segregated housing patterns, as communities across the United States have learned. Time has proven that reassigning students to integrate schools was the wrong remedy. But what motivated Battisti, who was appointed to the U.S. District Court by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, is not so clear-cut. Friends and associates say he was a deeply religious Catholic who felt that injustices like segregation were morally as well as legally wrong. And so he also took on cases in which he ordered the integration of public housing in Cleveland and Parma. The devout and passionate Battisti saw the federal judgeship as a calling he felt compelled to answer and continually act upon. In that mission, people were divided into the good and the bad. ``Battisti believed and stood for something much larger than the minutiae of constitutional doctrine. He possessed the intellect to understand the sweep of history,'' said Daniel McMullen, who recently left as the director of the Office on School Monitoring and Community Relations, the federal court's watchdog of the Cleveland schools' desegregation effort. Perhaps only deep moral convictions could have shaped that broader vision and helped Battisti confront racism. Deep moral convictions could have provided comfort and courage through years of being vilified, of death threats directed at him and his family. His life had been threatened, too, when he acquitted eight former Ohio National Guardsmen in the 1970 killings of students at Kent State University. Battisti likely would have been hounded still more as the question returned to his court of whether John Demjanjuk should be deported. Battisti could handle harassment directed at him. But the judge was anguished when those he cared for were the targets. Some say Battisti was sustained by the ample ego and strong sense of independence that led him into conflicts with his colleagues on the federal bench. Ego and independence may have contributed to him sticking with student reassignments to attain integration in Cleveland schools even when it became unpopular among blacks, the very victims of the original discrimination. What the public saw and read did not reflect the private side of Frank Battisti. He was a devoted family man and a fiercely loyal friend who used to sit around with pals at a local furniture store and gab. He and his wife had no children, but doted on their niece and nephew. He could be stoic, stern and even arrogant to those who came before him in court. But Battisti had a good sense of humor and never tired of telling stories, especially about fishing. He loved fly fishing and he loved Montana, and it was ironic that an insect bite he suffered while fly fishing in Montana brought about the illness that killed him. Judge Frank J. Battisti's impact on Greater Cleveland will be debated for as long as it is remembered. That is understandable. But the man himself should also be recalled as a longtime public servant who unflinchingly took on cases of injustice. He should be mourned as a person who knew the value of friends and of family--and of a fight hard-fought. |