Pulaski County Special School District No. 1 v. Little Rock School District Petition for a Writ of Certiorari

    No.

IN THE

§upreme (Eourt of tlje Hnttefc §tates
October Term, 1985

Pu l a s k i  Co u n t y  Sp e c ia l  Sch o o l  Dis t r ic t  
No. 1, et al.,

Petitioners,
v.

Lit t l e  Ro c k  Sch o o l  Dis t r ic t , et al.,

Respondents.

PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO 
THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

PHIL C. NEAL*
208 South LaSalle Street 
Chicago, Illinois 60604 
(312) 269-8000

ALSTON JENNINGS
2200 Worthen Bank Building 
Little Rock, Arkansas 77201 
(501) 371-0808 
Attorneys for Petitioners

*Counsel of Record

OF COUNSEL:
NEAL, GERBER & EISENBERG

208 South LaSalle Street 
Chicago, Illinois 60604

WRIGHT, LINDSEY & JENNINGS
2200 Worthen Bank Building 
Little Rock, Arkansas 77201

CHAS. P. YOUNG CHICAGO



QUESTIONS PRESENTED

1. Can the proof of interdistrict effects required by Mil- 
liken v. Bradley as a condition for interdistrict relief in a 
school-desegregation case be satisfied by conjecture as to pos­
sible demographic effects, absent any specific evidence of 
actual effects?

2. May a federal court revise the boundaries of 
independent and autonomous school districts on the ground 
that a school district has not voluntarily deannexed parts of its 
district, and even though it was never requested to do so?



11

PARTIES

Petitioners Pulaski County Special School District No. 1 
and its Board of Directors, Mac Faulkner, Charles Stratton, 
Bennie O’Neil, Mack McAllister, Sheryl Dunn, David Sain, 
and Mildred Tatum; respondent Little Rock School District; 
and respondents Lorene Joshua, as next friend of minors 
Leslie Joshua, Stacy Joshua and Mayne Joshua; Rev. Robert 
Willingham, as next friend of minor Tonya Willingham; 
Sara Matthews, as next friend of Khayyan Davis, Alexa 
Armstrong and Karlos Armstrong; Mrs. Alvin Hudson, as 
next friend of Tatia Hudson; Mrs. Hilton Taylor, as next 
friend of Parsha Taylor, Hilton Taylor, Jr. and Brian 
Taylor; Rev. John M. Miles, as next friend of Janice Miles, 
Derrick Miles; Rev. Robert Willingham, on behalf of and as 
president of the Little Rock Branch of NAACIP; and Lorene 
Joshua, on behalf of and as president of the North Little 
Rock Branch of the NAACIP, were parties to the proceed­
ings in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. Additional 
parties to the consolidated proceedings in the Court of 
Appeals appear in the Appendix at pages A-2 through A-3.



Ill

TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE

Table of Authorities....................................................  iv
Opinions Below............................................................  1
Jurisdiction..................................................................  1
Constitutional Provision Involved............................  2
Statement of the Case................................................  2
Reasons for Granting the W rit ................................  6
Conclusion....................................................................  14
Appendix:

Opinion of the United States Court of Appeals
for the Eighth Circuit, dated November 7, 1985. . A-l
Memorandum Opinion of the United States
District Court for the Eastern District of
Arkansas, dated April 13, 1984 ....................  A-87
Judgment Order of the United States District
Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas,
dated November 19, 1984 ......................................  A-145
Memorandum Opinion of the United States
District Court for the Eastern District of
Arkansas, dated November 19, 1984 ....................  A-147



IV

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES
PAGE

A rm our  v. Nix, No. 16708, slip op. (N.D. Ga. Sept. 24,
1979), aff’d, 446 U.S. 930 (1980)..................................  6

Clark v. Bd. of Edue. of Little Rock School Disk, 705 F.2d 
265 (1983)....................................................................... 3

Goldsboro City Bd. of Educ. v. W ayne Cty. Bd. of Educ.,
745 F.2d 324 (4th Cir. 1984)......................................  6, 13

Lee v. Lee Cty. Bd. o f Educ., 639 F.2d 1243 (5th Cir. 1981) 6, 9
Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974)... 6, 7,10,11,12,13,14
Pasadena City Bd. of Educ. v. Spangler, 427 U.S. 424 

(1976) ............................................................................. 11
Swann  v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. of Educ., 402 U.S. 1 

(1971)............................................................................. 10
United States v. Bd. of School C om m ’rs of City of Indi­

anapolis, 637 F.2d 1101, (7th Cir. 1979), cert, denied,
449 U.S. 838 (1980)......................................................  11

Village o f Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing De­
velopment Corp., 429 U.S. 252 (1977)..........................  12

Zinnamon  v. Bd. of Educ. of Pulaski County School Disk,
No. LR-68-C-1154 (E.D. Ark.) 3



No.
IN THE

§upreme (Eourt of United §tates
October Term, 1985

Pu l a s k i  Co u n t y  Sp e c ia l  Sch o o l  Dis t r ic t  
No. 1 , et al.,

Petitioners,
v.

Lit t l e  Ro c k  Sch o o l  Dis t r ic t , et al.,

Respondents.

PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO 
THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

OPINIONS BELOW

The opinion of the Court of Appeals (Appendix, pp. 
A -l— A-86) is reported at 778 F.2d 404. The April 13, 1984 
opinion of the district court (Appendix, pp. A-87— A-144) is 
reported at 584 F.Supp. 328. The Judgment of the district 
court, dated November 19, 1984, is reproduced in the 
Appendix at pages A-145— A-146. The November 19, 1984 
opinion of the district court (Appendix, pp. A-147— A-160) is 
reported at 597 F.Supp. 1220.

JURISDICTION

The judgment of the Court of Appeals was entered on 
November 7, 1985. The jurisdiction of this Court is based on 
28 U.S.C. § 1254(1).



2

CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISION INVOLVED

The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Consti­
tution provides, in pertinent part: “ [No State shall] deny to 
any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the 
laws.”

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

Public schools in Pulaski County, Arkansas, are operated 
by three separate school districts: the Little Rock School 
District (“ Little Rock District” or “ LRSD”), the North Little 
Rock School District (“ North Little Rock District” or 
“ NLRSD”) and the Pulaski County Special School District 
(“ Pulaski District” or “ PCSSD”). The cities of Little Rock 
and North Little Rock are contiguous but are separated by 
the Arkansas River. The city school districts, LRSD and 
NLRSD, lie generally within the boundaries of the respec­
tive cities. PCSSD surrounds the other two school districts 
and serves all of the rest of Pulaski County, an area of 744 
square miles, much of it rural and sparsely populated. 
Approximately 10,000 students are enrolled in NLRSD,
20,000 in LRSD, and 30,000 in PCSSD.

In Arkansas, school districts are, and long have been, 
separate and autonomous units of local government. 
Boundaries of school districts do not necessarily follow the 
boundaries of cities or other governmental units, and that is 
the case with each of the three school districts in Pulaski 
County. Special statutory provisions govern the procedures 
for annexation and deannexation of school district territory.

PCSSD was created pursuant to legislative authorization 
in 1927, resulting in the consolidation of a number of small 
rural school districts. Its boundaries as originally defined 
included all of Pulaski County outside the cities of Little 
Rock and North Little Rock. At various times since then, 
the boundaries of the City of Little Rock have expanded by 
annexation. At various times subsequent to these city annex­
ations, parcels within the expanded city boundaries were



3

deannexed from the Pulaski School District and annexed to 
the Little Rock School District. There have been no such 
deannexations from PCSSD to LRSD since 1968, although 
expansions of the City of Little Rock have taken place since 
that date. Deannexations of property from a school district 
can occur only on the petition of the majority of the qualified 
electors or property owners in the area to be deannexed, 
followed by approval of the school boards of the affected 
school districts. There have been no petitions for deannexa­
tion of property from PCSSD to LRSD since 1968. Until the 
mid-1960’s the Pulaski District was inadequately financed 
and its schools were generally considered inferior to the 
public schools of Little Rock for white as well as black 
children. Since that time, aided by expanding population 
and a growing tax base, PCSSD has developed into a strong 
public school system that is highly regarded and strongly 
supported by the parents of both races.

Each of the three school districts has been under its own 
comprehensive desegregation plan, pursuant to court decree, 
since the early 1970’s. Each of the plans has required large- 
scale busing, still in effect, and has resulted in desegregation 
at all levels. The latest modification of the LRSD decree 
occurred in 1983. Clark v. Bd. of Educ. of Little Rock School 
Dist., 1705 F.2d 265 (8th Cir. 1983). The desegregation plan 
in PCSSD was ordered by decrees entered in 1971 and 1973 
in Zinnamon  v. Bd. of Educ. of Pulaski Cty. Sch. Dist., No. LR- 
68-C-154 (E.D. Ark.). There have been no further judicial 
proceedings with respect to that decree since its entry. None 
of the three districts has been declared unitary.

As a result of the desegregation plans implemented under 
the separate decrees, each of the three districts is substan­
tially desegregated. By the index of desegregation used by 
the Office of Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Educa­
tion, each of the three districts has been over 90 (on a scale of 
0-100) in all years since 1975.

In the past decade the number and percentage of black 
students in the Little Rock schools have steadily increased.



4

Between 1973 and 1981 the percentage of black enrollment 
grew from 48% to 65%. The change has been due both to an 
increase in the number of black students and a decrease in 
the number of whites. The change reflects population 
changes; from 1970 to 1980, according to census figures, the 
white population in the district decreased by about 7% while 
the black population increased by about 44%. The popula­
tion of white school-age children decreased at an even greater 
rate than the white population as a whole. During the same 
period the number of white students in Little Rock attending 
private schools also increased dramatically.1

There is no evidence that the increasing black percentage 
of students in the Little Rock District is due in any signifi­
cant degree to the removal of white students from LRSD 
schools to those of PCSSD. The available evidence shows 
that over the twelve-year period 1971-83, 958 white students 
and 866 black students previously enrolled in LRSD became 
enrolled in PCSSD. The Pulaski District, like the Little 
Rock District, has been steadily increasing in black enroll­
ment, which increased from 18% to 22% over the last dec­
ade. During that period PCSSD has lost approximately 
1,500 white students and gained the same number of black 
students.

The present action was brought in 1982 by the Little Rock 
School District against the defendant districts, seeking a 
consolidation of all three districts. The jurisdiction of the 
district court was invoked under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331(a), 1343(3) 
and (4), 2201, and 2202. The State of Arkansas and the 
Arkansas State Board of Education were also named as 
defendants. Prior to trial the State of Arkansas was dis­
missed from the action on the ground of sovereign immunity. 
After a hearing limited to the issue of liability, the district 
court entered findings and an opinion determining that the 1

1 According to census figures, if all the white school-age chil­
dren in the Little Rock District had been attending public 
schools in 1980, the composition of the public schools in LRSD 
would have been approximately 52% white.



5

defendant districts had engaged in interdistrict constitu­
tional violations, and concluding by ordering consolidation 
of the three districts.2 Further hearings were held directed 
to remedy. Thereafter, the district court entered further 
findings, adopting a consolidation plan proposed by the 
plaintiff’s expert witness. Concurrently, the court entered 
further findings determining that the State also was liable 
for interdistrict violations, and retaining the State Board of 
Education as a party for the purpose of further remedial 
orders.

On appeal, a divided court of appeals, sitting en banc, 
reversed the order of consolidation but affirmed the determi­
nation of interdistrict liability and ordered, in part, that, the 
boundaries of PCSSD be made coterminous with those of the 
City of Little Rock by transferring from PCSSD to LRSD all 
of the area within the city’s boundaries that is part of the 
Pulaski District.3 The court was unanimous on the issue of 
reversing the consolidation order.

The majority opinion of the court of appeals was joined by 
five members of the court. Three judges dissented (in two 
opinions) from the majority’s major conclusions as to 
interdistrict liability and from the order requiring cotermi­
nous boundaries. A fourth judge concurred, on grounds dif­
ferent from those relied on by the majority, in the portion of 
the court’s order requiring boundary changes but dissented

2 The court stated orally: “ I want the attendance zones to be 
set up in such a way that there will be racial balance in all of 
the schools of this [consolidated] District.” (Tr. 4/20/84 at p. 2.)

3 The court also ordered that one particular area, Granite 
Mountain, be transferred from LRSD to PCSSD, on the ground 
that the annexation of this area to the Little Rock District in 
1953 was a discrete interdistrict violation. Additionally, the 
court of appeals ordered that the State of Arkansas be required 
to fund the cost of transportation and supplementary educa­
tional costs for any students electing voluntary interdistrict 
transfers, and to pay one-half the cost of any countywide 
magnet schools that might be created.



6

from the other portions of the remedial order and from much 
of the majority’s opinion relating to interdistrict liability.

The boundary change ordered by the court of appeals 
would result in the transfer from PCSSD to LRSD of over 
one-fourth of the schools in PCSSD and in the reassignment 
of a large proportion of the 8,000 students currently attend­
ing those schools.

REASONS FOR GRANTING THE WRIT

Certiorari should be granted because the decision of the 
court of appeals orders drastic interdistrict relief in a school 
desegregation case on grounds fundamentally inconsistent 
with this Court’s decision in Milliken  v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 
(1974), and is in conflict with the interpretation of that 
decision by the Fourth and Fifth Circuits. Goldsboro City Bd. 
of Educ. v. W ayne Cty. B d  of Ed., 745 F.2d 324 (4th Cir. 1984); 
Lee v. Lee Cty. B d  of Educ., 639 F.2d 1243 (5th Cir. 1981). The 
decision is also inconsistent with Armour v. Nix, 446 U.S. 826 
(1980), in which this Court summarily affirmed the decision 
of a three-judge district court holding that Milliken  v. Bradley 
barred metropolitan relief in the city of Atlanta under cir­
cumstances very similar to those in this case. A rm our  v. Nix, 
No. 16708, slip op. (N.D. Ga. Sept. 24, 1979).

In Milliken v. Bradley this Court held that “ [bjefore the 
boundaries of separate and autonomous school districts may 
be set aside” there must be proof of “racially discriminatory 
acts” within one district that produce a “ significant segrega­
tive effect” in another district, and that the remedy must be 
one that eliminates the interdistriet segregation “ directly 
caused” by the constitutional violation. 418 U.S. at 744-45.

In Lee v. Lee County the Fifth Circuit interpreted the 
Milliken decision to mean that where an interdistriet remedy 
is requested “ there must be clear proof of cause and effect and a 
careful delineation of the extent of the effect.”  639 F.2d at 1256 
(emphasis added). Accord, Goldsboro City Bd. of E d  v. W ayne  
County Bd. of Ed., supra.



7

A careful examination of the opinion of the court of 
appeals discloses no findings of fact, either by the district 
court or by the court of appeals, that furnish a factual 
predicate for an interdistrict violation as defined by this 
Court or for the remedy ordered by the court of appeals.

The effort of the court of appeals to piece together genera­
lized findings of the district court and supplementary find­
ings of its own reveals clearly that the decision as a whole is 
an attempt to circumvent the underlying principle of the 
Milliken case, and to redress the changing racial composition 
of Little Rock’s schools by measures unrelated to any proven 
causal relationship between any constitutional violation and 
any interdistrict segregative effects.

In substance, the decision invokes the power of the federal 
courts for the purpose of offsetting demographic trends, pres­
ent in all metropolitan areas of the United States, that have 
led to increasing percentages of minority students in the 
public schools of the cities. If the tenuous bases for finding 
interdistrict violations and effects relied on by the court of 
appeals in this case can satisfy the requirements of the 
Milliken decision, the way is open for redrawing school- 
district boundaries in many, if not most, metropolitan areas 
of the country for the purpose of achieving racial balance by 
busing students over ever-wider areas.

The interdistrict violations purportedly relied on by the 
court of appeals fall into four categories: (1) the long history 
of efforts by the State of Arkansas to maintain segregated 
schools, particularly in Little Rock; (2) intradistrict viola­
tions that are presumed to have attracted blacks to the Little 
Rock District and whites to the Pulaski District; (3) dis­
criminatory housing practices attributable to the State; and
(4) the failure of the Pulaski District to deannex portions of 
the district that were annexed by the City of Little Rock but 
were not annexed by the Little Rock School District. To 
overcome manifest deficiencies in fact findings by the district 
court as to the segregative effects of any such violations, the 
court of appeals additionally relied on census statistics (not



8

relied on by the district court and not found in the record) 
showing that Little Rock’s black population increased at a 
greater rate than the rest of the County’s, and the County’s 
white population at a greater rate than Little Rock’s, over 
the period from 1950 to 1980. (Appendix at A-14, n.6 and 
A-23, n.8.)

None of the findings in the first three categories are suf­
ficient to establish an interdistrict constitutional violation. 
As to the fourth, the finding concerning the maintenance of 
the school-district boundary lines necessarily implies that a 
school district has an affirmative duty to alter its boundary 
lines to improve racial balance in an adjoining district, and is 
erroneous as a matter of law.

1. Both the district court and the court of appeals recited 
at length the history of school segregation in Arkansas and 
the efforts of the State and its officials to obstruct desegrega­
tion in Little Rock after Brown v. Board of Education. But 
there are no findings of fact by either the district court or the 
court of appeals that support the existence of any substantial 
present effect of those actions on the respective racial 
percentages of the Little Rock School District and the 
defendant school districts. And, with one exception, there is 
no finding that the State of Arkansas either drew or altered 
district lines with any discriminatory purpose.4

The court of appeals pointed to the fact that when Little 
Rock schools were closed during the year 1958-59, students 
from those schools attended the Pulaski District schools, and 
that some interdistrict transfers of students occurred until

4 The exception is the so-called Granite Mountain area, which 
was transferred from the Pulaski District to the Little Rock 
District in 1953, in connection with the building of a public 
housing project. See supra, p. 5, n.3. Assuming arguendo that an 
adequate finding of segregative purpose was made or could be 
made (but see Bowman, J., dissenting, Appendix at A-85), this 
violation would support at most the re-transfer of that area, 
which the court of appeals separately ordered.



9

1965. Appendix at A-25.5 But there are no concrete findings 
as to the present effect of any such transfers on the present 
residential populations of either school district.6 The court 
of appeals’ generalized conclusion that these events, remote 
in time, “ had a substantial and continuing effect on the 
racial composition of LRSD” (Appendix at A-23, n.8) is 
unsupported by any specific findings of fact or by evidence in 
the record, as is forcefully pointed out in the separate opin­
ion of Judge Arnold. (Arnold, J., Appendix at A-68— A-70, 
A-74— A-76; see also Gibson, J., dissenting, A-80— A-82).

2. Both the district court and the court of appeals 
purported to find “ interdistrict violations” on the part of the 
Pulaski District in the existence of a substantial number of 
schools whose racial composition departed from the range 
prescribed by its own desegregation decree, disproportionate 
busing burdens on black students, failure to meet goals for 
the hiring of black teaching and administrative personnel, 
disproportionate classification of black students into 
remedial education programs, failure to develop special pro­
grams for black students, and failure to appoint a bi-racial 
committee. There is no finding by either the district court or 
the court of appeals that any of these deficiencies was 
attributable to purposeful racial discrimination, and there­
fore an essential element of a constitutional violation is 
absent on this record. That defect aside, there are no factual 
findings (and no evidence in the record) to establish any

5 There is no finding that more blacks than whites transferred 
from PCSSD to LRSD. See opinion of Arnold, J., Appendix at 
A-69, n.4.

6 As the Fifth Circuit concluded in Lee v. Lee Cty. Bd. of Educ., 
639 F.2d 1243, 1260 (1981):

[T]he fact that an interdistrict transfer program was 
formerly used in order to maintain racial segregation in 
districts operating dual school systems does not support an 
interdistrict order unless it is established that these trans­
fer programs have a substantial, direct, and current segre­
gative effect.



10

causal connection between any such intradistrict violations 
and the increasing proportion of black students in the Little 
Rock District. The court’s recital of these “ violations” 
(Appendix at A-31— A-32, pars. 2-8) makes no attempt to 
establish any interdistrict effects caused by these intradistrict 
violations and points to no such findings by the district court.

The court’s theory apparently was that any such intradis­
trict violations must have made the schools of the Pulaski 
District less attractive to black families and therefore must 
have caused migration of population to Little Rock and away 
from the Pulaski District. If that theory alone, unsupported 
by any evidence that such movement actually took place, can 
support the finding of an interdistrict violation, it means 
that proof of an interdistriet violation requires no more than 
proof of an intradistrict violation. Such a rationale renders 
meaningless the holding of the Milliken case.

