Little Rock School Dist. v. Pulaski County Special School Dist. No. 1
| Decision Date | 12 December 1990 |
| Docket Number | 89-2352,89-2289,Nos. 89-2288,s. 89-2288 |
| Citation | 921 F.2d 1371 |
| Parties | 65 Ed. Law Rep. 41 LITTLE ROCK SCHOOL DISTRICT; Lorene Joshua, as next friend of minors Leslie Joshua, Stacy Joshua, and Wayne Joshua, et al., Intervenors Below, v. PULASKI COUNTY SPECIAL SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1; Dr. J.F. Cooley, Sherly Dunn, Shirley Lowery, Sara Brown, Doyan Matthews, Mildred Tatum; Mack McAlister, Appellants, North Little Rock School District, et al.; Nola Burl, Pat Rayburn, Morris Thompson, Theressa Wesley, and John McNee (Burl Intervenors), Appellees. LITTLE ROCK SCHOOL DISTRICT, Lorene Joshua, as next friend of minors Leslie Joshua, Stacy Joshua, and Wayne Joshua, et al., Intervenors Below, v. PULASKI COUNTY SPECIAL SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1; Dr. J.F. Cooley, Sherly Dunn, Shirley Lowery, Sara Brown, Doyan Matthews, Mildred Tatum; Mack McAlister, North Little Rock School District; Vicki Stephens; Ginny Jones; Murry Witcher; Dixie Harrison; Larry Lazenby; Rose Wilshire, Appellants, Arkansas State Board of Education, et al., Appellees. LITTLE ROCK SCHOOL DISTRICT, Lorene Joshua, as next friend of minors Leslie Joshua, Stacy Joshua, and Wayne Joshua, et al., Appellants, Katherine Knight, Individually and as President of the Little Rock Classroom Teachers Association (LRCTA), et al., v. PULASKI COUNTY SPECIAL SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1; et al., Nola Burl, Pat Rayburn, Morris Thompson, Theressa Wesley, and John McNee (Burl Intervenors), Appellees. LITTLE ROCK SCHOOL DISTRICT, Appellant, Lorene Joshua, as next friend of minors Leslie Joshua, Stacy Joshua, and Wayne Joshua, et al., v. PULASKI COUNTY SPECIAL SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1; et al., Nola Burl, Pat Rayburn, Morris Thompson, Theressa Wesley, and John McNee (Burl Intervenors), Appellees. LITTLE ROCK SCHOOL DISTRICT, Lorene Joshua, as next friend of minors Leslie Joshua, Stacy Joshua, and Wayne Joshua, et al., v. PULASKI COUNTY SPECIAL SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1, et al., Appellants, Mac Faulkner, et al., Nola Burl, Pat Rayburn, Morris Thompson, Theressa Wesley, and John McNee (Burl Intervenors), Appellees. LITTLE ROC |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Norman Chachkin, New York City, Christopher Heller, M. Samuel Jones, John W. Walker, Stephen W. Jones, Little Rock, Ark., for appellants.
John T. Lavey, H. William Allen, Little Rock, Ark., for appellees.
Before ARNOLD and WOLLMAN, Circuit Judges, and HEANEY, Senior Circuit Judge.
We have before us another chapter in the Little Rock school desegregation case, in the form of ten separate appeals from various orders of the District Court. The case has its roots in the 1950's, when the Supreme Court definitively announced that public opposition to desegregation of the races, no matter how deeply entrenched, could not be allowed to interfere with the full realization of the constitutional rights of black citizens. Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1, 78 S.Ct. 1401, 3 L.Ed.2d 5 (1958).
The present phase of the case began in 1982, when the Little Rock School District (LRSD) brought suit against the two other school districts in Pulaski County, Arkansas, claiming that the Constitution compelled the consolidation of the three districts into one governmental unit. We rejected this claim in Little Rock School District v. Pulaski County Special School District, 778 F.2d 404 (8th Cir.1985) (en banc), cert. denied, 476 U.S. 1186, 106 S.Ct. 2926, 91 L.Ed.2d 554 (1986). We held, however, that interdistrict constitutional violations had occurred, and directed that certain remedial steps be taken. On remand, various remedial orders were entered, and various further appeals were taken to our Court, the nature of which we shall describe, to the extent necessary for an understanding of the issues now before us, in the course of this opinion.
Then, in 1988 and 1989, in a sharp departure from the adversary bitterness that had marked this controversy for over thirty years, the parties, including the Joshua intervenors, representing the injured class of black schoolchildren and citizens, LRSD, the North Little Rock School District (NLRSD), the Pulaski County Special School District (PCSSD), and the State of Arkansas, 1 agreed to settle the case. They submitted to the District Court comprehensive agreements covering both interdistrict and intradistrict desegregation measures--agreements referred to by the parties as the "settlement plans." They also submitted a separate but related document, called the "settlement agreement," settling the financial liability of the State of Arkansas for something over one hundred million dollars.
The District Court rejected both the settlement plans and the settlement agreement, as submitted. It purported to modify them and to order the unwilling parties to put them into effect as modified. It also created the Office of Metropolitan Supervisor and conferred upon the occupant of that office a wide array of powers over all three school districts, amounting virtually to a de facto consolidation of these entities. Most of the affected parties appealed. None of the parties below asked that the judgment be affirmed in its entirety. A group of parents, however, was allowed to intervene in ...
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