By RICK KRON
Leader staff writer
Pulaski County Special School District was back in court Friday as the newest and latest federal judge on the decades-old desegregation case stepped in to hear where everyone was and where he wanted them to be.
U.S. District Judge Price Mar-shall, who is from Jonesboro, said he’d be prepared to start moving expeditiously once he decided whether to remain on the case. He said Friday’s court hearing was to help begin building a record, either for him or another judge.
Marshall asked the districts for formal responses by July 12 on whether they think he should recuse from the case because he had been a law clerk for another judge who had decided the case more than 20 years ago.
He took over for Judge Brian Miller, who recused himself last week after the state took over the Pulaski County and the Helena-West Helena school districts. Miller, who is from Helena and was an attorney for the school district, disagreed with the Helena-West Helena takeover and felt he could not maintain his neutrality in the desegregation case.
A month earlier, Miller had ruled that PCSSD had met very few of the required earmarks to be released from deseg monitoring, and while the North Little Rock School District had met most of the requirements, it still had not resolved all of its issues. Both districts at the time were in fiscal distress. Little Rock School District had been released already from deseg monitoring, but along with the other two districts, was sharing in $70 million annual to help desegregate the districts.
In making his ruling in May, Miller cut that funding immediately. All districts appealed, and the eight Circuit Court said Miller couldn’t stop the flow of money--at least that quickly.
Marshall was a law clerk to Appeals Court Judge Richard Arnold from 1989-91 when Arnold issued key rulings in the school case. Marshall said he had not participated in the work and didn’t recall even participating in office discussions of the case, but said he was open to turning over the case to yet another judge, if necessary.
Marshall also wanted to know if the attorney general’s office had a conflict in the case now that the state was running PCSSD. The state has opposed continuing desegregation funding to the district. Now it runs the district, which wanted to continue getting the money.
If there is a conflict then a special counsel will have to be appointed.
Chris Heller, attorney for the Little Rock district, suggested the situation could be cured by the state Education Department giving total independence, as the law allows, to the new superintendent, Dr. Jerry Guess, who starts Tuesday, or to a committee.
Guess was named superintendent by Tom Kimbrell, the Education Department commissioner.
John Walker, attorney for black children, said the state’s takeover of the district was a “farce.” He said the state was too conflicted by its obligations under the decree ending the desegregation lawsuit to bring clean hands to operation of the district.
He said the removal of a black superintendent and a number of black board members, along with school-construction decisions that favored white neighborhoods over poor black neighborhoods, amounted to further state civil-rights violations.
However, the construction decisions were made by that disposed board, which included the black members whom Walker was adamant about, with the approval of the last two superintendents, both whom were black.
The state wanted an immediate ruling that keeps the state funding for the majority-to-minority transfer program in place.
The school districts said they believed an 8th Circuit order staying Miller’s cutoff of other desegregation funding covered all financial matters, including the transfer program. That part of the case is heading to the appeals court in the fall.
Steve Jones, North Little Rock’s attorney, noted that the funding plan to encourage interdistrict transfers was devised by the 8th Circuit itself after it overturned Judge Henry Woods’ consolidation order. The school districts argue that the magnet-school program was meant to be a permanent incentive program and not subject to termination when districts had otherwise met desegregation goals. Nearly 2,000 students swap districts in the programs.
The judge also heard discussion on whether he should act on the Little Rock petition that the state has violated the settlement in creation of open enrollment charter schools in Pulaski County and on whether the Pulaski construction program should continue.
