Court Opinion

ID: 9474273
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:52:33.610144+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:59.641149
License: Public Domain

BOWMAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree with the views expressed in the separate opinion of Judge John R. Gibson, with two reservations.
First, I do not agree that the Granite Mountain transfer provides a proper basis for an interdistrict remedy. This transfer occurred in 1953, when all public facilities in Arkansas, public schools and public housing alike, still were operating, with the law’s blessing, on a segregated basis. The black children living at that time in the Granite Mountain housing project would have gone to all-black schools no matter which district those schools happened to be in. Because it seems clear that the maintenance of segregated education was not the motive for this transfer, I would not treat it as a predicate for interdistrict relief.
Second, I do not agree with the thrust of footnote 2 of Judge Gibson’s opinion, ante at 447. Specifically, I do not agree that lawfully operated private schools are an “issue” that any of the parties to this lawsuit should have an interest in addressing. Parents choose their children’s schools for many different reasons. Sometimes the reasons are admirable, sometimes not. So long as this remains a free country, however, the motives of individual parents in opting to send their children to private school rather than public school will remain none of the law’s concern.