Moore v. Detroit School Reform Bd.
| Decision Date | 12 June 2002 |
| Docket Number | No. 00-2334.,00-2334. |
| Citation | 293 F.3d 352 |
| Parties | Helen MOORE, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. DETROIT SCHOOL REFORM BOARD; David Adamany; Dennis W. Archer, Mayor of the City of Detroit, and John Engler, Governor of the State of Michigan, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
George B. Washington (argued and briefed), Miranda K.S. Massie (briefed), Scheff & Washington, Detroit, MI, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.
Richard J. Seryak (briefed), Jerome R. Watson (argued and briefed), George E Bushnell, Jr., Miller, Canfield, Paddock & Stone, Detroit, MI, Thomas R. Wheeker (argued and briefed), Office of the Attorney General, Tort Defense Division, Lansing, MI, for Defendants-Appellees.
John F. Royal (briefed), Detroit, MI, Michael J. Steinberg (briefed), Kary L. Moss (briefed), American Civil Liberties Union Fund of Michigan, Detroit, MI, for Amici Curiae.
Before: MERRITT, SUHRHEINRICH, and GILMAN, Circuit Judges.
GILMAN, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which SUHRHEINRICH, J., joined. MERRITT, J. (pp. 372-73), delivered a separate concurring opinion.
Five citizens of Detroit and ten organizations representing students, teachers, and other residents of the city brought this lawsuit to challenge the validity of the Michigan School Reform Act (MSRA). They sued the Detroit School Reform Board (Reform Board), David Adamany, the former chief executive officer of the Detroit Public School System (DPS), Dennis Archer, the mayor of Detroit, and John Engler, the governor of Michigan. The MSRA created an appointed school board to govern the DPS and eliminated the authority of its elected school board. According to the plaintiffs, the MSRA violates (1) the Michigan Constitution's requirements for local legislation, (2) § 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and (3) the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and similar provisions of the Michigan Constitution. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants. For the reasons set forth below, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.
In March of 1999, the Michigan legislature enacted the MSRA. This legislation amended Michigan's Revised School Code (School Code) by providing for the appointment of a seven-member school reform board in qualifying school districts. Mich. Comp. Laws § 380.372. Any "first class school district," defined as a district with more than 100,000 students, is a qualifying school district and thus subject to the MSRA's provisions. Id. §§ 380.371(c), 380.402. Only the DPS, which had approximately 180,000 enrolled students when the MSRA was enacted, currently meets this prerequisite. Grand Rapids, with about 27,000 students at the time the MSRA was passed, has the next largest school district in Michigan.
The MSRA requires the mayor of any city in which a qualifying school district is located to appoint six of the seven members of the school reform board. Id. § 380.372(2). Either the state superintendent of public instruction or that officer's designee serves as the seventh member of the board for the first five years of its operation. After the initial five-year period, the mayor appoints the seventh member. Id. With the exception of the initial state superintendent, the mayor has the authority to remove board members for any reason. Id. § 380.372(4).
Any person who is serving as an elected member of the school board when the transition from the elected to the appointive system occurs is not eligible to become a member of that district's school reform board. Id. § 380.372(3). Although the MSRA suspends the duties and authority of the elected school board, its members may continue to meet and serve in an advisory role until their terms of office expire. Id. § 380.373(1). But they are not entitled to compensation or reimbursement for any work that they do. Id.
The MSRA requires a school reform board to choose a chief executive officer (CEO). Id. § 380.374. Although the CEO serves at the will of the reform board, he or she has all of the authority and assumes all of the duties that the School Code confers upon elected school boards. Id. §§ 380.373(4), 380.374. The state superintendent of public instruction or that person's designee has the ability to veto the school reform board's choice of a CEO. Id. § 380.374(1). Five years after the appointment of a school reform board, the citizens of a qualifying school district are able to vote to determine whether to retain the reform board, the CEO, and the structure established by the MSRA. Id. § 380.375.
Prior to the enactment of the MSRA, the elected Detroit Board of Education (Detroit school board) requested that New Detroit, Inc., which is a coalition of community, business, labor, education, and religious leaders, conduct an independent and impartial review of the DPS. New Detroit convened a panel (Review Panel) consisting of a representative group of community leaders to prepare its report, which it submitted to the Detroit school board in July of 1997. The Review Panel recommended "a complete and fundamental restructuring of the school system's management and internal operations." In addition, the report recognized the need for immediate action, noting that
The Detroit school board adopted the report two weeks later and appointed a seven-member team to implement the Review Panel's recommendations. An assessment of the DPS's progress toward achieving these initial goals was presented by the Review Panel the following year. After acknowledging that progress had been made in reaching several of the original objectives, the Review Panel expressed its view that "[t]he structure of DPS and the nature of the restructuring challenges, however, have significantly slowed the pace of action on many of the major objectives."
During the Michigan legislative debates over the MSRA, several amendments were offered that would have allowed Detroit's citizens to vote by referendum on whether to approve the legislation. None of these amendments were adopted. The Michigan Senate approved the MSRA by a vote of 30 to 7, with 3 of the 7 opposing votes coming from Detroit's 5 senators. In the Michigan House of Representatives, the vote was 66 to 43 in favor of the MSRA, with all of Detroit's representatives opposing it.
Senator Daniel DeGrow, the chief sponsor of the MSRA, explained why he supported the act in a speech on the Senate floor. In particular, he believed that because the DPS had 180,000 students, its deficiencies affect the entire state of Michigan. He explained that the MSRA was designed to effect a "fundamental change" that would provide the students in the DPS with "the opportunity to achieve a quality education." According to Senator DeGrow, the elected school board's refusal to take crucial actions had effectively denied Detroit's students any meaningful educational opportunity.
Many of the other state senators echoed these sentiments. The most common reasons for their decisions to support the MSRA were the low graduation rates in the DPS — only 30 percent of the entering class proceeded to graduation — and the failure of Detroit students to obtain satisfactory scores on the standardized Michigan Educational Assessment Profile (MEAP). Several senators also faulted the elected school board for failing to use the proceeds of a $1.5 billion bond program for needed improvements to the DPS. In addition, they identified extravagant expenditures made by the elected board members that included the use of chauffeured limousines and extensive foreign travel.
The Reform Board selected Dr. David Adamany to be its CEO in May of 1999. Dr. Adamany served as CEO until June 30, 2000. The Reform Board then appointed Dr. Kenneth Burnley to replace Dr. Adamany, with Dr. Burnley's term beginning on July 1, 2000.
By amendments that became effective in June of 2000, the Michigan Legislature altered the language of several provisions in the MSRA. These amendments added more general, open-ended terms to replace language that might have been interpreted to preclude other school districts from becoming subject to the MSRA's provisions as their student enrollments increase. In the amended version of the MSRA, the Legislature specified that the changes were added "to reaffirm the legislature's initial intent to apply [the MSRA] ... to any school district that was a qualifying school district ... at the time of enactment of [the MSRA] or that may hereafter become a qualifying school district." 2000 Mich. Pub. Acts No. 230.
The plaintiffs filed this lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan in September of 1999. An amended seven-count complaint was filed five months later. The first two counts allege that the MSRA violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and a similar provision in the Michigan Constitution by denying Detroit's citizens the right to vote for their city's school board and by prohibiting Detroit's elected school board members from being appointed to the Reform Board. Count III alleges that the MSRA deprives Detroit's citizens of the right to vote on the basis of their race, in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The fourth count contends that the MSRA violates the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and the Equal Protection Clause of the Michigan Constitution because it was allegedly enacted with the intent of denying Detroit's...
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