LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Arkansas’ long-running desegregation lawsuit inched closer to a resolution Friday when a federal judge said he was satisfied with a rural school district’s plan to provide college scholarships for more students.
Loose ends remain, however, for the Little Rock, North Little Rock and Pulaski County Special school districts, which since 1989 have received more than $1 billion in additional state aid to address racial imbalances.
The judge handling the 32-year-old case has already determined that the extra funding will go away in 2018, but he has yet to declare Pulaski County’s schools desegregated. He suggested revisions to a monitoring plan Friday and gave lawyers 11 days to weigh in.
Meanwhile, a lawyer representing black school children renewed an informal complaint that he has been left “out of the loop,” this time as the districts expand a magnet school program.
Race-based problems within Little Rock’s schools have their roots in 1950s policies that led to President Eisenhower ordering federal troops to supervise the 1957 integration of Central High School.
A quarter-century later, Little Rock sued its neighboring districts and the state, claiming their policies undermined its ability to maintain a racial balance in Arkansas’ largest school district. Under a court settlement, the state agreed to help pay for student transfers and magnet programs.
Federal judges had previously declared the Little Rock and North Little Rock districts “unitary,” or substantially desegregated, but withheld approval for Pulaski County schools. Among concerns are that its facilities are poor and its discipline policies aren’t balanced.
U.S. District Judge Price Marshall on Friday declared that the rural district had met requirements to provide college scholarships to some of its students. While it had provided 17 scholarships of $1,000 in the last two years, beginning this year it will provide 20 scholarships of $2,500.
He said he would ask a magistrate to review special education policies and asked the lawyers to consider letting him dissolve the Office of Desegregation Monitoring on June 30 and give work to a court-appointed expert. Lawyers have until April 15 to respond.
The judge also said a magnet school review program would cease June 30, but the magnet schools will continue.
“The settlement contemplates good faith among the three districts for magnet (schools) going forward,” Marshall said.
But John Walker, a state representative who is an attorney for black school children intervening in the case, said discussions of magnet programs among the districts was news to him.
“We still have the need to be involved,” Walker told the judge, who directed Little Rock district lawyer Chris Heller to keep Walker abreast.
Walker has said previously that the Little Rock district has traditionally followed discriminatory policies and complained after Friday’s hearing that “keeping us out of the loop” was more of the same.
“The problem is … its willingness to really fulfill the obligation of a desegregated school district,” Walker said. He repeated his contention that previous policies have left more affluent parts of the city having the better facilities.
“The beneficiaries of the school system are still largely white,” Walker said. “The ones who get the best education, the best teachers with less turnover, the best schools in the best neighborhoods.
“Everything else is running amok,” he said.
Heller did not return a telephone call seeking comment on Walker’s remarks outside court, but did tell Marshall he would involve Walker in future conversations.
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