The court of appeals also relied on findings that new 
schools had been sited in outlying areas of predominantly 
white population.7 Here the court’s theory was that the 
existence of such schools must have caused in-migration of 
whites to the County rather than the city (white “ over­
flight”) and thus increased the racial imbalance as between 
the county and city districts. There were no findings and no 
evidence of any such effect, let alone of the probable magni­
tude of any such effects if they did exist.8 In the absence of

7 Once again, there was no finding and no evidence that sites 
were selected with any racially-discriminatory purpose. The 
requirement of PCSSD’s desegregation decree was that sites be 
chosen on “ objective criteria” and be “racially neutral.” There 
was no finding that these criteria were violated. The courts 
below interpreted Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg BcL of Educ., 
402 U.S. 1 (1971), as requiring that sites be chosen for the 
purpose of promoting integration. The Swann opinion does not 
support the existence of any such constitutional obligation.

8 The concurring-and-dissenting opinion relies almost exclu­
sively on this theory to support the remedy ordered. The 
purely speculative nature of this ground is demonstrated by the

(footnote continued on next page)



11

any specific evidence or detailed findings, the mere pos­
sibility that such effects may have existed cannot satisfy 
M illiken’s requirement that an interdistrict violation is one 
that has a “ significant” interdistrict effect and that is a 
“ substantial cause” of interdistrict segregation. Given the 
well-nigh universal movement of white population to subur­
ban areas, there is simply no basis in the findings below for 
attributing the population distribution in the Little Rock 
metropolitan area to causes other than demographic factors 
for which a school district bears no responsibility. Pasadena 
City Bd. of Educ. v. Spangler, 427 U.S. 424, 435-37 (1976).

3. The court of appeals purported to find “ interdistrict 
housing violations” by defendants, as a basis for liability on 
the part of both the State and the school-district defendants. 
Although the findings and evidence clearly demonstrated 
the existence of segregatory location of housing projects 
within the City of Little Rock, the sole example of any 
housing decision with interdistrict effects identified by the 
court or in the evidence was the Granite Mountain housing 
project— a violation that could at most support the specific 
relief ordered as to that segment of the Little Rock District. 
See supra, p. 5, n.3 and p. 8, n.4. The court also adverted to 
the fact that neither the Little Rock nor the North Little 
Rock housing authorities had ever built housing projects 
outside the city limits. But there was no finding, and no 
evidence, that the failure to build public housing in the 
County was the result of any racially discriminatory purpose 
on the part of the housing authorities themselves or of any 
person, private or official, in the suburban areas. Absent any 
evidence whatever of any racial discrimination affecting the 
non-location of housing projects, no interdistrict constitu­
tional violation can be predicated on such facts. United States 
v. Bd. of School Com m ’rs of City of Indianapolis, 637 F.2d 1101 
(7th Cir. 1979); see Milliken, 418 U.S. at 755 (Stewart, J.

(footnote continued from  preceding page)

dissenting opinion of Judge Gibson. Dissenting opinion, 
Appendix at A-82—A-83.



12

concurring). See also Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropoli­
tan Housing Development Corp., 429 U.S. 252 (1977).

4. The most crucial ground advanced by the court of 
appeals— and the only ground that could support the 
coterminous-boundary remedy ordered by the court— was the 
finding that “ the boundaries between PCSSD and LRSD had 
been maintained to keep LRSD predominantly black and 
PCSSD predominantly white” and that boundary “ manipu­
lations” have had a substantial interdistrict effect. 
Appendix at A-28. It is clear, of course, that if any “district 
lines have been deliberately drawn on the basis of race” an 
interdistrict remedy correcting that violation would be in 
order. Milliken, 418 U.S. at 744-45. The difficulty with such a 
grounding in this case is that there is no finding of any act or 
action on the part of the defendant school district that could 
form the basis for such a gerrymandering violation. Under 
Arkansas law, the deannexation of a portion of a school 
district occurs on petition of a majority of the qualified 
electors in the area to be deannexed. It is undisputed in this 
case that there was never any petition for deannexation from 
PCSSD to LRSD after 1968. PCSSD never rejected, resisted, 
or opposed any such deannexation; the question was never 
presented. The absence of any factual support for a finding 
of “ freezing” or “manipulation” of school-district boundaries 
is detailed in the opinions of Judge Arnold, concurring and 
dissenting, and Judge Gibson, dissenting. (Appendix at A- 
69— A-70, A-80— A-82.)

The conclusion of the majority of the court of appeals on 
this point can only mean that a school district has an affirma­
tive duty to bring about a surrender of its territory for the 
purpose of improving racial balance in an adjacent district. 
To impose such an obligation would completely undermine 
the teaching of Milliken  that school district boundaries, 
created without discriminatory purpose, are to be respected 
in the absence of a constitutional violation affecting those 
boundaries. The Fourth Circuit has rejected such a theory, 
in circumstances more compelling than any present here.



13

Goldsboro City Bd. of Ed. v. Wayne Cty, Bd. of Ed., 745 F.2d 324, 
326 (4th Cir. 1984). The decisions of this Court provide no 
precedent for imposing such an affirmative duty.

In Milliken v. Bradley the Court characterized the record as 
showing that both lower courts had endorsed a metropolitan 
remedy “ only because of their conclusions that total desegre­
gation of Detroit would not produce the racial balance which 
they perceived as desirable.” 418 U.S. at 740-41. The find­
ings and opinions of the lower courts in this case leave little 
room for doubt that a similar major premise explains the 
interdistrict remedy ordered here. The true basis for the 
decision is best indicated by the district court’s concluding 
observation in its findings and opinion on liability:

It is obvious from the last school election that Little 
Rock whites, many of whom are educating their 
children in private schools, are unwilling to com­
mit financial support to a school system rapidly 
becoming all black. The same trends so evident in 
Little Rock are now beginning to gather momen­
tum in North Little Rock. North Little Rock now 
is approximately at the point where Little Rock 
was ten years ago in terms of black enrollment.

The collapse of support for public education 
would be a tragic event. It is axiomatic that a 
democracy cannot long exist without a system of 
free public schools providing a quality education.
In my view public education in this community has 
reached a crisis stage. The problem cannot be 
avoided by equivocation or half measures. I am 
today ordering a consolidating of the three school 
districts now operating in Pulaski County. 
(Appendix at A-133.)

The important ultimate question presented by this case is 
whether a federal court may use its powers for such social 
objectives, so long as it is able to couch its judgment in a



14

parade of tenuous findings of “ fact” that invoke the talis- 
manic phrase “ interdistrict effects.” The reasoning and deci­
sion in this ease set a precedent that eviscerates the 
principles announced by this Court in Milliken v. Bradley.

CONCLUSION

The writ of certiorari should be granted.

Respectfully submitted,

PHIL C. NEAL*
208 South LaSalle Street 
Chicago, Illinois 60604 
(312) 269-8000

ALSTON JENNINGS
2200 Worthen Bank Building 
Little Rock, Arkansas 77201 
(501) 371-0808

Attorneys for Petitioners 

*Counsel of Record

OF COUNSEL:
NEAL, GERBER & EISENBERG

208 South LaSalle Street 
Chicago, Illinois 60604

WRIGHT, LINDSEY & JENNINGS
2200 Worthen Bank Building 
Little Rock, Arkansas 77201

Dated: February 5, 1986.



APPENDIX



A-l

United §tates (Hourt o! Appeals
For The Eighth Circuit

Little R ock School D istrict,

vs.
Appellee,

P ulaski County Special School D istrict N o. 
1; Mac  F au lk n e r ; Charles Stratton ; Don 
H in dm an ; Mack  M cA llister ; Sheryl  D u n n ; 
David  Sa in ; an d  M ildred  Tatum ,

Appellants.
Lorene J oshua , as n ext  friend  of minors 
Leslie J o sh u a , Stacy  J oshua an d  M ayn e  
J oshua; R e v . R obert W illingham , as n ext
FRIEND OF MINOR TONYA WILLINGHAM; SARA
M a t t h e w s , as  n e x t  f r ie n d  of K h a y y a n  
Davis , A lexa  A rmstrong and  K arlos A rm­
strong; M rs. A lvin  H udson as n ext  friend  
of Ta t ia  H udson ; M rs . H ilton  Taylo r  as
NEXT FRIEND OF PARSHA TAYLOR, HlLTON
Ta y lo r , J r . an d  Brian  Ta y lo r ; R ev . John M. 
M iles as n ext  friend  of Janice M iles D er­
rick  M iles ; R e v . R obert  W illin g h am  on
BEHALF OF AND AS PRESIDENT OF THE LITTLE
R ock Branch  of NAACIP; Lorene Joshua on
BEHALF OF AND AS PRESIDENT OF THE NORTH
L ittle R ock Branch  of the NAACIP; K athe­
rine  K night , in d ivid u ally  an d  as P resident 
of the L ittle Rock Classroom Teachers A s­
sociation (LRCTA); LRCTA; Ed Bullington , 
in d ivid u ally  an d  as President of the P ulas­
k i A s so c ia t io n  of  Cla ssr o o m  T e a c h e r s  
(PACT); PACT; J ohn H arrison , in d ivid u ally  
an d  as President of the N orth L ittle R ock 
Classroom Teachers A ssociation (N LRCTA); 
NLRCTA; M ilton J ackson , in d ivid u ally  an d  
AS A NONCERTIFIED EDUCATIONAL SUPPORT EM­
PLOYEE of the L ittle R ock School D istrict,

Appellees. .

Appeals from the 
United States Dis­
trict Court for the 
Eastern District of 
Arkansas.

No. 85-1078



A-2

United §tates (Eourt of Appeals
For The Eighth Circuit

L ittle R ock School D istrict,
Appellee,

vs.
N orth Little R ock School D istrict; M urry  
W itcher; Gin n y  Jones; V icki Stephens; Leon 
B a r n e s ; M a r ia n n e  Go s s n e r ; a n d  Ste v e  
Morley ,

Appellants.
Lorene J oshua, as n ext  friend  of minors 
Leslie J o sh u a , Stacy  J oshua an d  M ayn e  
J oshua; R ev . R obert W illingham , as next  
FRIEND OF MINOR TONYA WILLINGHAM; SARA 
M a t t h e w s , as  n e x t  f r ie n d  of K h a y y a n  
D avis , A le x a  A rmstrong an d  K arlos A rm­
strong; M rs. A lvin  H udson as n ext  friend  
of Tatia  H udson ; M rs. H ilton Taylor  as
NEXT FRIEND OF PARSHA TAYLOR, HlLTON
Ta y lo r , J r . an d  Brian  Taylo r ; R ev . J ohn M. 
M iles as n ext  friend  of Janice M iles D er­
rick  M iles ; R e v . R obert  W illin g h a m  on
BEHALF OF AND AS PRESIDENT OF THE LITTLE
R ock Branch  of NAACIP; Lorene J oshua on
BEHALF OF AND AS PRESIDENT OF THE NORTH
L ittle R ock Branch  of the NAACIP; K athe­
rine  K night , in d ivid u ally  an d  as President 
of the L ittle Rock Classroom T eachers A s­
sociation (LRCTA); LRCTA; Ed Bullington ,
INDIVIDUALLY AND AS PRESIDENT OF THE PULAS­
KI A s so c ia t io n  of Cla ssr o o m  T e a c h e r s  
(PACT); PACT; J ohn H arrison , in d ivid u ally  
an d  as President of the N orth Little R ock 
Classroom Teachers A ssociation (NLRCTA); 
NLRCTA; M ilton J ackson , in d ivid u ally  and  
AS A NONCERTIFIED EDUCATIONAL SUPPORT EM­
PLOYEE of the L ittle R ock School D istrict,

Appellees. _

Appeals from the 
United States Dis­
trict Court for the 
Eastern District of 
Arkansas.

No. 85-1079



A-3

United §tates (Etiurt ol Appeals
For The Eighth Circuit

L ittle R ock School D istrict,
Appellee,

A rkan sas  State Board  of Education ; W ayn e
H a RTSFIELD; WALTER TURNBOW; HARRY A.
H aines ; J im D upree ; D r . Harr y  P. McDonald ; 
R obert L. N ew ton ; A lice L. P reston; J eff 
Starlin g ; Earle  Lo ve ,

Appellants.
Lorene J oshua, as n ext  friend  of minors 
Leslie J o sh u a , Stacy  J oshua an d  M ayn e  
J oshua; R ev . R obert W illingham , as n ext
FRIEND OF MINOR TONYA WILLINGHAM; SARA
M a t t h e w s , as  n e x t  f r ie n d  of K h a y y a n  
Davis , A le x a  A rmstrong and  K arlos A rm­
strong; M rs. A lvin  H udson as n ext  friend  
of Ta t ia  H udson ; M rs. H ilton  Taylor  as
NEXT FRIEND OF PARSHA TAYLOR, HlLTON
Ta y lo r , J r . an d  Brian  Taylo r ; R ev . J ohn M. • 
M iles as n ext  friend  of J anice M iles D er­
rick  M iles ; R e v . R obert  W illin g h am  on
BEHALF OF AND AS PRESIDENT OF THE LITTLE
R ock B ranch  of NAACIP; Lorene J oshua on
BEHALF OF AND AS PRESIDENT OF THE NORTH
L ittle R ock Branch  of the NAACIP; K athe­
rine  K night , in d ivid u ally  an d  as P resident 
of the L ittle R ock Classroom Teachers A s­
sociation (LRCTA); LRCTA; Ed Bullington ,
INDIVIDUALLY AND AS PRESIDENT OF THE PULAS­
KI A sso c ia t io n  of Cla ssr o o m  T e a c h e r s  
(PACT); PACT; J ohn H arrison , in d ivid u ally  
an d  as President of the N orth L ittle R ock 
Classroom Teachers A ssociation (NLRCTA); 
NLRCTA; M ilton J ackson , in d ivid u ally  and
AS A NONCERTIFIED EDUCATIONAL SUPPORT EM­
PLOYEE of the L ittle R ock School D istrict,

Appellees. -

Appeals from the 
United States Dis­
trict Court for the 
Eastern District of 
Arkansas.

No. 85-1081



A-4

Submitted: April 29, 1985
Filed: November 7, 1985

Before LAY, Chief Judge, and HEANEY, BRIGHT, ROSS, 
McMILLIAN, ARNOLD, JOHN R. GIBSON, FAGG, 
and BOWMAN, Circuit Judges, En Banc.

HEANEY, Circuit Judge.

The United States District Court for the Eastern District 
of Arkansas, after trial, found that the defendants Pulaski 
County Special School District (PCSSD), the North Little 
Rock School District (NLRSD) and the Board of Education 
of the State of Arkansas (State Board) contributed to the 
continuing segregation of the Little Rock schools, and that 
an interdistrict remedy was appropriate. The district court 
ordered consolidation of the three school districts, establish­
ment of a uniform millage rate, elimination of dis­
criminatory practices, and creation of magnet schools to 
enhance educational opportunities in the new district. It 
held that the State Board had remedial, financial and over­
sight responsibilities that would be detailed at a later date. 
The defendants appeal from the district court’s order. In 
addition, the Joshua intervenors, representing black parents 
and students, filed a brief in support of the district court’s 
judgment, and the United States filed an amicus curiae brief 
in general support of the appellants.

We hold that the district court’s findings on liability are 
not clearly erroneous and that intra- and interdistrict relief 
is appropriate. We find, however, that the violations can be 
remedied by less intrusive measures than consolidation. 
These measures, most of which were suggested by the 
defendant school districts or the Joshua intervenors, include 
authorizing the district court to make limited adjustments, 
after a hearing, to the boundaries between Little Rock School



A-5

District (LRSD) and PCSSD, correcting the segregative prac­
tices within each of the individual school districts, improv­
ing the quality of any remaining nonintegrated schools in 
LRSD, providing compensatory and remedial programs for 
black children in all three school districts, authorizing the 
district court to establish, after a hearing, a limited number 
of magnet schools and programs open to all students in 
Pulaski County, and requiring the State Board to participate 
in funding the compensatory, remedial and quality educa­
tion programs, in establishing and maintaining the magnet 
schools, and in monitoring plan progress. We remand to the 
district court for action consistent with this opinion.

I. BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY.

Pulaski County is the most heavily populated metropoli­
tan area in Arkansas, encompassing three independent 
school districts: LRSD, NLRSD, and PCSSD. The LRSD 
covers fifty-three square miles and comprises about sixty 
percent of the City of Little Rock. Although the population 
of the City of Little Rock is approximately two-thirds white, 
in the 1983-84 school year, 70% of LRSD’s 19,052 students 
were black. Along with NLRSD, LRSD is one of the oldest 
continuously operating school districts in Arkansas. The 
NLRSD covers twenty-six square miles and comprises 
nearly all of the City of North Little Rock. Its 1983-84 
student population was 9,051 (36% black, 64% white). The 
PCSSD surrounds LRSD and NLRSD. Created in 1927 
through the consolidation of thirty-eight rural independent 
school districts, it covers 755 square miles and contains the 
remainder of the county not included in the other two school 
districts. In 1983-84, it had 27,839 students (22% black, 78% 
white). Each of the three districts currently operates under a 
court-ordered desegregation decree, and none of the districts 
has achieved unitary status.

On November 30, 1982, LRSD filed this action against 
PCSSD, NLRSD, the State of Arkansas, and the State



A-6

Board.1 On April 13, 1983, the district court dismissed the 
claim against the State of Arkansas but refused to take 
similar action concerning the State Board, holding that the 
Board is a proper party in light of its general supervisory 
relationship with the individual school districts, and the 
allegations that it has carried out its duties in a manner 
which increased segregation in Little Rock. The district 
court concluded that the dismissal of the State of Arkansas 
had no practical effect on the disposition of the lawsuit. 
Little Rock School District v. Pulaski County Special School 
District, 560 F. Supp. 876, 878 (E.D. Ark. 1983). The district 
court separated the liability and remedy phases of the litiga­
tion and held liability hearings from January 3-13, 1984.

On April 13, 1984, the district court issued its decision on 
liability, finding that PCSSD and NLRSD had failed to 
establish unitary, integrated school districts and had com­
mitted unconstitutional and racially discriminatory acts 
which resulted in “significant and substantial interdistriet 
segregation.” Little Rock School District v. Pulaski County 
Special School District, 584 F. Supp. 328, 351-53 (E.D. Ark. 
1984). It concluded that these two school districts had taken 
actions which had substantial interdistriet segregative 
effects on education in each of the school districts in the 
county, and that the districts had failed to redress these 
segregative effects which they had perpetuated for over a 
century. The district court also reiterated its holding that 
the State Board was a “necessary party who must be made 
subject to the Court’s remedial order.” 584 F. Supp. at 352-53. 
It concluded that the only long- or short-term solution to 1

1LRSD also named as defendants the Pulaski County Board 
of Education and the individuals serving on each of the 
defendant boards of education. The Pulaski County Board of 
Education did not participate in this litigation. The district 
court states, however, that the County Board has a remedial 
responsibility that has yet to be defined.

On September 29, 1983, the district court denied Little Rock’s 
motion to add the Governor, State Treasurer and State Auditor 
as defendants.



A-7

these interdistrict violations is consolidation, and it 
scheduled hearings to consider the precise means to accom­
plish that end.

The first remedial hearings took place from April 30 
through May 5, 1984. Before these hearings were held, a 
group of black parents in Little Rock, the Joshua interven- 
ors, sought unsuccessfully to intervene in the proceedings.2 
They appealed, and on May 23, 1984, this Court ordered the 
district court to allow them to intervene and directed it to 
hear evidence from them concerning remedial alternatives to 
consolidation. Meanwhile, the defendant school districts had 
also appealed from the district court’s order finding interdis­
trict violations and ordering consolidation of the three school 
districts. On May 23, 1984, we dismissed that appeal as 
premature but suggested that the district court reopen the 
proceedings to permit PCSSD and NLRSD to advance 
remedial alternatives to consolidation. Little Rock School D is­
trict v. Joshua, No. 84-1543 (8th Cir. May 23, 1984) (order); 
Little Rock School District v. Pulaski County Special School 
District, Nos. 84-1620, 84-1621 (8th Cir. May 23, 1984) (order).

The district court held further remedial hearings from 
July 30 through August 2, 1984, and heard evidence on 
alternative remedial plans submitted by PCSSD, NLRSD, 
and the Joshua intervenors.3 On November 19, 1984, it 
issued its decision on the remedy, reaffirming its view that 
consolidation of the three school districts was necessary to 
remedy the constitutional violations. It also entered further 
findings concerning the State Board’s liability and reaffirmed

2The district court had denied an earlier motion by Joshua to 
intervene on January 3, 1984.

3 The district court also heard from the McKnight interven­
ors, representing the teachers employed in the three districts. 
Little Rock School District v. Pulaski County Special School District, 
597 F. Supp. 1220, 1227 (E.D. Ark. 1984); see also Little Rock 
School District v. Pulaski County Special School District, 738 F.2d 
82, 85 (8th Cir. 1984) (allowing intervention by teacher 
representatives).



