Attorney General Makes New Push To End Desegregation Payments
by March 26, 2012 6:19 pm 115 views
Attorney General Dustin McDaniel (D) made a new push to end desegregation payments from the state to three Pulaski County school districts, part of the continuing legal saga that has been mired in court proceedings for decades.
Last December, a federal appeals court overturned a lower court ruling in a decision that forced the state of Arkansas to continue desegregation payments of roughly $38 million annually to three central Arkansas school districts.
Today, McDaniel made a new motion outlining his reasoning, according to a report from our content partner, the Arkansas News Bureau:
Attorney General Dustin McDaniel asked a federal judge today to end the annual payment the state makes to fund desegregation programs in Pulaski County’s three public school districts.
The state has paid about $1.1 billion to the districts since the 1989 settlement agreement order was issued, the attorney general said in a motion filed in U.S. District in Little Rock.
The payments should be lifted, McDaniel argued, because the North Little Rock and Little Rock school districts have already been declared substantially unitary, or desegregated, and the Pulaski County Special School District has been declared partially unitary.
The declarations mean that “the districts have eliminated the vestiges of segregation in student assignments to the extent practicable and are no longer compelled to racially balance the schools,” the attorney general said in the motion.
You can read more at this link.