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At Richey Elementary, where the student body was purely Mexican or Native American, students were forced to line up in front of wash basins while the school nurse scrubbed their heads with lice medicine, put a stocking on their heads and sent them off to class.

If students spoke Spanish or Yaqui in class, even translating in whispers for another student, they were paddled relentlessly, he recalls.

Then there were the 1-C classes — essentially remedial first grade — where students, regardless of their age, were sent if they didn’t know English. Gonzales spoke a fair amount of English , but was still sent to 1-C, like many of his peers. Because of the 1-C class, he didn’t graduate from high school until he was 19 — or an “old man� as he saw it then.

There wasn’t a single white kid at his school.

When schools were forced to integrate, Richey Elementary merged with John Spring Junior High, formerly the segregated African-American Dunbar School.

“The integration was basically integrate blacks with Mexican-Americans and Native Americans. … They called it integration, but you didn’t see them busing white kids there,� Gonzales said.

So when Gonzales, who went on to become a state senator and Pima Community College Governing Board member, read the latest court filing in TUSD’s long-standing desegregation case, he was outraged.

In it, the district demands the “immediate and complete� termination of the case brought by the Hispanic plaintiffs. The district argues — for the first time in the 40-year history of the case — that it should be released from court supervision with respect to the Mexican-American students’ case because the district didn’t operate a segregated “dual school system� for Latinos, as it did for African-American students.

“Of course there were segregated schools. I went to one. That is just a preposterous argument,� Gonzales said.

Sylvia Campoy, a former educator and board member in the district who now volunteers as the representative for the Hispanic plaintiffs in the case, called the filing “the worst thing� she’s seen the district do, adding, “And a lot of what I’ve seen is really outrageous.�

“You cannot just erase history. And in three swift paragraphs, the district has said the (Hispanic) Mendoza plaintiffs have no standing in this case, � she said.

But TUSD Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo said the district’s response is not the same as a motion to dismiss the plaintiffs on the grounds of standing, as they have interpreted it.

The court ordered TUSD to make its case about why it should be released from court supervision, and the lawyers made the best case they had, he said.

“(We argued that) we have complied successfully with the one area where we were originally assigned court supervision with regard to Mexican-American students. I think we have a right to do that. I don’t think that means we’re slapping them in the face. I agree it could be a slap in the face if we filed a specific motion to get them removed from the case,� he said.

A MEANS TO AN END

The filing comes as TUSD forges full speed ahead with attempts to put an end to the desegregation case, possibly as early as next year.

The district’s argument hinges on the fact that the court ruled in 1978 that TUSD operated a dual-school system for black students, but not for Mexican-American students. While many schools were segregated by race, like Richey, the district didn’t have “Mexican-American schools� like it had for black students.

Because of that, the district argues it has different requirements for ending court supervision on the African-American and Hispanic plaintiffs’ cases, even though the cases have been consolidated into one.

While the district is required to end specific discriminatory practices toward black students, prove it has provided equal access to educational opportunities and facilities for them, and prove good faith compliance with the desegregation plan, the district argues that’s not the case for Mexican-American students, for which it only needs to prove it ended identified discriminatory practices, which the court found it did in 1986.

But that ignores the fact that in 2013, the district signed onto a new desegregation plan that lists detailed and specific goals it would attain regarding Mexican-American students .

Trujillo said while he wasn’t around when the district agreed to the stipulations , they did so without knowing what standards they would be held to regarding the Mexican-American plaintiffs’ case.

And he said he has a responsibility to taxpayers to end the court case as quickly as possible, especially since the recent state budget pushed the district’s desegregation tax onto local taxpayers.

In contrast to past superintendents who have struck a more confrontational posture, Trujillo frequently refers to the plaintiffs as “our partners in desegregation� and speaks of working with them to ensure that the district is properly serving its black and Latino students .

But Campoy said the district’s court filing undercuts much of that progress.

“According to the district, one of their partners doesn’t exist. And without any fair notice, heads-up, without any discussion, without any diplomacy, without any etiquette, we have to read that in a court filing,� she said.

GOVERNING BOARD INPUT

Governing Board members, who ostensibly provide the district’s lawyers with direction on what arguments the district wants to make in court, said the filing was a surprise to them.

Board President Mark Stegeman said he didn’t know that TUSD would make that argument until the filing had already occurred. As board president, Stegeman said he stands behind the legal arguments, though he didn’t comment on whether he personally agreed with the merits.

But Stegeman emphasized that he saw it as a technical legal argument about standing that is being made in an attempt to put the district on the best possible footing to close the case, and not as an attack or slight to the plaintiffs. He said he values the Hispanic plaintiffs’ input in improving TUSD’s schools and has supported complying with the desegregation order.

Board Member Adelita Grijalva was more direct, calling the district’s legal argument “very concerning.� She also said the board never authorized the argument and was surprised to see it in court documents.

Board member Kristel Foster also said she hadn’t been briefed or consulted on the filing and didn’t agree with it. She said it sounded like the district was looking for technicalities to get off the hook, rather than proving it has made big strides in helping Mexican-American students, which she thinks it has.

“To get off on a technicality, that’s a slap in the face to all the work we’ve done,� Foster said.

She said the fact that the lawyers made the argument, apparently without Governing Board input, is especially concerning.

But Trujillo said he briefed the board during executive session on March 27, more than two weeks before the document was filed.

Said Campoy:

“The larger issue is the message that TUSD has just sent to this community: We don’t regard you. You don’t count. You have never counted since 1978. There was never any discrimination and there’s nothing to correct.�

Trujillo countered, saying that’s not what the district said, and it’s not what he as a Mexican-American believes.

“(The district’s legal position) is a far difference from saying discrimination has never taken place against Mexican-American students in this school district. In fact, acts of discrimination against Mexican-Americans in general continue today in schools across this nation,� he said.Campoy agrees, and said discrimination still happens against Mexican American students in TUSD every day.She said integration at the magnet schools, the primary tool for the school district to advance racial integration, has not been accomplished to the degree required and as established in goals set by the district. And she notes the district’s failure to comply with the desegregation plan resulted in six magnet schools losing their magnet status last year.And while the number of “racially concentrated� schools has declined in recent years to 30, there are only 25 racially integrated schools in the district and only 25 percent of students attend integrated schools, according to the court appointed overseer in the desegregation case.This year, 78 percent of first-year teachers taught at racially concentrated schools or schools performing below average, according to the Mendoza plaintiff’s analysis of school records.White teachers make up 68 percent of the workforce, while only making up less than 25 percent of the student body, according to the court.Vacancies for teachers that remain unfilled after the beginning of the school year are mostly at west side and south side schools with high minority populations, Campoy said.