A-8

the State Board’s remedial responsibilities. 597 F. Supp. at 
1227-28. The district court subsequently denied motions by 
the defendants for reconsideration.

This appeal followed. The issues on appeal are: (1) 
whether the district court’s findings of interdistrict viola­
tions are clearly erroneous; (2) whether the district court’s 
remedy exceeds the scope of the constitutional violations; 
and (3) whether the proceedings before the district court 
deprived the State Board and PCSSD of due process.

II. THE DISTRICT COURT’S FINDINGS OF INTERDIS­
TRICT VIOLATIONS ARE NOT CLEARLY ERRONEOUS.
A. Legal Background.

1. Legal Standards in Desegregation Cases.
Thirty years ago, the Supreme Court decided in Brown  v. 

Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) that “ in the field of 
public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no 
place. Separate educational facilities are inherently un­
equal.” Id. at 495. Since Brown, the Supreme Court has 
affirmed the obligation of school authorities operating segre­
gated schools “ to take whatever steps might be necessary to 
convert to a unitary system in which racial discrimination 
would be eliminated root and branch.” Raney v. Board of 
Education, 391 U.S. 443, 446 (1968); Green v. County School 
Board, 391 U.S. 430, 437-38 (1968). Moreover, the Supreme 
Court has held that “ [ejaeh instance of a failure or refusal to 
fulfill this affirmative duty continues the violation of the 
Fourteenth Amendment.” Columbus Board of Education v. 
Penick, 443 U.S. 449, 459 (1979); Dayton Board of Education v. 
Brinkman, 433 U.S. 406, 413-14 (1977) (Dayton II).

Before a court may impose an interdistrict desegregation 
remedy, it must find an interdistrict constitutional violation. 
In Milliken I, the Supreme Court explained this prerequisite:

Before the boundaries of separate and autonomous 
school districts may be set aside by consolidating 
the separate units for remedial purposes or by



A-9

imposing a cross-district remedy, it must be shown 
that there has been a constitutional violation 
within one district that produces a significant 
segregative effect in another district. Specifically, 
it must be shown that racially discriminatory acts 
of the state or local school districts, or of a single 
school district have been a substantial cause of 
interdistrict segregation.

Milliken I, 418 U.S. at 744-45 (emphasis added).

As with any fourteenth amendment violation, a dis­
criminatory purpose must be shown. Washington v. Davis, 
426 U.S. 229 (1976); Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing  
Development Corporation, 429 U.S. 252 (1977); Keyes v. School 
District No. 1, 413 U.S. 189 (1973). Although the dis­
criminatory impact of state action does not in itself prove a 
constitutional violation, the “ [ajdherence to a particular 
policy or practice, ‘with full knowledge of the predictable 
effects of such adherence upon racial imbalance in a school 
system is one factor among many others which may be 
considered by a court in determining whether an inference of 
segregative intent should be drawn.’ ” Columbus Board of 
Education v. Penick, 443 U.S. 449, 465 (1979).

Although an evaluation of basic segregative effects is 
important in determining the scope of a violation and hence 
the permissible scope of the remedy, a reviewing court is not 
called upon to quantify the precise segregative effects of each 
individual act of discrimination. Dayton Board of Education 
v. Brinkman, 443 U.S. 527, 540 (1979) (Dayton II).

This Court has affirmed findings of interdistrict violations 
and has approved interdistrict desegregation remedies on 
several occasions. See, e.g., Morrilton School District No. 32  v. 
United States, 606 F.2d 222, 229 (8th Cir. 1979); United States v. 
State of Missouri, 515 F.2d 1365, 1371 (8th Cir. 1975); H aney  v. 
County Board of Education of Sevier County, 429 F.2d 364 (8th Cir. 
1970). We have also required a state (that had been found to 
have committed intradistrict violations) to participate in an



A-10

intradistrict remedy even though that remedy required the 
state to expend funds in school districts other than the violat­
ing district. Liddell v. State of Missouri, 731 F.2d 1294 (8th Cir.), 
cert, denied,___U.S_____, 105 S. Ct. 82 (1984).

2. Review of Factual Findings.

We will not reverse the district court’s factual findings 
with respect to liability unless we conclude that they are 
clearly erroneous. Fed. R. Civ. P. 52(a); Anderson  v. City of 
Bessemer City, 105 S. Ct. 1504 (1985); Pullman-Standard v. 
Swint, 456 U.S. 273, 287-90 (1982); Dayton II , 443 U.S. at 534 
n.8; Columbus Board of Education v. Penick, 443 U.S. at 468-71 
(concurring opinions of Burger, C.J., and Stewart, J.); United 
States v. United States Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. 364, 395 (1978). 
Nor will we reverse such findings when they are based on 
inferences from other facts unless the rigorous standards of 
the same rule are met. Anderson, 105 S. Ct. at 1511. The 
Supreme Court has emphasized the importance of the clearly 
erroneous rule in civil rights cases, see, e.g., Pullman-Standard 
v. Swint, 456 U.S. at 287-90, and, more particularly, in school 
desegregation cases:

The elimination of the more conspicuous forms of 
governmentally ordained racial segregation . . . 
counsels undiminished deference to the factual 
adjudications of the federal trial judges in cases 
such as these, uniquely situated as those judges are 
to appraise the societal forces at work in the com­
munities where they sit.

Columbus, 443 U.S. at 470 (Justice Stewart, with whom Chief 
Justice Burger joins, concurring).

B. The State’s Role in the Segregation of the Three 
Pulaski County School Districts.

The district court detailed the history of state-imposed 
segregation in the public schools in the State of Arkansas



A-ll

and the steps taken by the state4 to perpetuate a dual school 
system, particularly in LRSD. The court pointed out that,

4 In finding that the State Board of Education was the proper 
agency through which the state was responsible in creating and 
failing to disestablish the dual school systems in Pulaski 
County, the district court noted:

The State Board of Education has, by statute, general 
supervision over all public schools in the State of Arkan­
sas. Ark. Stat. Ann. § 80-113. In addition to that general 
responsibility, the State Board and the Department of 
Education have numerous specific duties, including the 
approval of plans and expenditures of public school funds 
for new school buildings (Ark. Stat. Ann. §§ 80-113, 
80-3506; T. 775); review, approval and disapproval of local 
school district budgets (Ark. Stat. Ann. §§ 80-113, 80-1305; 
T. 773); administration of all federal funds for education 
(Ark. Stat. Ann. §§ 80-123, 80-140); disbursement of State 
Transportation Aid Funds to local school districts (Ark. 
Stat. Ann. §§ 80-735, 80-736); assisting school districts in the 
operation of their transportation system (T. 774); lending funds 
from the State Revolving Loan Fund to local school districts 
(Ark. Stat. Ann. §  80-942); approval or disapproval of bonds 
issued by local school districts (Ark. Stat. Ann. §80-1105; 
T. 775); advising school districts regarding the issuance of bonds 
(T. 777); and regulation of the operation of school buses (Ark. 
Stat. Ann. §§80-1809, 80-1809.2).

The State Board of Education has broad statutory 
authority to supervise the public schools of the state gener­
ally, and to take what action it may deem necessary to 
“promote the physical welfare of school children and 
promote the organization and increase the efficiency of the 
public schools of the State.” Ark. Stat. Ann. § 80-113.

The State Board of Education has the authority to 
promulgate regulations concerning the earmarking and use 
of funds used by local school districts (Ark. Stat. Ann. 
§ 80-1305), the use of federal education funds by local 
school districts (Ark. Stat. Ann. § 80-142) for the adminis­
tration of State Transportation Aid Funds by local school 
districts (Ark. Stat. Ann. § 80-735), and for the operation of

(footnote continued on next page)



A-12

despite the state’s role in mandating and maintaining the 
dual system until the mid-1960’s, the state had done nothing 
to assist in dismantling the dual system. The court further 
found that the state’s acts had an interdistrict segregative 
effect with respect to the three school districts in Pulaski 
County. These findings are not clearly erroneous.

The state’s role in the segregation of the public schools of 
Arkansas began in 1867 when the legislature enacted a law 
requiring separate public schools for blacks. Act of Feb. 6, 
1867, No. 35, § 5, 1866-1867 Ark. Acts 98, 100. In 1931, this 
legislation was superseded by a law which required the 
board of school directors in each district of the state to 
“ establish separate schools for white and colored persons.”

(footnote continued from  preceding page)

school buses by local districts (Ark. Stat. Ann. §§ 80-1809, 
80-1810).

The State Board of Education may lend funds from the 
State Revolving Loan Fund for the purchase of school 
buses and other equipment, for making major repairs and 
constructing additions to school buildings, for the purchase 
of sites for new school buildings, for the construction of 
new school buildings, and for the purchase of surplus 
buildings. Ark. Stat. Ann. § 80-942.

597 F. Supp. at 1227-28 (emphasis included).
The State Board does not contest these findings. Rather, it 
argues: first, that the district court’s decision imposes financial 
burdens on the Board without finding that such expenditures 
are required to redress the effects of the Board’s constitutional 
violations; second, that the Board was denied procedural due 
process by the district court; third, that the district court’s 
findings failed to establish any causal relationship between 
violations found and the conditions to be remedied; and fourth, 
the district court’s remedial order exceeds the limits necessary 
to correct the effects of the violations. In any event, we find no 
error in the district court’s imposition of remedial responsibili­
ties on the state through the State Board. See Evans v. 
Buchanan, 393 F. Supp. 428 (D.C. Del.) (three-judge panel), aff’d, 
423 U.S 963 (1975).



A-13

Ark. Stat. Ann. § 80-509(e) (Repl. 1980). This statute was 
repealed on November 1, 1983.

Even though the United States Constitution required that 
the black and white public schools be equal, Cumming v. Rich­
mond County Board of Education, 175 U.S. 528 (1899); see also 
Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), black public schools in 
Arkansas were inferior to white schools. What was true 
throughout the state was true for NLRSD and PCSSD. 
Expenditures per pupil for black children in elementary 
schools in these districts were substantially less than they were 
for white children, the salaries of black teachers in the black 
schools were substantially lower than they were for the white 
teachers in the white schools, and the illiteracy rate of black 
children was substantially higher than that of white children. 
Of particular importance in this case, the black elementary 
schools in these two districts were inferior to the black ele­
mentary schools in LRSD. 584 F. Supp. at 330.

The disparities at the high school level were even more 
pronounced than at the elementary level. Historically, LRSD 
maintained a high school for black students that was fully 
accredited by the North Central Association. Id. As late as the 
mid-1950’s, however, no similar facility was maintained by 
PCSSD. Id. PCSSD paid the tuition and transportation costs 
for numerous black students who traveled from PCSSD to 
attend school in LRSD. 584 F. Supp. at 330. The district court 
credited several studies and the testimony of several witnesses 
to the effect that LRSD was identified as the school district in 
the state which provided educational opportunities for black 
students. Id. This identification tended to draw black students 
to LRSD from all over the state, and particularly from Pulaski 
County.5 The state was fully aware of these disparities. 
Indeed, it had commissioned studies documenting that the 
disparities existed, and that the disparities were prominent

5 Other factors encouraging migration of blacks to LRSD were 
jobs and public housing. 584 F. Supp. at 345. As pointed out 
elsewhere in this opinion, no public housing has been constructed 
in PCSSD, and housing and credit restrictions prevented blacks 
from buying or renting housing in much of that district.



A-14

among the factors that drew black families to Little Rock from 
the county and the rest of the state.

It cannot be seriously denied that the Little Rock 
School District’s maintenance of the only North 
Central accredited black high school in the County 
and indeed in the entire area led to a concentration 
of blacks in this district. For almost half a century 
it has not only assumed the burden of giving a 
quality education to blacks in the County and from 
far corners of the State but has also been the object 
of racially motivated attacks by certain political 
and cultural groups.

584 F. Supp. 330.6

6LRSD introduced into evidence a study which made the 
following conclusion:

In sum, black students from Pulaski County crossed the 
district boundary to attend senior high in Little Rock from 
the 1920s to the 1960s. They probably became numerous in 
the early 1930s when Paul Laurance Dunbar High School 
acted as a magnet for county students who had little 
opportunity to attend senior high in their own district. At 
some point, the two districts worked out a tuition agree­
ment under which Pulaski County paid for the use of 
Little Rock facilities by individual students. This led to a 
“ county” designation on student record cards, the 
incidence of which shows that a substantial number of 
county students were enrolled in at Dunbar in the 1940s 
and 1950s. Students from the county continued to attend 
Little Rock into the 1960s, but their numbers decreased as 
the county began to provide more and better senior high 
schools.

J.D.R. at 915-21.
This movement of blacks into LRSD, which the district court 

found to be “consistently understated” as shown in PX 36, 584 
F. Supp at 346, is reflected in general population statistics. 
From 1950 to 1980, the black population of the City of Little 
Rock more than doubled, from approximately 23,000 to more 
than 51,000. During the same period, the white population of 
the City of Little Rock, excluding annexed territory, declined.

(footnote continued on next page)



A-15

In 1953, when the Granite Mountain housing project for 
blacks was being planned, the state, at the behest of the 
affected school districts enacted legislation authorizing the 
transfer of the project site from PCSSD to LRSD. This 
action insured that a major black housing project would be 
built in LRSD, and that LRSD would continue to be recog­
nized as the school district in Pulaski County which edu­
cated black children. This housing project is discussed more 
fully infra.

Notwithstanding the state’s awareness of the educational 
disparities between LRSD and the other school districts in 
the state, it took no remedial action to require adequate 
educational opportunities for blacks in school districts other 
than LRSD.7 In summarizing the pre-Brown history of 
school segregation in Pulaski County, the district court 
found that, historically, “ [a]s far as the education of blacks 
was concerned, school district boundaries in Pulaski County 
were ignored.” 584 F. Supp. at 330.

Even after the Supreme Court’s decisions in Brown I and 
Brown II, the State of Arkansas took no steps to dismantle 
the segregated school system in Arkansas or to improve the 
quality of the black schools in the state generally or in the 
defendant school districts in particular. To the contrary, it

(footnote continued from  preceding page)

If the annexed territory is included, the white population 
increased from 79,000 to 105,000. See BUREAU OF THE CEN­
SUS, 1950 CENSUS OF POPULATION, CHARACTERIS­
TICS OF THE POPULATION, vol. 11, part 4; BUREAU OF 
THE CENSUS, 1980 CENSUS OF POPULATION, CHARAC­
TERISTICS OF THE POPULATION, vol. 1. For related 
population statistics, see note 8 infra.

’ Indeed, the State Board successfully argued in a federal 
district court case in 1949 that black students did not have the 
right to attend high school within their school districts and 
that “ the interests of Negro education will be best promoted by 
the maintenance of a consolidated Negro high school serving 
several districts[.]” Pitts v. Board of Trustees of DeWitt Special 
School District, 84 F. Supp. 975, 987 (E.D. Ark. 1949).



A-16

took a series of actions which delayed the elimination of the 
dual school system in the state for years. These actions were 
primarily directed against LRSD and heightened the iden­
tity of that district as the “black” district of Pulaski County.

On May 20, 1954, three days after Brown I, the Board of 
Education announced that “ [i]t is our responsibility to com­
ply with federal constitutional requirements and we intend 
to do so when the Supreme Court of the United States 
outlines the method to be followed.” Cooper v. Aaron, 358 
U.S. at 8. By the spring of 1955, the Little Rock Board of 
Education had adopted a plan which would have desegre­
gated the schools by 1963. Id. A large majority of the 
citizens of Little Rock agreed that the plan was “ the best for 
the interests of all pupils in the District.” Id. The plan was 
approved by the federal district court, Aaron v. Cooper, 143 F. 
Supp. 855 (E.D. Ark. 1956), and this Court, Aaron v. Cooper, 
243 F.2d 361 (8th Cir. 1957), and review was not sought in 
the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, the state intervened to prevent desegregation 
of the Little Rock schools. In November, 1956, Arkansas’s 
voters adopted three initiatives sponsored by the state’s polit­
ical leadership. These included:

1. An amendment to the state constitution 
directing the legislature to oppose Brown in every 
constitutional manner until such time as the 
federal government ceases from enforcing Brown, 
and providing that any employee of the state, or 
any of its subdivisions, who willfully refuses to 
carry out the mandates of this amendment shall 
automatically forfeit his office and be subject to 
prosecution under penal laws to be enacted by the 
legislature. Ark. Const. Amend. 44. Although this 
amendment remains on the books, it is recognized 
by the state authorities as being unconstitutional.

2. A resolution of interposition calling on all 
states and citizens to adopt a constitutional amend­
ment prohibiting federal involvement in public



A-17

education, and pledging resistance to school 
desegregation.

3. A pupil placement law, Ark. Stat. §§ 80-1519 to 
-1524, authorizing local boards of education or 
superintendents to transfer or reassign students or 
teachers among any schools within their districts, 
or to “ adjoining districts whether in the same or 
different counties, and for transfer for school funds 
or other payments by one Board to another for or 
on account of such attendance.” Dove v. Parham, 176 
F. Supp. 242, 244 n.4 (E.D. Ark. 1959).

See 584 F. Supp. at 330-32.

In January, 1957, the state legislature enacted, and the 
Governor signed, legislation implementing the constitutional 
amendment, including legislation authorizing local school 
districts to spend school funds to defend integration litiga­
tion, and to relieve (or at least to delay) school children from 
compulsory attendance at racially mixed schools. Governor 
Orval Faubus also signed legislation creating a state sover­
eignty commission, with broad powers, to:

1. Perform any and all acts and things deemed 
necessary and proper to protect the sovereignty of 
the State of Arkansas, and her sister states from 
encroachment thereon by the Federal Government 
or any branch, department or agency thereof, and 
to resist the usurpation of the rights and powers 
reserved to this State or our sister states by the 
Federal Government.

2. Give such device and provide such legal 
assistance as the Commission considers necessary or 
expedient, when requested in writing to do so by 
resolution adopted by the governing authority of 
any school district, upon matters, whether involv­
ing civil or criminal litigation or otherwise, relat­
ing to the commingling of races in the public 
schools of the State.



A-18

3. Study and collect information concerning 
economic, social and legal development constituting 
deliberate, palpable and dangerous invasions of or 
encroachments upon the rights and powers of the 
State reserved to the State under [the Tenth 
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution],

See 584 F. Supp. at 330-32.

The statute also required prointegration organizations to 
register and report to the state sovereignty commission. See 
Aaron v. Cooper, 163 F. Supp. 13, 15 (E.D. Ark. 1958).

Notwithstanding these actions, the Little Rock Board of 
Education took preliminary steps to admit nine black stu­
dents to Central High School in the fall of 1957. Governor 
Faubus, however, barred the nine students from entering 
Central High School by ordering the Arkansas National 
Guard to stand at the schoolhouse door and to declare the 
school “ off limits” to black students. President Eisenhower 
responded by dispatching federal troops to guarantee the 
admittance of the nine black students. They were admitted 
after the troops arrived and the troops remained in Little 
Rock for the rest of the school year. Subsequently, the 
federal district court enjoined Governor Faubus from using 
the Arkansas National Guard to obstruct or interfere with 
court orders, Aaron v. Cooper, 156 F. Supp. 220, 226-27 (E.D. 
Ark. 1957), and this Court affirmed, Faubus v. United States, 
254 F.2d 797, 806-08 (8th Cir. 1958).

In February, 1958, “because of extreme public hostility .. . 
engendered largely by the official attitudes and actions of the 
Governor and the Legislature,” Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. at 12, 
local officials petitioned the district court to postpone until at 
least 1961 “ the plan of gradual racial integration in the Little 
Rock public schools” which the Little Rock Board of Education 
had adopted in 1955 for implementation at the high school 
level for the 1957-58 school year. Aaron v. Cooper, 163 F. Supp. 
13,14 (E.D. Ark. 1958). The district court found that “ between 
the spring and fall of 1957 there was a marked change in public



A-19

attitude toward [the school desegregation] plan,” that persons 
who had formerly been willing to accept it had changed their 
minds and had come to the conclusion “ that the local School 
Board had not done all it could do to prevent integration.” 163 
F. Supp. at 21. The court noted that the state legislature’s 1957- 
58 “ enactments had their effect at Little Rock and throughout 
the State in stiffening opposition to the plan[.” ] Id. Because of 
this state-fostered “ opposition . . .  to the principle of integra­
tion which .. . runs counter to the pattern of southern life 
which has existed for over three hundred years,” id., and the 
“ corresponding damage to the educational program,” id. at 26, 
and the City of Little Rock itself, the court held that a two-and- 
one-half-year moratorium on desegregation was necessary.

