Jenkins v. State of Missouri
| Decision Date | 16 May 2000 |
| Docket Number | 00-1288,Nos. 00-1048,s. 00-1048 |
| Citation | 216 F.3d 720 |
| Parties | (8th Cir. 2000) Chinyere Jenkins, by her next friend, Joi Jenkins; Nicholas Paul Winchester-Rabelier, by his next friend, Paula Winchester; Margo Vaughn-Bey, by her next friend, Franklin Vaughn-Bey; Nicholas C. Light, by his next friend, Marian Light; Stephon D. Jackson, by his next friend, B. J. Jones; Travis N. Peter, by his next friend, Debora Chadd-Peter; Leland Guess, by his next friend, Sharon Guess, Plaintiffs - Appellants American Federation of Teachers, Local 691, Intervenor - Appellee v. State of Missouri; Mel Carnahan, Governor of the State of Missouri; Bob Holden, Treasurer of the State of Missouri; Missouri State Board of Education; Peter Herschend, Member of the Missouri State Board of Education; Thomas R. Davis, Member of the Missouri State Board of Education; Robert E. Bartman, Commissioner of Education of the State of Missouri; Rice Pete Burns, Member of the Missouri State Board of Education; Sharon M. Williams, Member of the Missouri State Board of Education; Betty Preston, Member of the Missouri State Board of Education; Jacquelline Wellington, Member of the Missouri State Board of Education; Russell Thompson, Member of the Missouri State Board of Education, Defendants School District of Kansas City; Benjamin Demps, Jr., Superintendent, School District of Kansas City, Missouri; John A. Rios, School Board President; Patricia Kurtz, School Board Member; Lee Barnes, Jr., School Board Member; Lance Loewenstein, School Board Member; Sandy Aguire Mayer, School Board Member; Elma Warrick, School Board Member; Fifi Bliss Weideman, School Board Member, Defendants - Appellees. Submitted: |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri.
Before WOLLMAN, Chief Judge, HEANEY, McMILLIAN, RICHARD S. ARNOLD, JOHN R. GIBSON, BOWMAN, BEAM, LOKEN, HANSEN, MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, MURPHY, and BYE, Circuit Judges.
The Jenkins class, representing the children of the Kansas City, Missouri School District in this school desegregation case, has appealed the district court's order declaring the district unitary and dismissing the case with prejudice. The order followed a hearing set by the court to consider KCMSD's amended motion for equitable relief from a ruling of the Missouri State Board of Education declaring that the accreditation of KCMSD would be withdrawn effective May 1, 2000. After the district court denied KCMSD's motion, it proceeded sua sponte to a discussion of the unitary status of the district and declared the district to be unitary. A panel of this court reversed and remanded, Jenkins v. Missouri, 205 F.3d 361 (8th Cir. 2000), and we granted KCMSD's motion for rehearing en banc. After receiving additional filings from the parties and hearing argument, we reverse and remand.
We need not discuss in detail the long history of the Kansas City school desegregation litigation. After a finding of constitutional violations, years of effort to remedy them, and extended litigation and appeals which we need not catalog, the State of Missouri moved for a declaration of unitary status. On March 27, 1997, Judge Russell Clark, who had presided over the case since its filing, granted the motion in part, but denied it in part. See Jenkins v. Missouri, 959 F. Supp. 1151(W.D.Mo.), aff'd, 122 F.3d 588 (8th Cir. 1997) (Jenkins XIV). In particular, Judge Clark held that twenty-six percent of the achievement gap of ten normalized curve equivalents between KCMSD's black and white students was a vestige of the constitutional violation, and he ordered KCMSD to take reasonable steps to eradicate that vestige within the next three years. Id. at 1157-65, 1179. At the same time, Judge Clark approved a settlement between KCMSD and the State, providing that the State would pay KCMSD $320 million over three years, and in return, would be dismissed from the litigation. Id. at 1180.
On January 28, 1999, the district judge who succeeded Judge Clark to supervision of the case entered an order declaring that the State had paid its obligation under the settlement and dismissing the State from the case. Order of January 28, 1999. The court said that the State must continue to comply with any obligations that it undertook during the course of the lawsuit that were not covered by the agreement and warned the State against taking any action that might prevent KCMSD from ultimately fulfilling its court-ordered remedial goals. Id. at 6. The court then pointed to Judge Clark's order giving KCMSD three years to eliminate all the remaining vestiges of segregation; the court commented that fifteen months remained on this time line. Id. After considering the "lengthy and litigious process" likely to attend a renewed motion for unitary status, the court directed the parties to prepare for a unitary status hearing to begin on January 3, 2000. Id.
