ST. LOUIS (CN) — In a case that swayed back and forth through the appeals process, the Eighth Circuit on Wednesday upheld an Arkansas law regulating interdistrict school transfers.
Four Arkansas school districts sued the state, claiming they should be exempt from a state law allowing minority students to attend schools outside their home district.
But in a 2-1 ruling, a three-judge panel found that the district court erred in siding with the school districts.
The decision, which reverses a ruling made by the same panel last December, found that in expanding underlying consent decrees to bar interdistrict school transfers, the district court imposed a new term outside the intended agreement between the districts and the state, which was originally meant to stop discrimination within school districts.
“There is no ‘vestige’ of discrimination that has anything to do with school transfers,” the unsigned majority opinion states. “In expanding the consent decrees to bar interdistrict school transfers, the district court impermissibly expanded the decrees to impose a new term outside the intended agreement of the parties.”
The majority was comprised of U.S. Circuit Judges Ralph R. Erickson and Jonathan A. Kobes, both appointees of Donald Trump.
U.S. Circuit Judge Michael J. Melloy, a George W. Bush appointee, dissented, finding that the district court acted within its discretion by relying on evidence of so-called white flight, in which white parents in districts with a large Black student population transfer their children to neighboring, mostly white school districts.
“By restricting the conditions under which students can transfer out of the districts, the district court placed limitations on only the [plaintiff] districts, not on any other school district in the state of Arkansas,” Melloy wrote. “The district court has not restructured or coerced local governments, so the modification of the consent decrees does not impose an impermissible interdistrict remedy.”
Attorney Whitney Moore, who represents the school districts, was disappointed in the ruling and said her clients are evaluating their options moving forward.
“We continue to believe that the district court acted within its discretion when it found that segregative inter-district transfers negatively impacted the districts and that changes in Arkansas school choice laws allowed for modification of the consent decrees to prohibit that segregative movement,” Moore said in a statement. “The previous court orders sought to address all forms of racial discrimination and segregation, and the districts have worked hard for many years to comply with those orders.”
An Arkansas spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
The districts filed a lawsuit in the Western District of Arkansas after the state refused to exempt them from a new school choice law in effect for the 2018-2019 school year.
The law allows minority students outside of a particular school district to attend schools in that district. The plaintiffs sought an exemption prohibiting a student from transferring to a nonresident school district where the percentage of enrollment for the transferring student’s race exceeds that percentage in the student’s home district.
The state argued that such an exemption denies those students the right to a better education.
The lower court sided with the school districts, which are the Hope, Junction City, Lafayette County and Camden Fairview school districts.
Lawyers for Arkansas argued that the district court has essentially imposed a race-based interdistrict student transfer limitation. The state claims the court’s modification orders violate the equal protection clause because those orders make race, and race alone, the sole factor for determining whether a child can exercise school choice.
The decision carries a financial consequence to the school districts. With the Eighth Circuit’s decision, the districts could theoretically lose 3% of their students each year, which is the cap on the number who can transfer in a given year.
The St. Louis-based appeals court originally affirmed the district court’s ruling in December in another 2-1 decision finding that the lower court's order did not threaten the autonomy of any local school district. The state asked for a rehearing and the federal government also asked the court to reconsider, prompting the latest ruling.
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