This Court reversed, Aaron v. Cooper, 257 F.2d 33, 40 (8th 
Cir. 1958), and the Supreme Court affirmed our decision on 
September 12, 1958, quoting with approval a pleading filed 
by the school board:

The legislative, executive, and judicial departments 
of the state government opposed the desegregation 
of Little Rock schools by enacting laws, calling out 
troops, making statements vilifying federal law 
and federal courts, and failing to utilize state law 
enforcement agencies and judicial processes to 
maintain public peace.

Aaron v. Cooper, 358 U.S. 1, 15 (1958).
While the above appeal was pending, opponents of deseg­

regation secured a state court injunction to prevent the open­
ing of the “partially integrated high schools” of Little Rock. 
Once again, the federal district court set aside the injunction 
and this Court affirmed. See Thomason v. Cooper, 254 F.2d 808 
(8th Cir. 1958).

In August, 1958, Governor Faubus called an “ emergency 
session” of the legislature, which enacted three laws aimed at 
preventing the Little Rock Board of Education from comply­
ing with Brown. Act 4 authorized the Governor, by proclama­
tion, to close any or all public schools within any school district



A-20

pending a referendum “ for” or “against” the “ racial integra­
tion of all schools within the school district;” Act 6 permitted 
students to transfer to segregated public or private schools 
across district lines if the schools they ordinarily attended 
were to be desegregated; and Act 9 authorized the removal by 
recall of any members of local school district boards. (This Act 
was aimed at removing from the Little Rock Board of Educa­
tion those who favored desegregation.)

On September 13, 1958, Governor Faubus issued a procla­
mation closing the four Little Rock high schools, white and 
black. They remained closed throughout the 1958-59 school 
year, with the school board leasing the schools to a private 
school corporation which intended to operate them on a 
segregated basis. The federal courts found that such opera­
tion would be unconstitutional and enjoined the private 
corporation from operating the schools, see Aaron v. McKinley, 
173 F. Supp. 944, 952 (E.D. Ark. 1959), aff’d sub nom. Faubus 
v. Aaron, 361 U.S. 197 (1959) (per curiam). Nevertheless, the 
Little Rock schools remained closed for the entire school 
year, and during this period, many white and some black 
students from Little Rock attended segregated schools in 
PCSSD. The Arkansas state legislature enacted a statute 
authorizing the state to pay for the interdistrict transfer of 
students from desegregated to segregated public and private 
schools. Ark. Acts 1959 No. 236. See Ark. Acts, Special 
Session 1958, No. 6. In 1960, an independent study described 
the number of transfers among the three Pulaski County 
school districts to preserve segregation as “ excessively high.” 
584 F. Supp. at 339. Significant numbers of interdistrict 
transfers continued until 1965. PX 10.

Shortly after the school closing act was declared unconsti­
tutional, the Little Rock Board of Education announced that 
it would reopen the Little Rock high schools for the 1959-60 
school year because “we will not abandon free public educa­
tion in order to avoid desegregation.” Norwood v. Tucker, 287 
F.2d 798, 805 (8th Cir. 1961). The Board also publicly 
announced, however, that it awaited advice from “ Governor



A-21

Faubus and his attorneys . . .  [on] any method whereby we 
may maintain compulsory segregation and still operate our 
public high schools.” Id. During the 1959-60 school year, 
students were assigned to particular schools in accordance 
with the Arkansas pupil placement laws of 1956 and 1959. 
Ark. Stat. Ann. §§ 80-1519 through 1234. In Parham v. Dove, 
271 F.2d 132 (8th Cir. 1959), and Dove v. Parham, 282 F.2d 
256 (8th Cir. 1960), we held that the Arkansas pupil place­
ment laws were not facially unconstitutional although we 
recognized that the laws could in practice be used to perpetu­
ate segregated schools. 271 F.2d at 136.

In Norwood v. Tucker, 287 F.2d 798 (8th Cir. 1961), we held 
that the Little Rock Board of Education was using “ the 
standards and criteria . . .  [of the Arkansas pupil placement 
laws] for the purpose of impeding, thwarting and frustrating 
integration.” Id. at 808. We called the Board’s attention to 
the continuing injunction in the first Aaron case requiring 
them to “ ‘take affirmative steps’ . . .  to facilitate and accom­
plish operation of the school district on a nondiscriminatory 
basis.” Id. at 809.

Thereafter, the Little Rock Board of Education attempted 
to use the Arkansas pupil placement law in a nondis­
criminatory fashion. However, in 1965, litigation was once 
again commenced alleging that black children were being 
denied admittance to predominantly white schools in Little 
Rock and “ assigned to ‘Negro’ schools near their home.” 
Clark v. Board of Education of Little Rock School District, 369 
F.2d 661, 665 (8th Cir. 1966).

On April 22, 1965, the Board formally abandoned use of 
the pupil assignment law and adopted a freedom-of-choice 
plan. When the litigants in the Clark case, id., alleged that 
this freedom-of-choice plan failed to meet constitutional 
standards, the Little Rock School Board advanced “a number 
of desegregation plans . . .  in a good faith effort to provide a 
solution to continuous litigation.” Little Rock School District v. 
Pulaski County Special School District, 584 F. Supp. at 334. 
However, the Board “ [u]ntil January. . .  was faced with a



A-22

hostile governor and state administration and an unfriendly 
legislature,” id., which helped stir up a “ hysterical political 
atmosphere,” id., that led to the defeat of the several pro­
posals for more effective school desegregation.

Little Rock continued to rely on a freedom-of-choice deseg­
regation plan (as modified in Clark, 369 F.2d 661) until, by 
1968, it became clear that this plan was generally ineffective 
and would not meet the constitutional standards which the 
Supreme Court had recently spelled out in Green v. County 
School Board of New Kent County, 391 U.S. 430, 438 (1968); 
Raney v. Board of Education of Gould School District, 391 U.S. 
443 (1968); and Monroe v. Board of Commissioners of City of 
Jackson, 391 U.S. 450 (1968). We noted in Clark v. Board of 
Education of Little Rock School District, 426 F.2d 1035, 1043 
(8th Cir. 1970), that, despite considerable progress in desegre­
gating several Little Rock schools, “ [u]nder ‘ freedom of 
choice’ in 1968-69 approximately 75% of the Negro students 
attended schools in which their race constituted 90% or more 
of the student body.”

For the 1969-70 school year, the Little Rock Board of 
Education adopted a plan for pupil assignment based on 
geographic attendance zones. In Clark, id., we held that this 
plan’s program for student desegregation did not meet the 
contitutional requirement to eliminate racial discrimination 
“ root and branch.” Id. at 1041. We ordered the Little Rock 
Board of Education to file with the district court an effective 
desegregation plan for implementation no later than the 
1970-71 school year.

Ultimately, it was not until the 1973-74 school year that 
most Little Rock schools were desegregated. See School 
Desegregation in Little Rock, U.S. Commission on Civil 
Rights 7 (June, 1977). Thus, although the Little Rock Board 
of Education had announced shortly after Brown I  that it 
would begin to desegregate its schools by 1957 and complete 
the process by 1963, the active intervention of the state was a 
central factor in delaying desegregation of the Little Rock 
schools until 1973, and in contributing to the increasing



A-23

concentration of blacks in LRSD.8 The district court found 
that throughout this period and to this day, the state has 
never acknowledged its affirmative duty to assist local school 
districts in their desegregation efforts and has never promul­
gated any rules or guidelines which would encourage the 
local school districts to eliminate discrimination in their

8The district court’s finding that specific discriminatory 
actions by the defendants had a substantial and continuing 
effect on the racial composition of LRSD is supported by 
general and school population statistics. From 1950 to 1960, the 
white population of the City of Little Rock declined signifi­
cantly (if growth through annexation is excluded), while the 
white population of North Little Rock and the remainder of 
Pulaski County increased at an extraordinary rate. Including 
population gains through boundary expansions of the Cities of 
Little Rock (13,219 persons added by annexation) and North 
Little Rock (6,414 persons added by annexation), and cor­
responding population losses in the unincorporated areas of 
Pulaski County, the white population of the City of Little Rock 
increased by only 3,807 from 1950 to 1960 while the white 
population of North Little Rock increased by 11,526 and the 
white population of the remainder of Pulaski County increased 
by 13,266. These demographic data were generally contrary to 
statewide trends in Arkansas during the same period, and tend 
to support plaintiffs’ theory that the state-created racial turmoil 
in LRSD in the 1950’s fostered substantial white flight from 
LRSD to PCSSD and NLRSD. This trend continued through­
out the 1960’s and then accelerated during the 1970’s. By 1980, 
the white population of PCSSD had increased to 123,000 from
50,000 in 1950. During the same period, PCSSD’s black popula­
tion increased by less than 10,000. See BUREAU OF THE 
CENSUS, 1950, 1960, 1970 and 1980 CENSUS OF THE 
POPULATION, CHARACTERISTICS OF THE 
POPULATION—ARKANSAS.

From 1956 to 1973, the black student population in LRSD 
increased from 3,481 to 10,274, an increase of over 87%. During 
the same time, the white student population of LRSD decreased 
from 16,242 to 11,951, a decrease of 25%. See Aaron v. Cooper, 
143 F. Supp. 855, 860-61 (E.D. Ark. 1956), and PCSSD exhibit 9.



A-24

school systems. Nor has it taken action to foster racially 
neutral school siting. Rather, it has approved racially segre­
gative school sitings in violation of district court decrees as 
recently as 1980. Id. It has fostered impressive programs to 
improve the quality of education generally, but has made no 
effort to improve the instruction of educationally deprived 
and discriminatorily served black students. 597 F. Supp. at 
1228. It provides funds for transportation but does not pro­
vide specific funds to aid transportation for desegregation. 
597 F. Supp. at 1228. It has also failed to seek all federal 
funds available to aid desegregation efforts. Since the 1950’s, 
it has encouraged consolidation of school districts to promote 
efficiency and quality of education, but has taken no action to 
encourage consolidation to end the racial segregation which 
it required for over a century. 597 F. Supp. at 1228. To this 
day, the state takes the position that Arkansas law does not 
permit it to assist local school boards in their desegregation 
efforts. Brief of Appellant State Board at 6.

C. The Pulaski County Special School District’s Role in 
the Segregation of the Pulaski County School 
Districts.

The district court set forth in some detail the factors it 
considered significant to its holding that PCSSD had com­
mitted significant interdistrict violations. It further found 
that these violations are of a continuing nature and justify 
imposing an interdistrict remedy which would include 
PCSSD. These findings are not clearly erroneous.

PCSSD was created in 1927 pursuant to Act 152 of the 
1927 Arkansas Acts, which gave the residents of Pulaski 
County outside of the cities of Little Rock and North Little 
Rock the right to organize a single school district. On July 
21, 1927, a consolidated school district was approved by 
referendum. Pursuant to this referendum, the Pulaski 
County Board of Education ordered that “all of Pulaski 
County outside the territory embraced in the cities of Little 
Rock and North Little Rock be created and organized into a 
special school district to be named and known as Pulaski



A-25

County Special School District.” 584 F. Supp. at 340. “The 
historic intention [was] that the boundaries of the cities of 
Little Rock and North Little Rock remain coterminous with 
the respective school districts[.]” 584 F. Supp. at 340.

PCSSD maintained inadequate elementary schools for 
blacks and was without an accredited high school for blacks 
until 1955. 584 F. Supp. at 329-30. Accordingly, many black 
elementary students from the county and any student from 
the county who wished to attend an accredited high school 
had no reasonable alternative other than to attend the black 
schools in Little Rock. 584 F. Supp. at 330 (“ As far as the 
education of blacks were concerned, school district bounda­
ries in Pulaski County were ignored”). Pulaski County paid 
for many interdistrict transfers. Some black families moved 
from the county to Little Rock because of the disparities in 
educational opportunities. J.D.R. at 915-19; 584 F. Supp at 
330-40.

In 1953, PCSSD cooperated with LRSD and the state in a 
substantial interdistrict segregative act by permitting the 
annexation of lands for the construction of a black residen­
tial housing project, the Granite Mountain project, thus 
insuring that the black students in the project would attend 
school in LRSD rather than PCSSD, and enhancing LRSD’s 
position as the school district with the responsibility of 
educating black children. This housing project is discussed 
in greater detail infra. When the state closed LRSD for the 
1958-59 school year to avoid the desegregation of that school 
system, PCSSD accepted students from the Little Rock 
schools into the segregated schools of the county. These 
interdistrict transfers continued until the mid-1960’s.

Until the late 1960’s, LRSD generally grew as the City of 
Little Rock grew, and there is no contention that these 
annexations, with the significant exception of the Granite 
Mountain project, were intended to have a segregative effect.9

9Cammack Village was annexed in 1948. The record does not 
reveal the number of students involved in this annexation and

(footnote continued on next page)



A-26

In 1968, the Supreme Court announced that freedom-of- 
choiee plans were failing to dismantle dual school systems 
and that “ if it cannot be shown that such a plan will further 
rather than delay conversion to a unitary, nonracial, nondis- 
criminatory school system, it must be held unacceptable.” 
Monroe, 391 U.S. at 459; Raney, 391 U.S. at 446; Green, 391 
U.S. at 439. It required that segregation be eliminated root 
and branch. The black parents and children of LRSD took 
immediate action to secure compliance with these decisions. 
This Court complied with the Supreme Court mandate and 
required LRSD to implement a comprehensive plan to 
desegregate the schools of that district. See Clark v. Board of 
Education of Little Rock School District-, 426 F.2d 1035 (8th Cir. 
1970), cert, denied, 402 U.S. 952 (1971); Clark v. Board of 
Education, 449 F.2d 493 (8th Cir. 1971), cert, denied, 405 U.S. 
936 (1972), afd, 471 F.2d 656 (8th Cir. 1972) (mem.). After

(footnote continued from  preceding page)

no party to this litigation attributes any discriminatory purpose 
to this annexation. J.D.R. 2104-06. Euclid Place was annexed 
in 1949. The record indicates that nineteen students were 
involved in this annexation. J.D.R. 2107. No party to this liti­
gation attributes any discriminatory purpose to this annexa­
tion. Meadowcliff, Pleasant Valley and Brady were annexed in 
1961. The record does not reveal the number of students 
involved and the parties attribute no discriminatory purpose to 
this transfer. J.D.R. 2108-50. Each of the annexations cited 
above came at a time when each Pulaski County school district 
was operating a dual school system. Walton Heights was 
annexed in 1967. The number of students involved in the 
annexation is not disclosed in the record, but the annexation 
encompassed only .0058% of the value of the real property in 
PCSSD. J.D.R. 2169-85. Candlewood was annexed in 1968. It 
was a white residential area and apparently the annexation was 
not a significant one as it involved only .0016 of the assessed 
valuation of the County. J.D.R. 2186-2202, 655, 823. In addi­
tion to the five annexations outlined above, LRSD annexed a 
tract of uninhabited land in 1964 fbr use as a site for the Metro­
politan Vocational School to be open to students from LRSD 
and PCSSD school districts. J.D.R. 2150-68,651. T. at 1129.



A-27

the Supreme Court decided the Green trilogy, the concurrent 
annexation of lands by the City of Little Rock and LRSD 
ended and, from that point on, the city continued to expand, 
but the boundaries of LRSD remained relatively static. Lit­
tle Rock, 584 F. Supp. at 340. The district court found that 
“ Pulaski County Special School District’s acts of freezing its 
boundaries to discontinue the practice of allowing City and 
Little Rock School District boundaries to remain cotermi­
nous springs from an unconstitutional racial motive that has 
significant interdistrict effects on the Little Rock School 
District.” 584 F. Supp. at 341 (finding 26).10 11

As a result, by 1984, the City of Little Rock encompassed 
ninety-one square miles while LRSD covered only fifty-three 
square miles. Attractive industrial and residential areas in 
the county were made a part of the City of Little Rock but 
remained within PCSSD rather than becoming part of 
LRSD. These areas are residential sections in which many 
white families lived or have moved and, as a result, their 
children now attend schools in PCSSD. If the boundaries of 
the City of Little Rock and its school district had remained 
coterminous, the black-white ratio in the Little Rock schools 
would now be sixty-forty rather than seventy-thirty.11

10The district court found that PCSSD was interested in 
consolidation until the early 1970’s when LRSD adopted a 
comprehensive desegregation plan. (The latest expression of 
such interest came on May 14, 1968, when the PCSSD Board 
agreed to accept LRSD’s request for a meeting of the two boards 
to consider consolidation. Records and Proceedings of PCSSD 
Board, May 14, 1968; 584 F. Supp. at 341 finding 22.) On May 
13, 1970, this Court en banc, in an opinion by Judge M. C. 
Matthes, required LRSD to implement a comprehensive deseg­
regation plan consistent with the Green trilogy, decided on May 
27, 1968. Green, 391 U.S. at 439; Raney, 391 U.S. at 446; Monroe, 
391 U.S. at 459. The district court finding that the PCSSD 
Board’s change in attitude toward consolidation was, in part, 
racially motivated is not clearly erroneous.

11 Approximately 20,000 whites and 3,000 blacks live in the 
areas of the City of Little Rock which are now included in

(footnote continued on next page)



A-28

The district court found that the boundaries between 
PCSSD and LRSD had been maintained to keep LRSD 
predominantly black and PCSSD predominantly white. It 
further found that these boundary manipulations have had a 
substantial interdistriet segregative effect. 584 F. Supp. at 
351. These findings are not clearly erroneous.12 They were 
based on the facts recited herein and on the expert testimony 
of Dr. Robert Dentler who testified that the boundary lines 
had an interdistriet effect. He went on to state:

.. . The major consequence of the boundary lines 
established as they were in 1928 at the peak of

(footnote continued from  preceding page)

PCSSD. Ten schools located in this area serve approximately
3,000 white students and 300 black students who live within the 
city limits. Nearly 1,500 additional white students and 323 
black students living in the city are bused to PCSSD schools 
located beyond the city limits.

12 The district court also found:
Because of the large numbers of formal and informal 

transfers of students among the districts and the abetting 
of the transfers by the districts, the cooperation among the 
districts and their personnel in other areas, the recurrent 
consideration of consolidation and the long-standing prac­
tices of annexations to the two city districts, the Court 
finds that the three school districts in Pulaski County were 
not historically separate and autonomous.

584 F. Supp. at 341.
Although we find substantial evidence in the record to support 
the district court’s findings of extensive interdistriet coopera­
tion in attempting to confine blacks to central Little Rock, we 
find that the court clearly erred in finding that the three 
Pulaski County school districts were not separate and 
autonomous. Among the factors that clearly indicate that the 
districts were historically separate school districts are that each 
district has always levied its own taxes, elected its own board of 
education, hired its own faculty and staff, and established its 
own salary schedule, operating rules and regulations.



A-29

consolidation efforts initiated by small rural dis­
tricts of the County and with the support of the 
State, have by now come to a condition where they 
keep the Little Rock School District very 
predominately black and limit the opportunities 
therein of black students.

The boundaries also have generated consequences 
with respect to differences in State aid, State aid for 
instructional and related services generally and 
State aid for transportation. While the differences 
which have favored the County over the years have 
been remedied very recently there are all of the 
years in which the State aid formulas supported 
the County to the benefit of non-black higher pro­
portions by far of non-black students and a dis­
advantage both to Little Rock School District and 
North Little Rock.

The boundaries also echo with refusals to modify 
them from within the Boards of Directors, at least 
since 1968. In other words, after years of conversa­
tion about the merits of the boundaries, about mutual 
assistance especially for purposes that have not to do 
with race, suddenly these boundaries harden and the 
Pulaski County Board refuses any further modifica­
tion of them on the one side, and the Little Rock 
Board of Directors does not move or press on modifica­
tions so far as I can find.

The boundaries also signify to me that under 
them, under the circumstances of a suburban sys­
tem what was rural, what once existed as 38 rural 
counties, now congealed into a modernizing subur­
ban system is such that under these boundary con­
ditions school construction follows real estate 
development, not educational needs.

