Opinion ID: 2112848
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Safeguarding Equal Educational Opportunity

Text: Of course, this legislative oversight cannot prevent judicial intervention to safeguard the fundamental goal of equal educational opportunity. This court correctly holds that the circuit court of Will County has original jurisdiction to adjudicate District 204's EEOA claim. 231 Ill.2d at 201-02, 205-07, 325 Ill.Dec. at 228-30, 897 N.E.2d at 766-67. Indeed, the circuit court has jurisdiction to hear not only the EEOA claim, but all claims brought under the full panoply of federal and Illinois remedial legislation for the vindication of equal educational opportunity. See Yellow Freight System, Inc. v. Donnelly, 494 U.S. 820, 823, 110 S.Ct. 1566, 1568-69, 108 L.Ed.2d 834, 839-40 (1990) (holding that state courts have inherent authority to adjudicate federal claims and that Congress must affirmatively divest state courts of their concurrent jurisdiction). On remand, the circuit court will have the obligation to hear any claim that District 204 may bring, and to receive relevant evidence in support thereof. Surprisingly, the circuit court made the following independent finding in confirming the Board's grant of the section 7-2b petition: While one may have suspicions as to why property owners may want to detach their land from one district and attach it to another, mere suspicions are not enough. There is nothing in this record to establish any type of racial motivation on the part of the parties seeking disconnection. On the record before the Hearing Officer it appears that the reason for the disconnection was to properly align elementary and high school boundaries so that students who attend New Lennox Grade School District 122 could attend [h]igh school at Lincolnway with their friends. Now, this court is not so na๏ve as to not understand that there may well be an economic benefit to a developer going from one school district to another. Clearly, this land in question will be used for development purposes. However, even if that is the motivation, which is unclear from the record, that in and of itself does not create a Constitutional impediment or a violation of Federal law. The Court finds no Constitutional problem with the actions of the State Board of Education. (Emphasis added.) The circuit court correctly observed that the record contained no evidence regarding District 204's EEOA claim because section 7-2b of the School Code prohibited the Board from receiving such evidence. It is essential to the sufficiency of findings of a court that they be sustained by the evidence. Hanaman v. Davis, 20 Ill. App.2d 111, 115, 155 N.E.2d 344 (1959). In this case, it was impossible for the circuit court to find no constitutional or statutory violation because section 7-2b prohibited the Board from receiving any evidence supporting District 204's claim. Such indiscriminate comments do not aid in the administration of justice but on the contrary are a distinct obstruction. Lewis v. West Side Trust & Savings Bank of Chicago, 288 Ill.App. 271, 275, 6 N.E.2d 481 (1937). On remand, I assume that the circuit court will provide an analysis based on the relevant evidence presented by the parties, rather than conjecture based on no evidence at all.