When KCMSD had hired its new superintendent, Benjamin Demps, the district judge, at a hearing on July 19, 1999, told Mr. Demps that a unitary status hearing was set for January 3.
Counsel appeared before the court on August 24, 1999 for a scheduling conference, which the court stated was "to address . . . preparing for a unitary status hearing in January," and in particular, what evidence the parties anticipated presenting in the hearing. Counsel for the class suggested delaying the hearing. He said that it would be difficult for KCMSD to make a case that everything practicable had been done, because there was a "pretty widely shared agreement that this is not the case." Furthermore, some test data were not in, and others seemed to show the achievement gap had not been closed. Nor had KCMSD implemented the curriculum, professional development, and accountability plans designed to close the gap. Also, KCMSD had just hired a new superintendent. The class's counsel suggested a hearing in the late summer of 2000.
The court then pointed to Judge Clark's statement that gave the district three years to eliminate the vestiges of discrimination. The court stated he "believed the Supreme Court when they told me to get this school district returned to local control" and that both he and Judge Clark had given KCMSD three years to comply.
Counsel for the class pointed out that recently the monitoring had been less heavy-handed, and that the monitoring committee, which was commonly referred to as the DMC, had been sending things back to the new superintendent to handle. Counsel said there were many ways the committee could lighten its monitoring. Counsel for the class stated that he did not anticipate that he would be presenting new approaches or anything other than implementation of the five programs already planned for reducing the black-white achievement gap: the curriculum, classroom practices, professional development, assessment, and accountability plans.
The district court then stated that he sensed that both the class and KCMSD were "pretty satisfied that the school district can't . . . go forward with the burden of proof that the gap has narrowed."1 He said he would need to have a hearing to take testimony from one of the experts who testified at the earlier unitariness hearing and also to hear whether the district was "on track" in implementing the five programs. The court commented that the problem had been the delay in implementation of the five plans to reduce the achievement gap. The court further commented that the track record of the district had not convinced him that KCMSD was putting heart and soul behind implementing the five plans or that KCMSD could get out of the political mode and get into looking after the best interests of the children.
Following this conference, the court filed a written order formally denying the motion for a continuance, stating:
[T]he Court provided for termination of the [DMC] by March 25, 2000. See Order at 21, Doc. # 4575 (August 21, 1997), . . . . [E]ven if the KCMSD has not attained unitary status, all three Monitors would be removed. See id. At that time, the Court would need to determine the need for new Monitors or even a new remedial structure. Such a determination cannot be made without evidence of the KCMSD's current status.
. . . .
. . . The [unitary status] hearing will begin, as scheduled, on January 3, 2000.
Order of August 26, 1999 at 17-18 (emphasis added).
On October 21, 1999, the State Board of Education voted to withdraw accreditation of KCMSD as of May 1, 2000. In response, KCMSD filed an amended motion for equitable relief on October 25, 1999, seeking to bar the State's action on the ground that it would interfere with the remedial decree in Jenkins.2 That same day, the court issued an order setting KCMSD's motion for hearing on November 1 to hear evidence on three enumerated issues: whether the court should (1) rejoin the State as a party; (2) declare void ab initio the action of the Missouri State Board of Education in classifying KCMSD as an unaccredited school district; and (3) enjoin the application to KCMSD of several statutes on which the State Board's action was based.
The court held the hearing on KCMSD's motion on November 1-2, 1999. We need not discuss in detail the testimony before the court, except to state that it was directed to the issues outlined by the district court in its order of October 25. The parties agreed in oral argument before the panel that the hearing was not a unitary status hearing. At the conclusion of the proceedings of November 2, the court asked KCMSD's staff counsel whether the KCMSD board agreed there should be a unitary status hearing in January. Counsel stated that the board voted unanimously to seek a continuance and authorized her to agree to a continuation of the monitoring committee in its current configuration until the end of the 1999-2000 academic year in June.
On November 9, 1999, KCMSD...
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