T. at 379-80; T. at 69; 584 F. Supp. at 340-41.
During the first two decades of tumultuous desegregation 

in LRSD, PCSSD schools remained segregated and free from



A-30

the problems which accompanied state-resisted desegregation 
in Little Rock. It was not until 1968 that suit was first 
brought to desegregate the PCSSD schools. Zinnamon v. 
Board of Education of Pulaski County Special School District, No. 
LR-68-C-154 (E.D. Ark. 1971), slip op. at 1. This suit 
remained dormant until 1970, while the Department of 
Health, Education & Welfare negotiated with the PCSSD 
Board of Education to work out an integration plan. After 
extensive litigation which led to an order enjoining PCSSD’s 
discriminatory school construction plans, PCSSD consented 
to the entry of a decree by Judge J. Smith Henley— then 
Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the 
Eastern District of Arkansas— integrating its schools. Zin­
namon v. Board of Education of Pulaski County Special School 
District, No. LR-68-C-154 (E.D. Ark. 1973). The district court 
found that PCSSD had failed to comply with the Henley 
decree and noted that, at trial, many PCSSD Board of Edu­
cation members were not even aware of the contents of the 
decree. Some of the more significant violations found by the 
court were: 1

1. After 1973, PCSSD continued to close schools in black 
neighborhoods and to build new schools in distant suburbs that 
were the developing areas of white population. 584 F. Supp. at
346. Many of the new schools are over ninety percent white. 
Id. For example, North wood Junior High School was opened 
in 1980 in a remote location far from a black residential area 
and has a student enrollment which is only eight percent black. 
North Pulaski was built in 1977, remote from any black resi­
dential areas in the furthest reaches of Pulaski County, and in 
1983, had a black student population of about six percent. Cato 
Elementary School was built in 1975, again in a remote area 
and, in 1983, it had a student population which was less than 
ten percent black. Robinson Middle School was built in 1981, 
and in 1983, had a black student population of slightly over 
eleven percent. The district court credited the testimony of Dr. 
Robert Dentler, plaintiffs’ expert witness, that “ the county 
took pains not to site new schools where they would be 
accessible to blacks, and others they dusted off old dilapidated



A-31

plants and arranged to have them as walk-in schools for black 
students well out of reach of possible transportation by white 
students.” There has been no new construction in or near the 
central part of the county, or to the east or southeast, where 
blacks live. The district court concluded that there were sub­
stantial and continuing inter- and intradistriet effects from 
PCSSD’s violation of Zinnamon’s specific order that PCSSD 
must cease and desist now and in the future from building 
schools in sites which are not equally accessible to blacks and 
whites. 584 F. Supp. at 346. All of these events are contrary to 
Swann’s admonition against the location of new schools “ in the 
areas of white suburban expansion, farthest from Negro popu­
lation centers.” Swann, 402 U.S. at 20-21.

2. Student assignments continue to be made on a racially 
discriminatory basis. Thus, in 1983, of fifty-one schools in 
PCSSD, sixteen are racially identifiable as black schools and 
thirteen are racially identifiable as white schools. In some 
instances, neighboring schools are operated as racially iden­
tifiable schools. Thus, Mabelvale Junior High School is close 
to Cloverdale Junior High School (both are within the City 
of Little Rock but are part of PCSSD), but Mabelvale’s 
enrollment in 1983 was only 12.7 percent black while the 
Cloverdale’s enrollment was slightly more than thirty-three 
percent black. 584 F. Supp. at 354-55. PCSSD maintains 
racially identifiable black schools by not busing in white 
students and by busing in additional black students. 584 F. 
Supp. at 348. PCSSD buses black students to Wakefield, 
Watson, and Cloverdale schools even though these schools 
have some of the highest enrollments of blacks in PCSSD 
and are located a short busing distance from identifiably 
white schools. 584 F. Supp. at 348, 354-55. Racially identifi­
able white schools are maintained by not busing blacks to 
schools built in white neighborhoods. 584 F. Supp. at 348.

3. Similarly, PCSSD failed to apportion the burden of 
busing fairly among white and black students. Thus, a black 
student enrolled in the PCSSD system is two and one-half 
times more likely to be bused for desegregative purposes than 
a white student, 584 F. Supp. 348, and a disproportionate



A-32

number of black students in PCSSD are bused long distances, 
often to schools which are already racially identifiable as 
black. Id.

4. PCSSD cooperated with the City of Little Rock in the 
location and building of Fair and Otter Creek Schools in 
white neighborhoods within the city limits but just outside 
the boundaries of LRSD. 584 F. Supp. at 346. Both schools 
are racially identifiable as white schools. Fair High School, 
which has a thirteen percent black enrollment, is located less 
than two miles from LRSD’s Parkview High School which 
has a fifty-six percent black enrollment, and is a reasonable 
busing distance from PCSSD’s Mills High School which has 
an enrollment of over forty percent black. 584 F. Supp. at 
356. Otter Creek has a black enrollment of only fourteen 
percent, but is located near several PCSSD and LRSD ele­
mentary schools with significantly higher black enrollments.

5. PCSSD failed to meet the goals for the hiring and 
promotion of black principals, teachers and administrators. 
584 F. Supp. at 347-48. Accordingly, there are fewer employ­
ment and promotion opportunities for blacks in PCSSD and 
the absence of black role models in teaching and administra­
tion. Id. These factors have discouraged the growth of a 
black community in PCSSD. 584 F. Supp. at 347.

6. The chances that a black student will be classified as 
educably mentally retarded are significantly greater in 
PCSSD than they are in LRSD. 584 F. Supp. at 350.

7. Unlike LRSD, PCSSD has failed to develop programs 
to encourage the participation of black students in curricular 
and extracurricular activities. 584 F. Supp. at 348.

8. PCSSD has failed to comply with requirements that a 
Bi-Racial Committee be established and that two black citi­
zens, elected and selected by the black community, serve in 
ex-officio capacity on its Board of Education. 584 F. Supp. at
347. This failure reduced the input of the PCSSD black 
community on school site selection and housing project deci­
sions and exacerbated the historical trend of black in-migra- 
tion to LRSD and white out-migration to PCSSD.



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D. North Little Rock’s Role in Segregating the Three 
Districts.

The district court found that NLRSD had committed 
several significant interdistrict violations. Our review of the 
record convinces us that the trial court’s findings with 
respect to the violations listed below are not clearly errone­
ous, and that the current interdistrict impact of these viola­
tions justifies and interdistrict remedy which would involve 
NLRSD. We do, however, take the nature and extent of 
NLRSD violations into consideration in framing a remedy 
(which is in largely intradistrict with respect to that 
district).

In the pre-Brown period, NLRSD failed to maintain equal 
or adequate schools for black students, particularly at the 
high school level. This failure led to significant transfers of 
black high school students from NLRSD to LRSD, and 
contributed to the concentration of blacks in LRSD, 584 F. 
Supp. at 330, a concentration which has continued to this 
day.

When the LRSD schools were closed for the 1958-59 school 
year, NLRSD, along with PCSSD, opened its segregated 
schools to many white and some black students from LRSD. 
These transfers continued in significant numbers until the 
mid-1960’s and played a substantial role in delaying desegre­
gation in LRSD. 584 F. Supp. at 339-40.

NLRSD has failed to comply fully with desegregation 
orders of the district court, Davis v. Board of Education, No. 
LR-68-C-151 (E.D. Ark. 1977), and this Court, Davis v. Board 
of Education, 635 F.2d 730 (8th Cir. 1980), with respect to the 
desegregation of faculty and staff. 584 F. Supp. at 348. 
Thus, blacks have a measurably smaller chance of being 
hired as teachers or administrators in NLRSD than in 
LRSD.

NLRSD maintains segregation within its school system in 
part by grossly overclassifying its black pupils into special 
education and educable mentally retarded (EMR) categories.



A-34

It classifies over nineteen percent of its black students as 
retarded or learning disabled, nearly three-and-one-half times 
as many as are similarly classified in LRSD. 584 F. Supp. at
348. Moreover, its EMR placement rate for blacks is 8.9 
times higher than it is for whites, compared to a national 
average placement rate of two and one-half times as many 
black students as white students. Placing children in Special 
Education: A Strategy for Equity 10 (K. Heller, W. 
Holtzman, and S. Messick, eds. 1982).

NLRSD argues that the overrepresentation of blacks in its 
EMR classes can be explained by economic and social factors, 
as well as differences in IQ between black and white stu­
dents. The district court rejected this argument after hear­
ing all the expert testimony on the issue. He did not err in so 
holding. These factors may explain why there may be more 
black than white EMR students, but they do not explain 
why the NLRSD experience should be so different than that 
in the nation, in Arkansas or in LRSD, nor do they explain 
why black students are not similarly overrepresented in the 
specific learning disability categories. The appellees’ experts 
attributed this difference in EMR classification to race, and 
the district court was justified in accepting this opinion and 
in holding that this difference discouraged black students 
from attending that district.

E. Interdistrict Housing Violations by the Defendants.
The district court made detailed and extensive findings 

regarding the existence of segregated housing in the Little 
Rock metropolitan area and regarding the causal role of the 
State of Arkansas and PCSSD in creating and perpetuating 
this condition. After reviewing these findings for clear error, 
we find none, and conclude that the record amply supports 
the district court’s determination.

The district court found that “ [pjublic housing in Pulaski 
County has historically been the subject of racial segrega­
tion.” Little Rock School District v. Pulaski County, 584 F.2d 
328, 341 (E.D. Ark. 1984). As with private housing patterns,



A-35

this demographic fact is the product of interrelated dis­
criminatory conduct on the part of the state and the county. 
The state delegated its responsibility in public housing to 
city and county governments by authorizing them to operate 
housing authorities upon the adoption by each of an appro­
priate enabling resolution. Ark. Stat. Ann. § 19-3004. The 
cities of North Little Rock and Little Rock have adopted 
these resolutions, but Pulaski County has not done so. 
Although the resolutions empower the cities to develop and 
construct public housing projects up to ten miles beyond city 
limits, neither city housing authority has ever built a project 
in PCSSD, and the record does not indicate that Pulaski 
County has constructed such housing. Id. at 341.

Typical of the pattern of development was the 1953 
Granite Mountain public housing project. B. Finley Vinson, 
chairman of the board of the holding company which owns 
the largest bank in Arkansas and who was an executive with 
the Little Rock Housing Authority from 1950 to 1954, testi­
fied that, in the early 1950’s, the state, the Little Rock 
Housing Authority, LRSD, and PCSSD cooperated in the 
development of a major all-black housing project which was 
intended to channel black residential development toward 
the far southeast boundaries of the City of Little Rock, away 
from white residential areas. He stated that “ [i]t should be 
made very clear that.. . this was a device to maintain segre­
gation of races. .. . There was no bones made about it.” 
Although this land was part of the PCSSD, the decision was 
also made at the state and local level for LRSD to annex this 
territory from PCSSD to ensure that this black development 
was channeled into LRSD, which was the only district 
capable of providing education for blacks. Mr. Vinson testi­
fied that the LRSD “worked out the annexation with the 
County School District.” In order to effect this transfer of 
land from PCSSD to LRSD, the Arkansas legislature in 1953 
passed an act, Ark. Stat. Ann. § 80-436 (Repl. 1980), which 
allowed the land transfer without resort to the standard 
procedures set forth in Ark. Stat. § 80-456. Mr. Vinson testi­
fied that over 500 segregated housing units were constructed



A-36

at Granite Mountain (with clearance of forty or fifty preex­
isting units), and that, as was expected, many more segre­
gated housing units were built in this area in the following 
years. This area is still an essentially segregated black 
housing area served by several schools which have over­
whelmingly high black enrollments ranging from seventy- 
one percent to one hundred percent black.13 In sum, there is 
substantial evidence in the record to support the district 
court’s finding that PCSSD cooperated with the state, the 
Little Rock Housing Authority and LRSD in this inten­
tional and successful attempt to segregate blacks in a nearly 
all-black neighborhood and in nearly all-black schools within 
LRSD. 584 F.Supp. at 342.

The district court also found that the Little Rock Housing 
Authority accentuated segregation in public housing and, 
thus, in schools, by razing black neighborhoods (which

13 There are five schools in the general area of the Granite 
Mountain project and the related segregated black housing 
which has grown around the project. Horace Mann Junior 
High in 1982 had an enrollment of 654 students, 501 of whom 
are black. Booker Intermediate had an enrollment in 1982 of 
411 students, 342 of whom are black. Rockefeller Intermediate 
had an enrollment in 1982 of 402 students, 288 of whom are 
black. Carver Elementary had a 1982 enrollment of 495 stu­
dents, all of whom are black. Washington Elementary had a 
1982 enrollment of 307 students, 217 of whom are black. There 
are no high schools in this general area, and the students from 
this overwhelmingly black residential area apparently attend 
Central High School. In sum, without considering high school 
students, more than 2,000 students—approximately eighty 
percent of whom are black—live in the Granite Mountain 
project and related areas. These students generally attend jun­
ior high, intermediate and elementary schools which have 
enrollments which are over eighty percent black. The district 
court credited the testimony of Dr. Charles Willie, Professor of 
Education and Urban Studies at the Harvard Graduate School 
of Education, that this all-black housing project was a signifi­
cant “magnet factor” in attracting a disproportionate number of 
blacks to LRSD. 584 F.Supp. at 345, 347.



A-37

bordered on white areas) and relocating the uprooted blacks 
in housing projects in eastern Little Rock. White residents, 
whose neighborhoods were more selectively cleared, were 
relocated to western Little Rock. The district court found 
that these decisions were part of “ a deliberate policy of the 
Little Rock Housing Authority and other governmental bod­
ies to maintain a residential racial segregation.” Id.

The concurrent acts of governmental bodies, especially the 
state and county school districts, are also reflected in the 
racially segregated private housing market in metropolitan 
Little Rock. The district court cited as especially probative 
of state liability the example of a black realtor who was 
disciplined by the state real estate commission. The realtor, 
who sold a home to a black in a white neighborhood, had 
violated a commission regulation which forbade realtors 
from being “ instrumental in introducing into a neighborhood 
a character of property or occupancy, members of any race or 
nationality, or any individuals whose presence will clearly 
be detrimental to property values in that neighborhood.” 
Although the realtor received his license, the state commis­
sion warned him about such “ misconduct,” and he was fired 
from his job. Id.

PCSSD also contributed to the segregated nature of the 
private housing market through its decisions in school siting. 
As Chief Justice Burger has written, “ People gravitate 
toward school facilities, just as schools are located in response 
to the needs of people. The location of schools may thus 
influence the pattern of residential development of a metro­
politan area and have important impact on the composition 
of inner city neighborhoods.” Swann, 402 U.S. at 20. Accord­
ing to the district court’s factual findings, PCSSD violated 
the Zinnamon decree by building nearly a dozen new schools 
after 1973 in the furthest outlying areas of developing white 
populations. These schools now have enrollments that are 
generally over ninety percent white. Id. at 346. As we have 
noted, supra at 28, Dr. Robert Dentler testified about the



A-38

racially discriminatory nature of these school siting deci­
sions. The district court concluded that decisions on school 
sites were made “without any consideration given to the 
impact or effect such selection would have on desegregation 
and is therefore a constitutional violation.” Id. at 346.

The district court’s generalized factual findings (which are 
based on the specific facts we have recounted here) are direct 
and unequivocal:

36. These housing practices, both public and 
private, together with the manner in which 
predominantly black areas were willingly trans­
ferred to the Little Rock School District from the 
Pulaski County Special School District contributed 
greatly to the disparity in the racial composition of 
these school districts. . . .

# # # #

66. The magnet factors of relatives, jobs and 
public housing units have encouraged high propor­
tions of blacks migrating to move to the Little Rock 
School District.

Id. at 342, 345.

After careful review of the long record compiled below, we 
conclude that the district court’s factual findings are valid 
and do not embody clear error according to the standard of 
review we have set forth above.

We also conclude that the district court committed no 
error of law in examining segregative housing patterns 
perpetuated by the state and PCSSD. As an aspect of school 
desegregation cases, the housing issue was first addressed by 
Justice Stewart, concurring in Milliken I:

Were it to be shown, for example, that state 
officials had contributed to the separation of the 
races by drawing or redrawing school district lines, 
by transfer of school units between districts, or by



A-39

purposeful, racially discriminatory use of state housing 
or zoning laws, then a decree calling for transfer of 
pupils across district lines or for restructuring of 
district lines might well be appropriate.

418 U.S. at 755 (emphasis added).

At least two courts of appeals have acted on Justice 
Stewart’s suggested standard of liability and have held state 
governments responsible for remedying school segregation 
which was partially the result of state-authorized local hous­
ing authorities. 14 In the Indianapolis case, the district court 
recounted a long history of segregated housing, as a result of 
which less than one percent of Indianapolis’s suburban popu­
lation was black. United States v. Board of School Commission­
ers, 332 F.Supp. 655 (S.D. Ind. 1971). The court attributed 
residential segregation (and, hence, school segregation) in 
part to housing violations committed by the Housing 
Authority of the City of Indianapolis (HACI). The court 
found that, from 1957 through 1971, HACI built public 
housing projects in areas within the Indianapolis Public 
Schools (IPS) inhabited ninety-eight percent by Negroes, but 
none in the suburban school districts. United States v. Board of 
School Commissioners, 456 F.Supp. 183, 189 (S.D. Ind. 1978), 
aff’d in part & vacated in part, 637 F.2d 1101 (7th Cir.), cert, 
denied, 449 U.S. 830 (1980). The district court held that

the action of such official bodies in locating such 
projects within IPS . . .  [was] racially motivated 
with the invidious purpose to keep the black within 
the pre-Uni-Gov Indianapolis and IPS, and to keep

14 Although a majority of the United States Supreme Court 
has not specifically addressed the extent to which housing 
violations support interdistrict remedies in school desegregation 
cases, we note that the Supreme Court has denied certiorari in 
each of the cases we cite. While this does not necessarily imply 
approval on the merits, it is a fact which “ cannot be 
overlooked.” Liddell v. State of Missouri, 731 F.2d 1294, 1203 n.8 
(8th Cir. 1984), and cases cited therein.



A-40

the territory of the added suburban defendants 
segregated for the use of whites only. . . .
. . .  [I]t was obvious that the natural, probable and 
foreseeable result of erecting public housing proj­
ects wholly within IPS territory would be to con­
centrate poor blacks in such projects and thus to 
increase or perpetuate public school segregation 
within IPS.

Id. at 189.
The Court of Appeals held that the district court’s findings 
were amply supported in the record, United States v. Board of 
School Commissioners, 637 F.2d at 1110, and affirmed the 
district court’s finding “ that the decision in the 60’s to locate 
all public housing in Marion County within the boundaries 
of IPS was the result of segregative intent by the responsible 
state agencies.” Id. at 1111.

Although the district court in the Indianapolis case did 
not elaborate its reasoning, it found that, along with legisla­
tion which discriminatorily reorganized the City of Indi­
anapolis relative to the Indianapolis School District, the 
state was responsible to some extent for the housing viola­
tions which exacerbated the segregation of the schools. The 
district court referred to HACI as a “state instrumentality,” 
United States v. Board of School Commissioners, 419 F.Supp. 180, 
182 (S.D. Ind. 1975), and as we have noted above, as a 
“ responsible state agency.” As a result, the state was held 
responsible for funding certain ancillary services as part of 
the interdistrict remedy, which the Court of Appeals 
affirmed. United States v. Board of School Commissioners, 637
F.2d at 1116.

The courts reached a similar result in the interdistrict 
remedy that was adjudicated in the Wilmington, Delaware, 
case. The Wilmington Housing Authority operated over
2,000 public housing units in the city, but fewer than forty 
in the predominantly white suburbs, despite a period of 
“ extraordinary population growth” in the suburbs. Evans v.



A-41

Buchanan, 393F. Supp. 428, 435 (D. Del.) (three-judge court), 
aff’d per curiam, 423 U.S. 963 (1975). As a result, the district 
court concluded that “ [p]ublic housing policies also con­
tributed to the concentration of minority residents in Wil­
mington.” Id. The state’s culpability and partial remedial 
responsibility in the interdistrict remedy was subsequently 
affirmed. Evans v. Buchanan, 582 F.2d 750 (3d Cir. 1978) (en 
banc).

The courts have not limited their attention to public hous­
ing violations; private housing discrimination has also been 
the basis for state liability in school desegregation cases. In 
Evans v. Buchanan, 393 F.Supp. at 434-35, a three-judge panel 
considered as evidence of state culpability that the Delaware 
Real Estate Commission, a state licensing agency, enforced a 
realtor’s ethical canon which discriminated in the same 
regard as the provision cited in the case at bar. The district 
court reached the same result in Oliver v. Kalamazoo Board of 
Educ., 368 F.Supp. 143, 183 (W.D. Mich. 1973), aff’d sub nom. 
Oliver v. Michigan State Board of Education, 508 F.2d 178 (6th 
Cir. 1974.), cert, denied, 421 U.S. 963 (1975). That Court 
concluded that “ the State of Michigan should not be allowed 
to escape constitutional responsibilities by fractionalizing its 
jurisdiction through many agencies.” Id. at 1832.

Our review of these precedents, together with the Arkan­
sas statutes and relevant case law, is an additional factor 
justifying imposition of remedial liability upon the State of 
Arkansas. First, as regards public housing, we note that the 
municipal housing authorities implicated here are agencies 
of the state, which obliges the state to participate in the 
remedial phase of this litigation. In construing the Housing 
Authority Act, Ark. Stat. Ann. § 19-3004 et seq., the Arkansas 
Supreme Court has declared:

A Housing Authority is an agent of the state deal­
ing with public health standards and falls squarely 
within the traditional police powers of the state. A 
City Housing Authority does not operate within 
the scope of “ municipal affairs” (i.e., those affecting,



A-42

germane to or concerning the municipality and its 
government) as distinguished from those state 
officers excepted in the Home Rule Act.

