Baines v Jefferson County Board of Education
and Sheldon Berman.
I've been telling my students for two years now, that the issues surrounding Meredith v Jefferson were far from over. The Supreme Court's equivocal decision leaves school districts scratching their heads. Race cannot be the factor, but it can be a factor...which Plaintiff's attorney Teddy Gordon reads as, 'cannot be a factor.'
Gordon has already tried to get the court to overturn the Jefferson County School new student assignment plan - the one for which Superintendent Sheldon Berman has received praise. The only problem was that Gordon lacked an actual plaintiff. All he needed was one disgruntled parent whose child did not get into the school they wanted. Now he's got one.
C-J's toni Konz reports on her Learning Curve blog that Gordon's new case involves a student who applied for Stopher Elementary School but was assigned to Shelby Elementary School.
This from C-J, photo by the AP's Manuel Balce Ceneta:
New suit challenges Jefferson student assignment plan
The lawyer who successfully challenged the Jefferson County school system's desegregation plan — in a case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court — filed suit Thursday against the district's latest student assignment plan.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Louisville by Teddy Gordon, contends that the new plan still relies too heavily on race to be constitutional.
It was filed on behalf of Sukhjit Bains, who wanted his 5-year-old daughter to start kindergarten this fall at Stopher Elementary, her neighborhood school in eastern Jefferson County.
Instead, she was assigned to Shelby Elementary School in Louisville's Germantown area, about 20 miles away.
Gordon said at a news conference that he believes the school district assigned a number of African American students from the Shelby Elementary area to Stopher — using race as a factor in violation of the Supreme Court's 2007 ruling in the Jefferson County case.
"They cannot use race as a factor," he said. "Here we are again."
The suit asks for an immediate hearing to enjoin the district from depriving the Bainses' daughter, identified only as "SB," of her civil rights. It also asks for monetary damages...
1 comment:
To clarify, "All [Teddy] needed was one disgruntled parent whose child did not get into the school they wanted. Now he's got one."
There are plenty of disgruntled parents (by definition-- given the use of coercion). But Teddy needed someone who was willing to go through the hassle of a court battle with a recalcitrant, unrepentant school administration, bent on using race as a determinant-- as much as possible.
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