Jefferson County Public Schools officials should allow students who were assigned to schools this year because of their race to choose another school -- or be held in contempt, says the Louisville lawyer who pushed to have the district's integration policy struck down.
Teddy Gordon filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Louisville challenging the district's decision to end using race in assigning new and transfer students to schools, but not to reconsider assignments that had already been made.
Gordon says that practice allows the district to "continue to discriminate."
"There are students assigned to schools because of racial classifications going into the school year," Gordon said in an interview.
Gordon said district estimates suggest that roughly 2,800 students were likely assigned by race for the 2007-08 school year, meaning they weren't granted a school choice because of the district's racial guidelines.
Because the U.S. Supreme Court ruling against racially based school assignments came before the Aug. 13 start of school, he said, those students deserve new choices.
But school district lawyers argue that the decision doesn't require them to change assignments made before the court's June 28 ruling, when most of the assignments had already been made.
District officials say they responded to the ruling by eliminating any further use of race for individual student assignments while they work to develop an alternate method of assignment.
"We feel we're in full legal compliance," board member Debbie Wesslund said. "Our student-assignment plan did take race into account in the past. We stopped."
The motion asks a federal judge to demand that district leaders prove why they shouldn't be held in contempt and jailed for failing to comply with the court's ruling...
This from the Courier-Journal.
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