Fort Smith v. Housing Authority of the City of Fort Smith, 506
S. W.2d 534,536 (Ark. 1974). See also Arkansas Louisiana Gas Co. 
v. City of Little Rock, 506 S.W.2d 545, 550 (city and housing 
authority do not have a principal-agent relationship).

We believe the structure of the state housing authority law 
supports this reading. Although the state does not operate the 
housing authorities per se, the state legislature authorized the 
housing authorities (Ark. Stat. Ann. § 19-3004), promulgated a 
finding and declaration of statewide necessity for housing 
reform (§ 19-3002), established standards for the appointment, 
qualifications and tenure of the housing commissioners (§ 19- 
3005), enumerated the powers of housing authorities 
(§ 19-3011) (including eminent domain (§ 19-3015)), and gave 
the authorities the power to issue bonds (§§ 19-3017-3019).

As regards private housing segregation, we believe that the 
state’s role in regulating real estate practices through the 
Arkansas Real Estate Commission, see Ark. Stat. Ann. 
§§ 71-1303,71-1307, also implicates it in the residential segrega­
tion that contributed to the racial segregation of the Little 
Rock schools.

The housing violations recounted above deeply implicate 
the state in the constitutional violations found by the district 
court. Any other finding by this Court would reward the 
state for dividing and delegating the functions of state 
government among its many branches and divisions. As the 
district court declared in the Kalamazoo case:

The State . . . cannot parcel out its jurisdiction 
and deliberately achieve by bits and pieces what it 
could not do directly by statute. When such a 
situation is alleged to exist, the court must look 
closely at the actions of each agency to determine 
whether it has met its constitutional responsibili­
ties. To allow each agency to plead constitutional



A-43

violations of other agencies in exculpation of its 
own would be to mock the Constitution of the 
United States[.]

Oliver v. Kalamazoo Board of Education, 368 F. Supp. 143, 185 
(W.D. Mich. 1973), aff’d sub nom. Oliver v. Michigan State 
Board of Education, 508 F.2d 178 (6th Cir. 1974), cert denied, 
421 U.S. 963 (1975). See also Note, Housing Discrimination as a 
Basis for Interdistrict School Desegregation Remedies, 93 Yale 
L.J. 340 (1983).

As a concurrent actor in the problem of housing dis­
crimination, the PCSSD must also bear its share of the 
remedial burden. Where school boards have acted with com­
plicity in developing schools in conjunction with dis­
criminatory real estate development, they have been held 
responsible for their share of the remedy. See, e.g., Oliver, 368 
F. Supp. at 171-73.

F. Summary of Violations
The state’s actions which originally segregated LRSD and 

then forestalled its desegregation for over twenty years are 
not too remote in time to be relevant for this appeal. Rather, 
the long history of concurrent actions on the part of the 
state, PCSSD, and NLRSD exerted an unmistakable 
interdistrict effect on the schools of the metropolitan area by 
singling out LRSD as the school district which provided 
some educational opportunities for black students and by 
identifying PCSSD and NLRSD as white districts.

The acts which implicate the state as a primary constitu­
tional violator began long before Brown, with a century-old, 
state-mandated dual school system which provided a 
markedly inferior education for black students. This dual 
system was achieved in part through the transfer of black 
students from NLRSD and PCSSD to LRSD. When the 
Little Rock Board of Education decided to comply with the 
Supreme Court’s orders and desegregate its schools after 
Brown, the state intervened and prevented the Board from 
desegregating for nearly twenty years. The state persisted 
in opposing desegregation for thirteen years after Brown, and



A-44

has only taken minimal actions to assist in the desegregation 
of its schools to this day.

Public and private housing policies exacerbated school 
segregation. Public housing units were segregated and most 
projects were built in black residential areas in LRSD or 
NLRSD to serve black families. No public housing units 
were built in PCSSD, but the Granite Mountain project was 
built on land deannexed by PCSSD with state approval with 
the intention that this all-black project would be located in 
LRSD and that this would ensure that black students would 
attend the segregated black schools in Little Rock. The 
effects of this action persist until this day.

The defendant school districts have acted concurrently 
and independently to perpetuate the interdistrict problem of 
school segregation. The long legacy of inferior schools for 
blacks in PCSSD and NLRSD (which was exemplified by 
the absence of an accredited black high school until after 
Brown) induced many blacks to attend school in LRSD, often 
with a subsidy from PCSSD or NLRSD. PCSSD has con­
tinued to signal this attitude by ignoring the Zinnamon 
decree: it has perpetuated segregation through school siting 
and student assignment, unequal apportionment of the trans­
portation burden between the races, failure to meet staff 
hiring goals, overclassification of black pupils in special 
education programs, and failure to cultivate the full par­
ticipation of black students in the educational process.

Moreover, by its policies and practices with respect to 
annexation and de-annexation, PCSSD has committed sub­
stantial interdistrict violations. Until the Supreme Court’s 
decision in Green and this Court’s implementation of that 
decision, PCSSD willingly consented to LRSD expanding 
simultaneously as the City of Little Rock expanded. After 
that year, the City continued to expand but the boundaries of 
the school district remained constant. There is conflicting 
evidence as to the reason for this, but the district court found 
that PCSSD declined to deannex this land for unconstitu­
tionally discriminatory reasons, and we believe there is sub­
stantial support in the record for this finding. The effects of



A-45

these policies and practices continue to be felt today. Nearly
5,000 students, more than eighty-seven percent of whom are 
white, now live within the city limits but attend PCSSD 
schools.

NLRSD has also contributed to interdistrict segregation, 
by failing to maintain adequate schools for blacks before 
Brown, by opening its segregated schools to LRSD transfers 
during 1958-59, by failing to comply with the desegregation 
orders of the district court, by grossly overclassifying its 
black pupils in EMR programs and by failing to desegregate 
the faculty and staff of its schools.

We believe it is clear that these actions by the defendants 
exerted a strong interdistrict influence which polarized the 
races and, by creating disparities in the availability and 
quality of black schools, set aside LRSD as the best place for 
black students to obtain an education. Undoubtedly, a 
significant percentage of white out-migration and black in- 
migration is attributable to factors other than racially dis­
criminatory acts of the defendants. (These factors include 
the historical movement of white middle class families from 
the city to the suburbs and the higher fertility rate of black 
families.15) However, plaintiffs introduced substantial 
evidence demonstrating that a “ disproportionate” number of 
whites, 587 F. Supp. at 347, left LRSD or moved into PCSSD 
instead of LRSD upon moving from other areas and that 
substantially more blacks moved into LRSD than would 
otherwise have done so in the absence of the defendants’ 
discriminatory actions and the resulting racial turmoil in 
LRSD.16 The district court found, id,., that plaintiffs met

^Significant numbers of white children attend private or 
parochial schools in Pulaski County. We are not able from this 
record to determine that the discriminatory acts of the 
defendants have contributed to this phenomenon, particularly 
in view of the fact that the number of students attending the 
schools in Pulaski County happens to be consistent with 
national norms for metropolitan areas.

16 The district court credited the testimony of Dr. Charles 
Willie, Professor of Education and Urban Studies at the

(footnote continued on next page)



A-46

their burden of proving that the defendants had committed 
substantial interdistrict constitutional violations with sub­
stantial and continuing interdistrict effects. In light of the 
substantial supporting evidence in the record, we cannot 
declare these findings clearly erroneous.

The defendants and amicus argue strongly that Milliken 1, 
supra, Lee v. Lee County Board of Education, 639 F.2d 1243 (5th 
Cir. 1981), and Goldsboro City Board of Education v. Wayne 
County Board of Education, 745 F.2d 324 (4th Cir. 1984), 
dictate a contrary result. We disagree. In Milliken I, there 
was no history of state-imposed segregation, nor of state 
opposition to the local school district’s attempt to comply 
with Brown, nor was there a history of interdistrict transfers, 
boundary changes, housing violations, and violations of 
desegregation decrees. Moreover, Milliken 1 involved the con­
solidation of one city district with fifty-three suburban dis­
tricts in three counties, where the record was devoid of 
evidence indicating that the fifty-four districts were closely 
interrelated geographically, economically, politically and 
culturally, as the districts are here.

There are some superficial similarities between this case 
and Lee. In Lee, as here, there were two suburban districts 
and one city district located in a single county, and there was 
a history of interdistrict transfers in the pre-Brown period. 
But in Lee, the district court found that the interdistrict 
violations that had occurred were neither continuing nor

(footnote continued from  preceding page)

Harvard Graduate School of Education, that the various inten­
tionally discriminatory actions of the defendants outlined in 
this opinion contributed to the disproportionate movement of 
whites into PCSSD instead of LRSD. 584 F. Supp. at 347. He 
testified that, among other factors, the concentration of public 
housing projects in LRSD (particularly the all-black Granite 
Mountain project which served as the seed for three decades of 
segregated housing development), the existence of LRSD 
boundaries not coterminous with the City of Little Rock, and 
PCSSD’s numerous violations of the Zinnamon decree (includ­
ing school site locations) were of significance.



A-47

significant, and the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit 
simply held that this finding was not clearly erroneous. 
Here, as we have already noted, the district court found that 
the interdistrict violations were significant and continuing, 
and we simply hold that these findings are not clearly 
erroneous. Moreover, Lee did not involve segregative 
interdistrict transfers, segregative boundary changes, or 
state-imposed residential segregation, and the city district 
had been previously declared unitary.

Goldsboro is also distinguishable from this case on several 
grounds. Goldsboro had been declared a unitary school sys­
tem by the federal district court in 1973, id. at 325-26. 
Although the Goldsboro district alleged that Wayne County 
had established “ white haven” schools, the district court 
found that the Wayne County school district built only one 
school during the period in question, to replace a sixty-year 
old school building. Here, PCSSD built nearly a dozen 
schools during the relevant period, and the district court 
found specifically that “ the selection of sites for new schools 
built after the entry of the Zinnamon decree has been made 
without any consideration for the impact such selection 
would have on desegregation.” 584 F. Supp. at 336-37. See 
also id. at 346.

Further, in Goldsboro, there was no showing that any 
government official or agency had ever opposed the location 
or construction of public housing within the Wayne County 
school district. 745 F.2d at 327. Moreover, there was no 
history of interdistrict transfers for segregative purposes, no 
district court finding of segregative annexations or boundary 
changes, nor any evidence of school district failure to comply 
with desegregation decrees. III.

III. THE REMEDY.

A. Proposed Remedies.

From July 30, 1984, to August 2, 1984, the district court 
reopened the hearings to consider the appropriate remedy for



A-48

interdistrict violations.17 At the hearings, PCSSD and 
NLRSD each offered an alternative.

17 The State Board, NLRSD and PCSSD argue on appeal that 
they were deprived of procedural due process in the course of 
the proceedings before the district court. We reject this 
contention.

The State Board argues that it was deprived of due process 
because the district court entered further findings on the State 
Board’s liability in the remedial order, after the court had said 
it had concluded all proceedings concerning liability. We find 
no error in the district court’s clarification of the State Board’s 
liability. All findings by the district court concerning the State 
Board in the remedial order have substantial support in the 
record of the liability hearings, at which the State Board had a 
full opportunity to be heard.

NLRSD’s several due process objections are similarly unper­
suasive. It argues that the district court improperly ordered 
consolidation at the conclusion of the liability proceedings 
while limiting the remedial hearing solely to the question of 
the proper means of consolidation. We conclude that any pos­
sible problems with the scope of the remedial hearings were 
cured when the district court reopened the remedial proceed­
ings and heard testimony on alternative remedies. NLRSD 
complains that it was deprived of the opportunity at the 
reopened proceedings to cross-examine LRSD’s experts, but a 
careful review of the record shows that the district court com­
mitted no error or abuse of discretion in this regard. NLRSD, 
in fact, was only deprived of the chance to recross-examine 
LRSD’s expert witness, Dr. Dentler. The record indicates that 
NLRSD was able to cross-examine LRSD’s expert for one and 
one-half hours, and we conclude that the district court was 
fully within its discretion to deny further inquiry. (We note 
also that PCSSD cross-examined Dr. Dentler extensively.) 
None of NLRSD’s other references to the record reveal 
improper limitation by the district court of NLRSD’s opportu­
nity to cross-examine witnesses. Nor was NLRSD improperly 
deprived of an opportunity to present its own expert testimony. 
The district court was well within its discretion in excluding 
NLRSD’s proffered evidence concerning surveys and other tes­
timony about the extent of interdistrict effects. NLRSD had an 
adequate opportunity to present such evidence concerning the

(footnote continued on next page)



A-49

PCSSD submitted its plan on July 24, 1984, six days 
before the remedial hearing. The plan preserves the 
autonomy of the three county school districts and relies on 
the creation of a substantial number of specialty or magnet 
schools and “ voluntary interdistrict transfers with manda­
tory backup.” 597 F. Supp. at 1222.

PCSSD’s plan calls first for the creation of a “ substantial 
number of special schools and special program offerings .. . 
in each of the three present school districts,” in addition to 
the traditional curriculum offered at “standard schools.” 
J.D.R. at 2497. Suggested themes for specialty schools and 
programs in elementary schools include a gifted and talented 
program, a physical development program, a multi-language 
program, a lab school, a Piaget model school, an extended 
school day center, a Montessori school, a creative arts school, 
a personalized education program and a com- 
puter/science/math program. Junior high school themes 
include a gifted and talented program, visual communica­
tion, pre-international Baccalaureate program, physical 
development, arts program, ecology and environmental edu­
cation, and math/science. Senior high school themes include 
college prep high school, high school for the performing arts, 
law enforcement program, engineering, communications, 
math/science, military academy, computer technology and

1. PCSSD’s Alternative.

(footnote continued from  preceding page)

scope of the violations at the liability hearings, and the district 
court properly limited the scope of the remedial hearings to 
alternative remedial plans.

PCSSD raises similar due process complaints which we reject 
as well. Any concern with the district court choosing consolida­
tion as the appropriate remedy in its order at the conclusion of 
the liability proceedings was alleviated by the opportunity to 
present remedial alternatives. Moreover, the district court’s 
findings concerning liability were sufficient to allow PCSSD to 
present remedial alternatives which would address the scope of 
the violations.



A-50

business, electronics, drafting, ecology and environmental 
education, and a gifted and talented program.

PCCSD’s plan requires all students in the three districts to 
choose the school they wish to attend, selecting from among 
any of the schools in the three districts. Students who do not 
receive their first or second choice of school due to oversub­
scription are to be ’’mandatorily assigned [to another school] 
by an interdistrict administrative committee composed of 
administrative personnel from each of the three districts.”

Enrollments are to be controlled “ to racially balance all 
schools in each of the controlled three districts at proportions 
approximating that of countywide public school enrollment 
in the preceding school year. .. . Specialty schools and 
specialty programs will be racially balanced at the county­
wide proportion plus or minus five percentage points.” 
J.D.R. at 2506-07. Individual racial balance goals are pro­
posed at “ remote schools” with a minimum requirement by 
1988-89 so that no less than fifteen percent of the remote 
school enrollment will be black. To facilitate interdistrict 
transfers, several policies are proposed, including the “ effec­
tive schools” model and uniform grade structure including 
kindergarten, uniform grading, attendance and discipline 
policies.

PCSSD proposes that the three districts share vehicle 
capacity, routing and supervision of the transportation sys­
tem, that they consider the joint contract purchase of a 
computerized routing and scheduling system, and the 
purchase of identical vehicles, the joint purchase of fuel and 
parts, the sharing of repair facilities and enforcement of 
common regulations. J.D.R. at 2509. Its plan requires that 
the costs associated with interdistrict assignment of students 
be shared by all three districts in an equitable manner and 
that districts receiving students from another district be 
reimbursed on a per capita basis. J.D.R. at 2511. It notes 
that, although transportation costs should be shared, 
financial support from the state must be made available. Id.



A-51

PCSSD also proposed the formation of several tri-district 
committees which would discuss cooperative ventures in 
several areas such as food preparation and delivery and 
maintenance service. Under this proposal, the three district 
controllers would meet in committee to discuss details of cost 
sharing and to explore other areas of financial cooperation, 
including establishment of a single millage rate in Pulaski 
County, coordinated millage campaigns, coordinated market­
ing of revenue bonds, common audit and accounting 
procedures, joint proposals for special grant or project funds, 
and joint bidding and purchasing practices. PCSSD would 
require the formation of a similar committee to “ formulate 
and suggest criteria for the opening and closing of facilities 
as well as for renovating or expanding existing schools.” 
Under its proposal, it would appear that the committees 
would be bi-racial.

PCSSD proposes that faculty from all three districts be 
recruited to teach in the specialty schools, and that teachers 
accepting interdistrict assignments maintain contractual 
relationships with their home districts but that they be 
subject “ to all other rules and procedures applicable to the 
schools in which they teach.” PCSSD also proposes interdis­
trict cooperation on a variety of personnel matters.

PCSSD’s principal objection to the consolidation remedy 
ordered by the district court is that it destroys the institu­
tional strengths of an ongoing school district and impedes 
local control of public schools. See Milliken v. Bradley, 433 
U.S. 267, 280-81 (1979) (Milliken II).

PCSSD argues that its plan “would represent a strong step 
forward both in raising the quality of education for all and 
in improving the prospects for a permanently viable, racially 
integrated-system of public schools throughout Pulaski 
County.” J.D.R. at 2517. The district court found, however, 
that PCSSD’s plan places “undue reliance on voluntary 
transfers .. . [and] fails to adequately address the interdis­
trict segregative effects found to exist and cannot be 
approved.” 597 F. Supp. at 1223.



A-52

Shortly before the July 30, 1984, remedial hearing, 
NLRSD submitted a statement which argued that consolida­
tion of the three districts exceeds the scope of the interdis­
trict violations found by the Court, and, particularly, those 
attributable to NLRSD, but that “ NLRSD believes that the 
deannexation violation of the Pulaski County School District 
requires remedy. A fair and equitable remedy would be to 
adopt a ‘western wedge’ concept similar to that proposed by 
Dr. Paul Masem in Intervenor Joshua Exhibit Number 2, 
Option A.” J.D.R. at 1788.

The “ Masem/Western Wedge Plan” calls for all three 
districts to retain their separate and autonomous identities. 
The boundaries of NLRSD would remain unchanged, but the 
boundaries between LRSD and PCSSD would be changed to 
“ compensate for the loss of approximately 4,000 white stu­
dents to the Little Rock School District caused by [PCSSD’s] 
deannexation violation.” J.D.R. at 1787-88. PCSSD north 
and west of Interstate 30 and south of the Arkansas River 
would become part of LRSD. LRSD east and south of 
Interstate 30 would become part of PCSSD. As a result of 
the proposed boundary changes, “ the racial composition of 
the districts, not counting student transfers between dis­
tricts, will be as follows:

Pulaski County
Special School D istrict............ 69%(W) 31%(B)
Little Rock School District___ 46%(W) 54%(B)
North Little Rock
School D istrict............................ 64%(W) 36%(B)

NLRSD proposes an interdistrict magnet school program 
and an interdistrict majority-to-minority (m-to-m) student 
transfer program to promote desegregation in the three dis­
tricts. Ten to twelve magnet schools, which would offer 
programs such as computers, math and science and back-to- 
basic fundamental schools, would be located in central Little 
Rock. The m-to-m program would provide transportation 
between all Pulaski County schools within some maximum 
travel time such as thirty to forty-five minutes. Each school

2. NLRSD’s “Masem/Western Wedge” Alternative.



A-53

in Pulaski County with less than thirty percent black enroll­
ment would set aside seats for transfer students, with pri­
ority for Little Rock black students.

An Interdistrict Policy Board, with representatives from 
each district and from the Joshua intervenors, would be 
established to administer and coordinate the various provi­
sions of the plan. The Board would receive funding from 
each of the three school districts, and it would establish a 
citizens’ advisory board to channel community input and 
participation.

NLRSD’s plan also calls for compensatory and remedial 
programs in all three districts to increase the educational 
achievement of black students. The Interdistrict Policy 
Board would hire outside consultants to ensure that all three 
districts have adequate compensatory programs.

The district court rejected the NLRSD plan on the ground 
it “ places too much reliance upon the voluntary motivations 
of the county patrons [and] there are insufficient incentives 
. . .  to expect the [interdistrict] transfers . . .  to be successful 
in desegregatingf.]” 597 F. Supp. at 1223. The court con­
cluded that “ the NLRSD plan fails to adequately address 
the interdistrict constitutional violations found by the 
Court[.]” Id.

