Challenge to Louisville school assignments filed too soon

This from the Herald-Leader:

LOUISVILLE, Ky. --A federal judge turned away a challenge to Louisville's student assignment plan for the coming school year, saying it was brought too soon because no one has been affected by it yet.

U.S. District Judge John Heyburn said on Tuesday that without having anyone affected by the plan, there's no way to know whether it violates the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling last summer barring race in assigning individual students to schools.

"We're much better off deciding this case not as a hypothetical," Heyburn said.

Heyburn's decision came after attorney Teddy Gordon challenged Jefferson County's interim assignment plan. Gordon, who brought the case that resulted in the Supreme Court decision, said the interim plan illegally uses race to draw district lines for several schools, to the detriment of about 340 students...

And this from C-J:

...Heyburn told Gordon yesterday that would be difficult to determine whether someone's rights would be violated by the temporary plan without actual plaintiffs who say the plan harmed them.
"You may well have some valid points, but I don't know," the judge said.
Heyburn told Gordon to find a plaintiff and file a lawsuit if he wants to further challenge the plan.
"If someone tomorrow is denied choice of admission under circumstances that you think are problematic, the court will address that as a new case, if that is what it would take," he said, promising to handle it "very quickly, well before the start of the school year." ...

Lawyer awarded $210,000 in school assignment suit

Gordon sought $750,000 in historic Jefferson case

Louisville attorney Ted Gordon will receive $210,000 for leading the five-year legal fight to overturn Jefferson County Public Schools' racial integration policy -- less than a third of what he requested.

Gordon sustained the case "more upon a conviction than skill," U.S. District Judge John Heyburn wrote [last week]in his ruling awarding the money for fees, expenses and a bonus, but "the undeniable truth is that counsel pursued an epic case against considerable odds and vehement opposition to an astonishing success."

Crystal Meredith, the Louisville woman whose son was at the center of the case, won't receive any money, Heyburn ruled.

The judge ruled that the school district should pay Gordon $112,500 for nearly 500 hours of work at $225 an hour in the legal case that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Gordon asked for $400 an hour and a bonus for a total of $750,000.

In addition to $10,138 in expenses, Heyburn granted Gordon an $88,000 bonus for his tenacity in pursuing the civil-rights case despite adverse precedent, public criticism and risk of failure....

This from the Courier-Journal.