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1890–OCTOBER 2026 · SOUTH BEND (BOUNDARY COURSE), WITH THE PHM TEST RUN WHOLE FOR THIS GROUND
Boundary — the South Bend course, whole, because it is the county's school fight: Linden School, opened 1 September 1890, stood as the city's Black school in fact long after any law required it. The district's first Black teachers were hired in 1950 — and their naming prints with its conflict whole: the AALT names Eskridge and Lewis; the Clio entry names four, adding Myers and Luten; and a Tribune asset record dates Myers's start to 1953. The precipitating event is dated precisely: in December 1966 the ceiling of Linden School collapsed (the teacher in the room was Claudine Black), and the building's condition made segregation's maintenance costs undeniable in a single news cycle. The Copeland litigation settled in September 1967 before Judge Grant; the 1968 Reorganization Plan redrew the map (its Clay feeder pattern kept Swanson at 0.11 per cent Black); the Linden boycott of 3 March 1969 kept 495 of Linden's 527 pupils out; and Linden itself closed in June 1972. The federal decree came on 8 February 1980: the consent decree in United States v. South Bend Community School Corporation, Civil Action S80-0035, with its 15-percentage-point rule — a school's Black enrolment to sit within fifteen points of the district's. The Clay Quality Education II intervention was denied on 5 March 1981; the Brookins appeals ran to 1983; Plan Z followed in 2000; and the decree's long life after is the row's whole point: it is still in force. In October 2025 the district's Black enrolment stood at 37.25 per cent, inside its lawful band of 22.25–52.25 per cent; a committee on the decree's future was announced on 23 December 2025; and the board adopted policy touching it on 5 October 2026. A desegregation article that ends at the decree fails; this one ends with the decree still sitting, forty-six years on. This ground's own course, the PHM test run whole: Osceola is served by Penn-Harris-Madison, and the banked schools fragment's test stands and is restated at full strength — no desegregation case, decree or consent agreement against PHM appears in the searched federal record (CourtListener, Justia, govinfo) or the district's own BoardDocs; PHM's reported litigation under its name is unrelated (Joy v. PHM, 212 F.3d 1052 (7th Cir. 2000), a drug-testing case), and the one race-adjacent settlement of record, the Kelsey West discipline settlement of $30,000 reported 27 April 2010, is an individual case, not a decree. The district the decree never touched is itself a multi-racial district now: NCES for 2024–25 counts PHM at 15 schools and 11,329 students, 8 per cent Black and 31 per cent minority, and its board's resolution of 1 July 2020 created a diversity, equity and inclusion officer — administrative acts, printed as administrative acts, not as a decree's fruit. The township's school fight, in short, was fought in the neighbouring district's courts because the neighbouring district was where the county's Black school stood; PHM's record is a tested negative, and it is printed as one, with the searches named.
Sources: United States v. South Bend Community School Corporation, consent decree, Civil Action S80-0035 (entered 8 February 1980), and the decree's subsequent record (Plan Z; district reports October 2025; committee announcement 23 December 2025; board policy 5 October 2026); South Bend Reparatory Justice Commission, Final Report (2026), education chapters; AALT Linden entries; banked schools fragment for the PHM test; NCES, PHM district data 2024–25.