3. The Joshua Intervenors’ Alternative.

The Joshua intervenors did not advance a particular plan 
but presented a position statement in favor of consolidation 
but which was critical of several aspects of LRSD’s con­
solidation plan. Their expert witness, Dr. Paul Masem, testi­
fied about three plans for remedying the inter- and 
intradistrict violations short of consolidation. These plans 
were primarily concerned with alterations in the present 
boundaries of the three districts. The district court rejected 
the options on the ground they would not “ adequately 
remedy the constitutional violations found by the Court.” 
597 F. Supp. at 1224.



A-54

The district court determined that LRSD’s plan was the 
only proposal which would adequately address the interdis­
trict and intradistrict violations which were established at 
trial.

The principal component of the LRSD plan is consolida­
tion of the three school districts. This plan utilizes a geocod­
ing process of arriving at student assignment areas, and it 
divides Pulaski County into six subdistricts. The plan estab­
lishes a racial composition standard of (+) or (-) twenty-five 
percent of the racial makeup of the student population. To 
facilitate student transfers, the schools are to be of equal 
quality and grade structure.

LRSD’s plan also calls for the creation of magnet schools 
at Metropolitan Vocational High and in areas populated 
primarily by blacks. The plan calls for desegregation of 
administrative staff at all levels and in all units. It provides 
for an interim board of directors which will select a qualified 
school superintendent. The court stated that it would soon 
set the date for an election of persons to replace the interim 
court-appointed board. The court also determined that, after 
study by the new superintendent and the interim board, a 
determination would be made as to the millage rate to be 
uniformly applied within the consolidated district.

The court also directed the three districts to hold at least 
three public meetings in their districts to explain the con­
solidation plan and to accept constructive criticism. The 
court then determined that it was premature to address the 
concerns of the Knight intervenors with respect to faculty 
assignments because many potential contract problems 
should first be dealt with by the interim boards.

Finally, the court reiterated that the state had taken 
actions and inactions over the years which “ had an interdis­
trict effect upon the Little Rock, Pulaski County and North 
Little Rock school districts.” 597 F. Supp. at 1228. “Other 
branches of the state, as set forth in the court’s earlier

4. The LRSD Alternative.



A-55

opinion . . .  share responsibility with the State Board for 
these constitutional violations, but the State Board must be 
the remedial vehicle for their violations as well[.]” 597 F. 
Supp. at 1228 (citations omitted). The court then stated that 
it would detail the “precise nature of these financial and 
oversight obligations” at a later date. Id.

B. The Required Remedy.
Having found interdistrict violations by the state and 

defendant school districts, and having heard from all of the 
parties concerning the remedial alternatives, the district 
court was responsible for devising a remedy that would 
correct the constitutional violations that it found. A federal 
court has broad equitable power to devise a desegregation 
remedy. The overriding goal of such a remedy is to eradicate 
all vestiges of state-imposed segregation. Swann v. Board of 
Education, 402 U.S. 1, 15-16 (1971); Green, 391 U.S. at 437-38. 
Three equitable principles guide the courts in this process:
(1) the nature of the remedy is determined by the nature and 
scope of the violation; (2) the remedy must, to the greatest 
degree possible, be designed to restore the victims of dis­
criminatory conduct to the position they would have 
occupied in the absence of such conduct; and (3) the courts 
must take into account the interests of state and local 
authorities in managing their own affairs, consistent with 
the Constitution. Milliken II, 433 U.S. at 280-81.

In constructing a desegregation remedy, a court may not 
rigidly require a particular racial balance. Pasadena Board of 
Educdtion v. Spangler, 427 U.S. 424, 436-38 (1976); Milliken I, 
418 U.S. at 73940; Swann, 402 U.S. at 22-25. Nevertheless, 
the Supreme Court has made it clear that the awareness of 
the racial composition of a school district or school districts is 
a useful starting point in developing an effective remedy, 
and thus the limited use of racial ratios is within the Court’s 
equitable discretion. Swann, 402 U.S. at 25.

Thus, the Supreme Court has approved a remedy imposed 
by the district court requiring that all schools in the school



A-56

district be roughly within the same racial balance. Columbus 
Board of Education v. Penick, 443 U.S. 449, 455 n.3 (1979); 
Swann, 402 U.S. at 23-25. Our Court has consequently 
approved the use of flexible ratios in desegregation remedies 
on numerous occasions. E.g., Liddell v. State of Missouri, 731 
F.2d at 1302 & n.7; Clark v. Board of Education of Little Rock, 
705 F.2d 265, 269 & n.6 (8th Cir. 1983); Liddell v. Board of 
Education of St. Louis, 667 F.2d 643, 649 & n.6 (8th Cir. 1981); 
Adams v. United States, 620 F.2d 1277, 1296 & n.30 (8th Cir. 
1980); Morrilton School District No. 32 v. United States, 606 F.2d 
222, 230-31 (8th Cir. 1979); Booker v. Special School District No. 
1, 585 F.2d 347, 353-55 (8th Cir. 1978); United States v. School 
District of Omaha, 521 F.2d 530, 547 (8th Cir.), cert, denied, 423 
U.S. 946 (1975). In any event, in this case, we have closely 
tailored the remedy to the violations and we are not requir­
ing a particular racial balance in each district.

We sustain the district court’s holding that the interdis­
trict violations by the defendants justify interdistrict relief 
to the extent noted below. The more troublesome question is 
whether the district court erred in holding that consolidation 
was the only remedy that would effectively cure the interdis­
trict violations. We hold that the district court erred in that 
regard. In so holding, we express our agreement with the 
district court that consolidation would be a cost-effective and 
efficient method of desegregating the three school districts, 
but under Milliken I, we cannot require that remedy unless it 
is essential to correct a constitutional violation.

For three reasons, we do not believe we can require con­
solidation. First, that remedy exceeds the scope of the viola­
tions. It was based in part on the finding that the school 
districts were not autonomous, and we have held that that 
finding is not supported by the evidence. To be sure, the 
three districts did cooperate with each other through the late 
1960’s to maintain a dual school system in each of the 
districts, but each district retained its own identity, elected 
its own school board, fixed its own budget, hired its own 
faculty and staff, developed its own transportation system,



A-57

constructed its own schools, and either agreed or disagreed to 
proposals to annex or deannex sections of its district to 
another.18

Second, other remedial measures are better designed to 
restore the victims of segregation in the Pulaski County 
Schools to the position they would have occupied absent 
discriminatory conduct. Thus, the violations relating to 
annexations and deannexations, segregated housing, school 
siting, student assignments, special education, transporta­
tion, employment of faculty and administrators, and black 
participation in school affairs can all be corrected by the 
carefully tailored guidelines for a remedy to be established 
by the district court as set forth below.

Third, the remedy we have set forth preserves the impor­
tant interests the three school districts have in managing 
their own affairs. As the Supreme Court stated in Milliken I, 
“ the notion that school district lines may be casually ignored 
or treated as a mere administrative convenience is contrary 
to the history of public education in our county. .. . Local 
autonomy has long been thought essential both the mainte­
nance of community concern and support for public schools 
and to the quality of the educational process.” Milliken /, 418 
U.S. at 741-42.

In the light of the above circumstances, and the require­
ment that our remedy be closely confined to one that will 
remedy violations found to exist, we remand to the district

18 Additionally, the district court, in reaching its decision that 
the districts were not autonomous, gave weight to the fact that 
many white students transferred from PCSSD to NLRSD and 
LRSD in the period from 1954 to 1973, and that tuition in most 
instances was paid for by the sending to the receiving district. 
We do not feel that these transfers constitute sufficient evidence 
to establish a lack of autonomy.



A-58

court with directions to modify its remedy19 to embody the 
following principles:

1. Each school d istrict shall remain 
independent with an elected school board with its 
own administrative structure and powers of 
taxation.

2. The boundaries of NLRSD are to remain as 
they are at the present time. This is in partial 
recognition of the fact that the nature and extent of 
its interdistrict violations are less severe than those 
of the other defendants. Moreover, the black-white 
school population of this district approximates that 
of the county as a whole. Little or no good purpose 
would be served by changing its boundaries. The 
NLRSD, however, shall be required to correct each 
of the constitutional violations found by the district 
court, and to comply fully with the prior orders of 
the district court and this Court. It will thus be 
required to make the necessary modifications to its 
student assignment plan, the employment of black 
administrators and principals, and the adoption of

19 28 U.S.C. §2106 provides, in pertinent part:
The Supreme Court or any other court of appellate 

jurisdiction may affirm, modify, vacate, set aside or reverse 
any judgment, decree or order of a court lawfully brought 
before it for review[.]

Appellate modification has been described as an “ inherent 
ability,” Petition of U.S. Steel Corporation, 479 F.2d 483, 500 (6th 
Cir. 1973), 414 U.S. 859 (1974), which this Court has exercised 
on several occasions, e.g., In Re Thompson, 642 F.2d 227, 229 (8th 
Cir. 1981) (en banc). The Fifth Circuit has exercised its author­
ity under this section to modify district court remedies in school 
desegregation cases. Conley v. Lake Charles School Board, 434 
F.2d 35, 39 (5th Cir. 1970); Ross v. Dyer, 312 F.2d 191, 194 (5th 
Cir. 1963); Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board, 308 F.2d 491, 503 
(1962).



A-59

a racially neutral plan evaluating and placing stu­
dents requiring special education. It will also be 
required to cooperate in the interdistrict aspects of 
the remedy outlined herein.

3. The district court, after a hearing, shall 
adjust the boundaries between PCSSD and LRSD 
as follows:

(a) All land within the City of Little 
Rock shall be assigned to LRSD, and the 
students living in that area shall be 
assigned to schools in LRSD.20

(b) All land in the Granite Mountain 
area will be included in PCSSD, and the 
students living in that area shall be 
assigned to schools in PCSSD. The record 
is not clear as to the precise boundaries of 
this area, thus evidentiary hearings will 
be held by the district court to determine 
them. It is the intent of this Court that 
the boundaries of this area shall reason­
ably reflect the area that was impacted by 
the 1953 deannexation of land from 
PCSSD to LRSD.

(c) In lieu of the adjustments indicated 
in (a) and (b), the district court, upon 
application by a party to this appeal, may 
conduct evidentiary hearings to determine 
whether adjustments other than those

20 This remedy is based on all of the defendants’ interdistrict 
violations outlined in this opinion, including the violations 
relating to school sitings, annexations and deannexations, lack 
of any low-income public housing in PCSSD, student assign­
ments, special education, transportation, employment of faculty 
and administrators, as well as the pre- and post-Brown interdis­
trict transfers and the other historical violations with continu­
ing effect.



A-60

indicated in (a) and (b) would have sub­
stantially the same impact on the student 
populations of each district and would bet­
ter meet the educational needs of the stu­
dents of the districts involved. After such 
hearings, the district court may make 
adjustments to the boundaries other than 
those indicated above if it finds that they 
would better meet the educational needs 
of the students, and would remedy the 
constitutional violations to the same 
extent as the adjustments in (a) and (b).

4. After the boundaries between LRSD and 
PCSSD have been adjusted, each school district as 
reconstituted shall be required to revise its 
attendance zones so that each school will reason­
ably reflect the racial composition of its district. 
Consistent with earlier district court orders with 
respect to these schools, school districts may, where 
necessary, be permitted to depart from this 
remedial guideline in that school enrollments may 
over- or underrepresent blacks or whites by as much 
as one-fourth of the remedial guideline for either 
race. We see no reason why, on this record, the 
variance should exceed this level. See Columbus, 443 
U.S. at 455, n.3; Swann, 402 U.S. at 23-26. If the 
four all- or nearly all-black elementary schools as 
conditionally allowed by this Court in Clark v. 
Board of Education of Little Rock, 705 F.2d 265 (8th 
Cir. 1983), are retained in LRSD, compensatory and 
remedial programs of the type that we required for 
the nonintegrated schools in St. Louis shall be put 
into effect for the four schools. See Liddell v. State of 
Missouri, 731 F.2d at 1312-18. The additional cost of 
these programs shall be paid for by the State of 
Arkansas.



A-61

The district court may also consider the special 
problem of a few remote schools in Pulaski County. 
The June 4, 1973, decree of Judge J. Smith Henley 
permitted PCSSD to deviate from the racial stand­
ards that he established for the school system by 
allowing deviation from the standard in one or two 
schools distant from the black community. The 
district court should consider whether the excep­
tion granted by Judge Henley should be permitted 
to continue.

5. Voluntary intra- or interdistrict majority-to- 
minority transfers shall be encouraged, with the 
State of Arkansas being required to fund the cost of 
transporting students opting for interdistrict trans­
fers and to pay benefits to the sending and receiv­
ing schools for the interdistrict transfers similar to 
those required to be paid in Liddell. All three 
defendant school districts in Pulaski County shall 
be included in this program. To facilitate these 
transfers, the proposals of the PCSSD for “ effective 
schools model,” uniform grade structures, grading, 
attendance and discipline policies shall be carefully 
considered.

6. The district court may require a limited 
number of magnet or specialty schools or programs 
to be established at locations to be determined ini­
tially by a Magnet Review Committee and 
approved by the district court after a hearing. 
(Both PCSSD and NLRSD have made thoughtful 
proposals in this regard.) The magnet schools, if 
ordered, shall be administered by a Magnet Review 
Committee with one person to be named by each 
school district and two persons to be named by the 
State of Arkansas. The State of Arkansas will be 
required to pay the customary state aid to any 
pupils attending these schools, plus an additional 
one-half of the cost of educating the students



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attending them. The local share of the cost of any 
magnet school established shall be paid by the 
three participating schools on a basis to be deter­
mined by the district court. The state shall also be 
required to pay one-half of the cost of the construc­
tion or rehabilitation necessary to house the magnet 
schools and the full cost of transporting any stu­
dents who attend them. See Liddell VII, 731 F.2d at 
1309-12.21

7. PCSSD’s proposals with respect to coopera­
tive programs set forth on pages 49-51 of this opin­
ion should be seriously considered by the district 
court and implemented where feasible.

8. If the boundary changes result in PCSSD or 
LRSD losing a substantial portion of their tax 
bases, the district court shall consider measures to 
equalize the tax rates in these districts. The court 
may also consider whatever other financial 
measures it or the parties consider necessary, 
including retirement of bond issues, to ensure an 
equitable transfer of benefits and obligations accom­
panying the boundary changes and the correspond­
ing transfer of physical plant and related debt.

Each party to this appeal is to bear its own costs, with the 
exception of the Joshua Intervenors, whose costs will be 
borne equally by the State Board, LRSD, PCSSD and 
NLRSD.

This action is remanded to the district court for further 
action consistent with this opinion.

21 On the basis of tnfr-adistrict violations in Liddell, this Court 
ordered the State of Missouri to pay for programs similar to 
those described in paragraphs 5 and 6. Liddell v. State of Mis­
souri, 731 F.2d 1305-12. Thus, even if there were no interdistrict 
violations in this case, on the basis of intradistrict violations by 
the state, this Court may order a similar remedy against the 
state.



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ARNOLD, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and dissenting 
in part.

I .

I agree with much of the Court’s able opinion. In particu­
lar, I approve completely of its decision not to order con­
solidation of the three school districts now operating in 
Pulaski County, Arkansas. Consolidation would mean 
destruction of three popularly governed units of local 
government, and substitution in their stead of one judicially 
created and judicially supervised school district. Such a 
remedy is well within the judicial power of the United 
States, and I should not hesitate to support it upon proper 
proof, but the proof here is insufficient for several reasons, 
the most important of which is that the remedy of consolida­
tion “ exceeds the scope of the [parties’ constitutional] viola­
tions.” Ante at 56. Consolidation is a drastic step that should 
be reserved for clearer cases.

Having rejected consolidation, the Court proceeds to 
analyze the record and set out a detailed remedial decree, to 
be administered by the District Court on remand. The relief 
ordered today differs greatly from that ordered by the dis­
trict Court. If we are not prepared to affirm what that court 
has done, we should remand this case for further findings 
and a detailed remedial decree. Although we have power to 
modify a decree at the appellate level, it is unwise to exercise 
that power. The District Court (though we are today dis­
agreeing with some of its conclusions) is presided over by a 
scholarly and distinguished judge. That court, not this one, 
is in the best position to write a decree. Instead, a decree 
today springs full-grown from the brow of this Court, a 
decree that will, I dare say, startle all the parties to this case, 
including even those (if there are any) who like what they 
see.

Since the Court has decided to award detailed relief at the 
appellate level, however, it is appropriate for me to indicate



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in what respects I agree with its opinion. I agree that the 
District Court’s findings of intradistrict violations on the 
part of the North Little Rock School District (NLRSD) and 
the Pulaski County Special School District (PCSSD) are not 
clearly erroneous and should be affirmed. These violations 
should be corrected. Moreover, the Court properly declines to 
change the boundaries of NLRSD. Its constitutional 
defaults have not been shown to have any significant current 
interdistrict effect. It is also appropriate to order compen­
satory and remedial education programs for the four virtu­
ally all-black schools that we allowed in the Little Rock 
School District (LRSD) in Clark v. Board of Educ. of the Little 
Rock School District, 705 F.2d 265 (8th Cir. 1983). (A similar 
remedy might also be in order for some racially identifiable 
schools in NLRSD and PCSSD.) The State of Arkansas 
should pay for these programs. The State’s long-continued 
violation of the Fourteenth Amendment has played a signifi­
cant part in bringing about this iwfr-adistrict condition of 
racial isolation.1 Some other aspects of the Court’s remedy, 
for example, voluntary transfers, either intradistrict or 
interdistrict, of students from schools where they are in a 
racial majority to those where they are in a minority, seem 
unobjectionable.

The Court directs that the boundary between LRSD and 
PCSSD be adjusted so that all land within the City of Little 
Rock shall be assigned to LRSD. It also directs the re­
transfer of the Granite Mountain area to PCSSD. And, *

’ The State argues that we cannot require it to spend more 
money in one school district than another, because to do so 
would conflict with a recent opinion of the Supreme Court of 
Arkansas requiring, under the State Constitution, substantially 
equal per pupil funding throughout the State, DuPree v. Alma 
School Dist. No. 30, 279 Ark. 340, 651 S.W.2d 90 (1983), and with 
a statute implementing this opinion, Ark. Stat. Ann. §§ 80- 
850.10—80-850.22. This argument is insubstantial. Under the 
Supremacy Clause, U.S. CONST. Art. VI., cl. 2, the Fourteenth 
Amendment overrides any inconsistent state statute or constitu­
tional provision.



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wisely, the Court’s opinion leaves it open to any party, on 
remand, to move the District Court to make different 
boundary-line adjustments, so long as they have substan­
tially the same impact on the student populations of each 
district. I concur in the result reached by this portion of the 
Court’s opinion, though for reasons somewhat different from 
those it gives. In my view, PCSSD’s constitutional viola­
tions, when considered as a whole, have had some interdis­
trict effect, and the boundary changes ordered by this Court 
are a fair approximation of the measures necessary to undo 
that effect. There is necessarily some imprecision in this 
reasoning, and it rests as much on inference as on direct 
evidence, but it is not unfair for the risk of erroneous deci­
sionmaking that this kind of imprecision creates to fall, at 
least in part, on those who have violated the Constitution. In 
reaching this conclusion I am heavily influenced by expert 
testimony that the District Court believed, and that, accord­
ingly, we are also obliged to accept under the clearly-errone- 
ous rule.

From the remaining features of the Court’s remedy, 
especially its imposition of large financial responsibility on 
the State of Arkansas for the construction and operation of 
magnet schools, I respectfully dissent. II.

II.

One fact stands out after a reading of the District Court’s 
and this Court’s opinions: LRSD has more black students 
than either NLRSD or PCSSD. In the school year 1983-84, 
LRSD’s enrollment of 19,052 was about 69% black and 31% 
white, Tr. 1448, while PCSSD’s enrollment of 27,839 was 
about 22% black and 78% white, PCSSD X  64, Table 1. 
LRSD’s black percentage has been growing steadily, and one 
senses that the major impetus behind the District Court’s 
decision to order consolidation is a determination not to 
permit LRSD to become all black, or virtually so. As a 
policy matter, I agree that such a result is desirable. An all­
black district may have problems raising adequate funds



A-66

from the property tax, since most voters in the district will 
still be white, whatever the makeup of the public schools’ 
student body. It is also true that both black and white 
students benefit, socially and educationally, from exposure to 
each other.2 These facts, certainly relevant in a legislative 
sense, are less directly so in the present judicial context. Our 
task as judges is not to force these school districts to do what 
we think is right or socially good, but to apply the law to the 
facts and announce the result, whatever it may be.

