Jack Robertson led fight to desegregate schools Jack Robertson led fight to desegregate schools (August 21, 2002)

By Marion Softky

Almanac Staff Writer

Kind, gentle, patient, thorough, persistent, passionate. These are adjectives that friends and colleagues apply to attorney Jack Robertson of Ladera, who died August 13 of complications from a stroke at Lytton Gardens in Palo Alto. He was 85.

These were also the qualities Mr. Robertson brought to his 20-year-plus fight to end racial segregation in Midpeninsula school districts, and to bring equal opportunity to all their students

In the turbulent years from 1969 to 1977, Mr. Robertson led the effort to achieve racial balance in the Sequoia Union High School District. As a member of the district board of trustees, he fought -- often against fierce opposition from other board members and the community -- to integrate the district's five high schools by voluntary transfers, with mandatory busing as necessary backup.

At the same time, Mr. Robertson was appalled that students from the Ravenswood elementary district, which was more than 90 percent black, were at extreme disadvantage in high school compared to kids from feeder school districts that were 90-plus percent white.

When the balance of the Sequoia board shifted in 1970 against "forced busing," Mr. Robertson supported several legal challenges. Nationally famous was the "Tinsley suit," which challenged "de facto segregation" in the elementary school districts that prepared students for local high schools.

Brought in 1976 by Margaret Tinsley of East Palo Alto and others, the suit was settled in 1986 with a court order that some 200 students should be allowed to transfer each year from Ravenswood to schools in the Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Las Lomitas, Portola Valley, Woodside, San Carlos, and Belmont elementary school districts. The court also ordered financial support to the Ravenswood district so it could improve the education it provided to the rest of its students.

While the Ravenswood district is still struggling, more than 2,000 of its students have attended schools in the other seven districts -- and seen their scores and prospects improve.

"Because of Jack, we were able to save 2,200 children who got an education they would otherwise not have gotten," said Sid Berlin, formerly of Redwood City, one of the attorneys on three cases. "He was a brilliant man and a gentle, loving soul."

Margaret Tinsley said recently: "I'm still running into people who say, 'Thank you.' I want to say, I didn't do anything. Thank the lawyers. They put their whole hearts into it."
Early years

Growing up in Portland, Jack Robertson learned public service from his father, a leader in the Oregon state Senate. He was a top student at Grant High School before attending Reed College and gaining appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy.

Mr. Robertson graduated from Annapolis in 1938 and took a job with Pan American World Airways, where he was soon establishing new air routes to Asia via Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. In 1940, he married Helen, his wife for the next 59 years.

On December 8, 1941, Mr. Robertson re-enlisted in the Navy. He served as an officer in the Naval Air Transport Service, where he helped with logistics and supply in the successful war to oust the Japanese from the Aleutian Islands. He later served in the Pacific.

In 1946, Mr. Robertson moved to west Menlo Park with Helen and their two sons, Dave and Tom. After leaving the Navy, he managed Pan American's operations at San Francisco Airport. During a labor dispute involving flight engineers, he became interested in law, and entered Stanford Law School in 1948. In 1952 he graduated in the class with Supreme Court Justices William Rehnquist and Sandra Day O'Connor.
A passion for education

Mr. Robertson began his lifelong commitment to education in the Las Lomitas School District where his sons went to school. As a dispute over the superintended became nasty, Mr. Robertson wrote a letter suggesting they cool the rhetoric. He was promptly appointed to the school board, where he served from 1951 to 1955.

In 1955, the Robertsons moved to the new community of Ladera, where he remained for the rest of his life. Mrs. Robertson died in 1999.

During the next 15 years, the racial composition of the Midpeninsula changed as Realtors block-busted the community east of Bayshore Freeway. By the mid-1960s, Belle Haven and East Palo Alto were largely black; so was the Ravenswood Elementary School District and Ravenswood High School.

Following a racial confrontation at Menlo-Atherton High School in 1967, community leaders on both sides of the racial divide organized to build bridges and ease tensions.

Spurred by his conscience about racial inequality on the Midpeninsula, Mr. Roberston ran for the board of the Sequoia Union High School District in 1969, and was elected from a field of 23 candidates.

"I felt my charge was to improve education for black children and other ethnic minorities," he wrote in an unpublished manuscript. "The Conscience of a Community: Integrating Mid Peninsula Schools 1969-1986" was completed just last spring with the help of family, friends and associates. It is available on the Web at www.fprespa.org (click on "What's New," and scroll down to Jack Robertson picture.

"Jack took a moral stand. He was very consistent, very realistic, and very kind," said Nita Spangler of Redwood City, who covered the Sequoia district for the Almanac during Mr. Robertson's tenure from 1969 to 1977. He could see that minority kids had been left out. He persevered."

"He never gave up," added his son, Tom Robertson, also an attorney.

"Sequoia had all the turmoil of any school in the U.S. -- segregation, school finance, declining enrollment, women's sports," said Mrs. Spangler. "All we read about in the national press was happening right here at home."

After fighting all these issues, and after the closing of Ravenswood High School, Mr. Robertson left the Sequoia board in 1977. Then he talked attorneys Sid Berlin and Jerry Marer into bringing the Tinsley lawsuit to broaden the struggle for school integration.

Mr. Roberston's community involvement extended beyond education. He was a leader in legal, philanthropic and religious causes, and a member of more than two dozen professional and civic organizations. Among others, he was president of the San Mateo County Bar Association, a director of Bay Area United Way, president of the Menlo Park Rotary Club, and an elder of the First Presbyterian Church of Palo Alto.

But Mr. Robertson remained personally involved in schools, even after retiring in 1992. He taught courses, lectured, and tutored at Menlo-Atherton High School. "He would talk to English classes about choices and the importance of making good choices," said Marvis Stoecker of Portola Valley, a member of the library staff. "It was very profound."

As late as this past June, Mr. Robertson would visit the library to talk to students, in his wheelchair with his caregiver, said Mrs. Stoecker. "When he walked in the door, he was beaming. It was warm and wonderful."

Mr. Robertson's legacy still lives on with students from the Ravenswood district. This year about 150 new students will transfer to other districts -- from Palo Alto to Belmont -- joining some 1,000 students who are currently attending the schools, according to Peter Burchyns of the County Office of Education.

Mr. Robertson is survived by his two sons, Thomas of San Francisco, and David of Ladera; and three grandchildren.

The family suggests donations to the Menlo-Atherton High School Foundation, 555 Middlefield Road, Atherton, CA 94027; or First Presbyterian Church of Palo Alto, 1140 Cowper St, Palo Alto, CA 94301.
Memorial service

A memorial service for Jack Roberston will be held at 3 p.m. Saturday, August 31, at the First Presbyterian Church of Palo Alto, at 1140 Cowper St.