Opinion ID: 2977993
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Other Aspects of the District Court’s Order

Text: The district court acknowledged that its management of the case had not been optimally tailored to helping the Board achieve unitary status. The court said that its “failure to adopt clear and unequivocal guidelines for achievement of the [c]ourt’s goals is in large part responsible for the fact that the County is seeking unitary status some forty-four years after this suit was first filed . . . .” (JA 116.) Pointing to the fact that the Plaintiffs and the County had been in “lock step” with one another for much of the last thirty years and that there had been “few, if any, contested issues, and only nominal litigation,” the district court acknowledged the need for it to take a more hands-on 2 The Board presented minimal evidence on this subject, which may explain the absence of the district court’s explanation on its decision. Nos. 07-6076/6363 Robinson, et al. v. Shelby County Bd. of Educ. Page 35 approach to supervising the litigation with an eye to bringing it to a conclusion in the near future. The court stated that it had “largely served to ‘rubber-stamp’ the County’s unopposed construction and zoning requests with little or no meaningful review of how such proposals contributed to or detracted from the County’s overall progress toward unitary status . . . . The joint motion to dismiss compels the [c]ourt to resume a more substantive role in bringing the County school system’s desegregation process to a legitimate closure.” (JA 115-16.) Besides the “flexible” benchmarks the district court set for evaluating the Board’s student and faculty desegregation efforts, the district court also set timetables for achieving them. The court set October 2012 as the target date for full compliance. (JA 119.) After three years of full compliance, the court said it would dissolve the desegregation decree. (JA 119.) Next, the district court ordered the Board to submit data annually concerning the racial composition of each school’s students and teachers. The Board was further instructed to provide information about “mitigating factors, including infeasibility of further desegregation and shifting demographics, as appropriate.” (JA 118.) The Board was to continue submitting notices of school construction plans and attendance-zone modifications to the court until the desegregation decree was dissolved. Contrary to the perfunctory nature of similar reports filed in the past, the court clarified that all such plans are to include a comprehensive discussion of what impact the construction and attendance-zone changes will have on the Board’s desegregation efforts. (JA 119.) Finally, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 53, the district court said it would appoint a special master to consider the statistical data supplied by the parties and to make annual reports and recommendations to the court. (JA 117-18.) The court instructed the parties jointly to select a special master with the requisite qualifications, which the court defined as a “neutral expert in educational research, preferably with experience in desegregation issues . . . .” (JA 118.) Nos. 07-6076/6363 Robinson, et al. v. Shelby County Bd. of Educ. Page 36