Analysis must start with the governing legal standard 
laid down by the Supreme Court. It is stated in Milliken v. 
Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974) (.Milliken /.):

The controlling principle consistently expounded 
in our holdings is that the scope of the remedy is 
determined by the nature and extent of the consti­
tutional violation. Swann, 402 U.S., at 16. Before 
the boundaries of separate and autonomous school 
districts may be set aside by consolidating the 
separate units for remedial purposes or by imposing 
a cross-district remedy, it must first be shown that 
there has been a constitutional violation within one 
district that produces a significant segregative 
effect in another district. Specifically, it must be 
shown that racially discriminatory acts of the state 
or local school districts, or of a single school district 
have been a substantial cause of interdistriet segre­
gation. Thus an interdistriet remedy might be in 
order where the racially discriminatory acts of one 
or more school districts caused racial segregation in 
an adjacent district, or where district lines have 
been deliberately drawn on the basis of race. In

2 The proposition that all-black schools or classrooms are 
necessarily educationally inferior, however, is quite a different 
thing, and I do not subscribe to it. The “blacker” LRSD, 
ironically, appears by all accounts to produce more scholars of 
note and to offer a broader selection of courses, than the 
“whiter” districts with which it wishes to merge.



A-67

such circumstances an interdistrict remedy would 
be appropriate to eliminate the interdistrict segre­
gation directly caused by the constitutional viola­
tion. Conversely, without an interdistrict violation 
and interdistrict effect, there is no constitutional 
wrong calling for an interdistrict remedy.

418 U.S. at 744-45. The Supreme Court also tells us that no 
particular degree of racial balance is required by the Consti­
tution, id. at 740; that “ [n]o single tradition in public educa­
tion is more deeply rooted than local control over the 
operation of schools,” id. at 741; that “ [t]he constitutional 
right of the Negro respondents residing in Detroit is to 
attend a unitary school system in that district,” id. at 746; 
and that “ [t]he suggestion .. . that schools which have a 
majority of Negro students are not ‘desegregated’ .. . finds no 
support in our prior cases,” id. at 747 n.22.

I also find significant the Supreme Court’s summary of the 
reasoning of the lower courts whose decisions it was 
reviewing:

Viewing the record as a whole, it seems clear that 
the District Court and the Court of Appeals shifted 
the primary focus from a Detroit remedy to the 
metropolitan area only because of their conclusion 
that total desegregation of Detroit would not 
produce the racial balance which they perceived as 
desirable. Both courts proceeded on an assumption 
that the Detroit schools could not be truly desegra- 
gated— in their view of what constituted desegrega­
tion— unless the racial composition of the student 
body of each school substantially reflected the 
racial composition of the population of the metro­
politan area as a whole.

418 U.S. at 73940.



A-68

A .

Applying this standard, I look first at the constitutional 
violations attributed to PCSSD. That such violations have 
occurred, both before and after the desegregation decree 
entered against PCSSD in the Zinnamon case, I do not doubt. 
Perhaps most shocking is the fact that current PCSSD board 
members, far from being familiar with the Zinnamon decree, 
had not even read it when they testified in the District 
Court. But the question for present purposes must be, what 
is the current interdistrict effect of these violations? See 
Goldsboro City Bd. of Edue. v. Wayne County Bd. of Edue., 745 
F.2d 324, 330-31 (4th Cir. 1984); Lee v. Lee County Board of 
Education, 639 F.2d 1243, 1260 (5th Cir. 1981). Have they 
caused more white children to come to PCSSD schools, or 
black children to leave or avoid them, than would otherwise 
have been the case? If so, to what extent? These questions 
must be answered, else the remedy will not fit the violations, 
nor the punishment fit the crime. 1

1. A great deal of stress is laid upon the fact that, before 
the Brown decision and for a time thereafter, the education 
provided by PCSSD for black children was grossly inferior 
to that provided for white children in PCSSD and to that 
provided for all children, black and white, in LRSD. As a 
consequence, some black children came to LRSD to go to 
school who would not otherwise have been there. But what 
current effect is this movement, much of which dates from 50 
years ago, having? If black students came to LRSD for an 
education, and then went back home or elsewhere to work 
and raise their families, obviously their migration would not 
now be producing any current effect on the racial character 
of the LRSD student body. It is true that if black parents 
moved to LRSD and remained there, their descendants 
might now be attending LRSD schools. The Court appears to 
have this sort of movement in mind when it says that 
“ [sjome black families moved from the county to Little Rock 
because of the disparities in educational opportunities,” ante 
at 25, but the record reference cited for this statement, J.D.R.



A-69

915-19, in fact contains no support for it.3 The transfers that 
did occur appear to be principally of students moving into 
LRSD, without their parents, to live with a relative. One of 
LRSD’s own witnesses testified, Tr. 116, that this kind of 
movement of students into LRSD ceased in the 1950’s, when 
state laws requiring school children to be domiciled in the 
district where they were going to school began to be strictly 
enforced.4 In addition, any movement of black families into 
Little Rock that did occur must have been, to some extent, 
simply a part of the larger phenomenon of poor people 
leaving the farm to seek opportunity in the city.

2. The Court stresses that historically, that is, when 
PCSSD was first formed, it was the intention of LRSD and 
PCSSD to expand the boundaries of LRSD pro tanto every 
time the City of Little Rock annexed additional territory, so 
that the City and LRSD would continue to be coterminous. 
This intention has not been adhered to: the City has annexed 
a good deal of territory that has remained within PCSSD 
and not been transferred to LRSD by “ deannexation.” But 
only if PCSSD has declined to transfer territory to LRSD for 
racial reasons, in order to keep itself “ white” and LRSD 
“black,” would this failure to “ deannex” justify interdistrict

3 Some white students also transferred to LRSD seeking a 
“city school education.” PCSSD X 51, at p. 62; Tr. 118 (LRSD’s 
witness); PX 36. It was not just black schools in LRSD that 
were superior. All schools there were regarded as better, and 
this is hardly sinister or suprising, since Little Rock is the only 
true urban center in Arkansas and is much richer than many of 
the other school districts.

4 The Court seems to agree that significant interdistrict move­
ment of students stopped 20 years ago. Ante at 20. And even in 
the days when it was occurring, it was not simply a matter of 
black students transferring into LRSD. Between 1953 and 1963 
more whites than blacks transferred from PCSSD to LRSD. 
PX 36. Some of the specific figures are instructive: In 1953-54, 
47 black and 223 white children transferred from PCSSD to 
LRSD; in 1956-57, 42 black and 254 white; and in 1959-60, 34 
black and 363 white. Tr. 133-34 (LRSD’s witness).



A-70

relief. (No one claims that school-district lines were drawn 
initially for racial reasons: back in 1927, when PCSSD was 
formed, segregation was not thought to be unconstitutional, 
and no one needed to gerrymander school-district boundaries 
to preserve it. The claim is, rather, that the PCSSD-LRSD 
line was maintained for racial reasons.)

There have been eight separate transfers of territory from 
PCSSD to LRSD (and apparently none from LRSD to 
PCSSD). Of these eight transferred areas, seven have been 
predominantly white. Tr. 948-49. This is hardly the action 
of a school district seeking to maintain its “whiteness.” (The 
exception is the Granite Mountain area, deannexed in 1953, 
of which I shall speak hereafter.) The Court’s point, though, 
is a bit different: it charges that when it became clear that 
some real desegregation was going to take place, the bounda­
ries hardened. Dr. Robert A. Dentler, LRSD’s principal 
expert witness, made the same point. “ [T]he County I found 
had decided in its Board of Directors to make a formal policy 
of no further deannexations in 1968. . . . ” Tr. 343. This new 
policy, the Court now infers, was based on racial animus, a 
desire to keep the black percentage in PCSSD down.

In fact, the PCSSD Board voted, on May 14, 1968 (and 
LRSD now concedes this) in favor of the concept of consolida­
tion with LRSD. Floyd Parsons, Superintendent of LRSD 
from 1962 to 1971, confirms that during his time in office 
PCSSD, the poorer district, consistently sought consolida­
tion. It was LRSD that opposed it, and not for racial 
reasons, either, but simply because it did not want to take on 
the additional financial responsibility of educating PCSSD’s 
students. Tr. 1131-32 (testimony of Mr. Parsons, called by 
LRSD).5 It is true, therefore, that no deannexations have 
taken place since 1968, but to blame this on PCSSD’s desire 
not to increase its black student percentage is not plausible.

5 Mr. Parsons also testified that he knew of no movement of 
white students from LRSD to PCSSD. Tr. 1142.



A-71

3. In many other respects, however, PCSSD has fallen 
short of its constitutional obligations, or at least the District 
Court has not clearly erred in so finding. It cooperated with 
LRSD and the State in transferring to LRSD the racially 
segregated Granite Mountain housing project (to be discussed 
in more detail later). It is imposing upon black students an 
unfair proportion of the burden of busing for purposes of 
desegregation, it is not meeting its goals for the hiring of 
black teachers, it is assigning black students disproportion­
ately to the classification of educably mentally retarded, and 
it has failed to comply with requirements in the Zinnamon 
decree that a Bi-Racial Committee be established and that 
two black citizens serve as ex officio members of the school 
board. And, perhaps most important for present purposes, 
PCSSD has, in violation of the Zinnamon decree, located 
new schools in white neighborhoods or in places incon­
venient to black students, and maintained a number of 
schools whose racial makeup falls outside the limits specified 
by the decree. These factors, especially the school-siting 
decisions, naturally affect the movement of students and 
families. PCSSD has thus violated not only the Zinnamon 
decree but also the Supreme Court’s direction in the Swann 
case, 402 U.S. at 20-21, that new schools not be located “ in the 
areas of white suburban expansion, farthest from Negro 
population centers.”

I believe these factors are having a substantial current 
interdistrict effect. The record contains expert testimony, 
and it is not implausible, that these constitutional violations, 
considered together, are making PCSSD “whiter” and LRSD 
“blacker” than they otherwise would have been. I have 
indicated why I do not believe that PCSSD’s violations have 
actually caused any substantial degree of white movement 
from LRSD to PCSSD, or of black movement out of PCSSD. 
But another kind of movement— that of families coming 
from outside the entire Pulaski County area— has, I believe, 
been substantially influenced. (This sort of movement was 
referred to by one of the experts as “ white overflight.” ) The 
pro-white emanations that PCSSD has given off over a



A-72

period of years, if I may use such a metaphor, have, it seems, 
been a substantial factor attracting white parents, especially 
since those parents could, as the lines are now drawn, move 
into PCSSD without being outside the City of Little Rock. 
The boundary change ordered by the Court (making LRSD 
and the City coterminous) would make LRSD 60% black and 
40% white, ante at 27, instead of 70% black and 30% white. 
This 10% change seems a fair approximation of what the 
racial percentages would have been absent the influence of 
PCSSD’s violations. I therefore concur in the Court’s deci­
sion to adjust the LRSD-PCSSD boundary line to this extent.

B.

The Court holds that the State of Arkansas has committed 
constitutional violations that are producing substantial 
interdistrict effects. It therefore awards interdistrict relief 
against the State, in the person of the State Board of Educa­
tion. I quite agree that the State of Arkansas has been, in 
this field, a persistent violator of constitutional rights. I 
cannot agree that these violations (with one exception) are 
responsible for the racial disparity now existing between 
PCSSD and LRSD, or that they justify (again with an 
exception) interdistrict relief against the State.

1. The Court recounts in detail the manifold sins and 
omissions of the State of Arkansas in this field. There is no 
point in denying the history set out in the Court’s opinion. 
In particular, for many years the State, although professing 
adherence to the “separate but equal” doctrine that was then 
the law of the land, in fact maintained schools that were 
separate and unequal, and the black people of the State bore 
the brunt of this inequality. Furthermore, from 1954 on, the 
Executive and Legislative Branches of State government set 
their faces like a flint against the law, covering themselves 
and the State with dishonor.6 But what is the present legal

6 On the other hand, the whole picture, fairly considered, is 
not so gloomy as the Court implies. Plaintiff’s own expert

(footnote continued on next page)



A-73

relevance of these facts? To the extent that any individual 
school district (including the three in Pulaski County) is not 
fully desegregated, the State is at least partly responsible 
and should pay the price. It has been 31 years since Brown 
was decided, but centuries of inequality are not so soon 
dissipated. There is no showing whatever, however, and no 
claim, that the State has caused any school-district boundary 
lines to be drawn or maintained for racial reasons. Much of 
the history that the Court details, therefore, is simply irrele­
vant to the question of interdistrict relief in the present case.

2. The point is made that the State Board of Education 
is, by statute, given extensive powers, including general 
supervision over all public schools in the state, Ark. Stat. 
Ann. § 80-113, and the approval of plans and expenditures of 
public-school funds for new school buildings, Ark. Stat. Ann. 
§§ 80-113, 80-3506. These statutes have never been inter­
preted to give the State Board of Education the sort of wide- 
ranging supervisory power this Court attributes to it. 
Instead, local school boards, except for certain legal and 
financial aspects of their operations, have been almost com­
pletely autonomous. See Ark. Stat. Ann. § 80-509, listing in 
comprehensive detail the powers of local boards. Decisions, 
for example, as to where to locate schools have always been 
treated as the prerogative of local boards. They have chosen 
the sites, Tr. 776, and the State Board of Education has never 
claimed the authority to overrule a district’s decision on 
where to build a school, Tr. 788. Rather, the statement in 
§ 80-113 that the State Board shall “approve plans and 
expenditures of public school funds for all new school build­
ings” has been interpreted to authorize the State Board to 
review local decisions only to make sure that plans meet 
recognized construction standards and that proposed

(footnote continued from  preceding page)

witness on the history of school desegregation in Pulaski 
County testified that “Little Rock a few years after 1959 was 
far more integrated.. .than many cities in the North where I 
grew up.” Tr. 103.



A-74

methods of financing are legally and fiscally sound under the 
statutes of the State limiting school districts’ bonded debt. 
Tr. 775. Both the State Board and local school districts have 
so construed the statute at least since 1931. There is no 
evidence that the State Board has ever purported to review 
school-siting decisions, either for desegregation or for any 
other purposes. It is therefore unfair to blame the State for 
PCSSD’s violations of the siting provisions of the Zinnamon 
decree.

It is true, as the Court says, that the State Board of Educa­
tion’s efforts to assist and encourage desegregation have been 
too little and too late (though I suspect that it is entitled to 
somewhat more credit than the Court gives it).7 But again, 
what is the relevance of this fact to the specific interdistrict 
relief contended for in the present case? If the State Board of 
Education had diligently fulfilled its duty to encourage deseg­
regation, would the boundary line between LRSD and PCSSD 
be located in a different place from where it now is? Would the 
racial distribution of students between those two districts be 
different from what it now is? I do not believe that the record 
supports any definite answer to these questions. I repeat that 
the State’s defaults would fully justify compelling it to par­
ticipate in an iwb-adistrict remedy. But that is not what this 
case, at least primarily, is about.

7 In 1966, for example, the State Board did create a specific 
position to work with local boards in the desegregation process. 
This position was paid for out of the State’s own funds, not 
federal funds. Tr. 784-785. The State did not apply for federal 
desegregation funds. Instead, the Arkansas Technical Assist­
ance Center, a private organization sponsored by Ouachita Bap­
tist University, applied for and received Title V federal funds to 
assist school districts in desegregating. “ The decision was 
made . . . that those funds could be expended probably more 
efficiently if it were in any agency . . . that was not subject to 
politics and pressures.” Tr. 804. The State Board of Education 
“cooperated very closely with the Center at Ouachita.” Tr. 805.



A-75

3. There are certain specific respects, however, in which 
the State of Arkansas, with a racially discriminatory motive, 
actually assisted in the movement of school children across 
district lines. During the school year 1958-59, the schools in 
LRSD were closed, and many children from Little Rock 
attended segregated schools in PCSSD. The State paid at 
least part of the cost of these transfers, and I am willing to 
assume that many more white students than black benefited 
from this action. Shameful as it was, I cannot see that this 
episode has any continuing, current effect on the distribution 
of students as between LRSD and PCSSD. The LRSD 
schools reopened in the fall of 1959, and there is no evidence 
that students who attended school elsewhere in 1958-59 did 
not return to LRSD when they could. I would, however, on 
the basis of this history, agree that the State should pay for 
any voluntary majority-to-minority transfers between 
PCSSD and LRSD. That would be a fair recompense for 
what it did in the late fifties.

The Court suggests that the racial turmoil created by the 
State in LRSD in 1957 and the years immediately following 
has increased the percentage of black students in the district. 
It says, for example, that “ the active intervention of the 
state was a central factor in delaying desegregation of the 
Little Rock schools until 1973, and in contributing to the 
increasing concentration of blacks in LRSD.” Ante at 22-23. 
With the first part of this statement I can agree completely, 
but the second part seems to me a non sequitur. The idea that 
“ state-created racial turmoil in LRSD in the 1950’s fostered 
substantial white flight from LRSD to PCSSD and 
NLRSD,” ante at 23 n.8, seems completely counterintuitive. 
It would be much more plausible to infer that the State’s 
efforts to maintain segregation in LRSD made it more likely 
for whites, once the schools had been reopened, to remain 
there. Even were it correct that pro-segregation turmoil of 
the late 1950’s somehow fostered white flight, this phenome­
non ended long before the 1973 implementation of desegrega­
tion and could at most account for the increase in the 
percentage of black students to 48%, which was the black



A-76

percentage in LRSD in 1973. See Clark v. Board ofEduc. of the 
Little Rock School District, 705 F.2d 265, 267 (8th Cir. 1983).

4. In one other respect, however, I believe the Court 
properly attributes interdistrict liability to the State. Hous­
ing authorities are creatures of the State, existing by virtue 
of statute, and the Little Rock Housing Authority clearly 
maintained and fostered racial segregation. In some cases, it 
might be unfair to award interdistrict relief against school 
districts on the basis of housing violations. A “school case, 
like a vehicle, can carry only a limited amount of baggage. 
Swann, 402 U.S. at 24.” Bradley v. School Board of the City of 
Richmond, Virginia, 462 F.2d 1058, 1066 (4th Cir. 1972), aff’d 
by an equally divided Court, 412 U.S. 92 (1973). But here, 
PCSSD, LRSD, and the State legislature all cooperated with 
the Little Rock Housing Authority in respect of the Granite 
Mountain Housing Project, a segregated black project con­
structed in 1953. At that time, territory in which the hous­
ing project was to be located was transferred by a special act 
of the General Assembly from PCSSD to LRSD. The school 
districts and the State were thus directly involved in a 
transfer of territory on which a segregated housing project 
was to be built, a fact that they must have known.

This was a clear interdistrict violation, and an appropriate 
remedy should be devised to cure it. The Court, ante at 59, 
directs that the Granite Mountain area be retransferred to 
PCSSD, and leaves to the District Court on remand to deter­
mine “ the precise boundaries of . . . the area that was impacted 
by the 1953 deannexation of land from PCSSD to LRSD.” 
Ibid. I agree that this remedy, or some substantial equivalent 
to be selected by the District Court, see ibid., is appropriate.

III.

In sum, this Court properly affirms, as not clearly errone­
ous, the District Court’s findings of intradistrict violations on 
the part of PCSSD. These violations, as well as those com­
mitted by NLRSD, should be corrected. In the main,



A-77

intradistriet relief, in which the State Board of Education 
should be made to share, should be adequate for this purpose. 
I also believe that an interdistrict violation by PCSSD, 
LRSD, and the State has been made out in respect of the 
location of the Granite Mountain Housing Project, and that 
PCSSD’s other violations justify the boundary change 
ordered by the Court. As to the State Board of Education, 
however, I would not grant any interdistrict relief, except 
with respect to the funding of voluntary student transfers 
and the retransfer of the Granite Mountain area. From the 
extensive additional relief granted against the State, and 
from the remaining remedial details ordered by this Court, I 
respectfully dissent.

JOHN R. GIBSON, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and 
dissenting in part, joined by FAGG, Circuit Judge.

Although I agree with much of what the court does today, 
I do not believe there is sufficient evidence in the record to 
support that part of the court’s decision requiring that the 
boundary lines of the City of Little Rock and the LRSD be 
made coterminous. Therefore, I respectfully dissent. Fur­
thermore, while I agree with nearly all of Judge Arnold’s 
persuasive discussion and reasoning, I believe that his opin­
ion likewise fails to demonstrate that there has been suf­
ficient proof of significant interdistrict segregative effects to 
justify realigning the boundaries of the LRSD and the City 
of Little Rock.

The record makes plain, and I fully concur in the court’s 
conclusion, that there have been substantial and in fact 
egregious intradistriet constitutional violations as a result of 
segregative acts on the part of the NLRSD and the PCSSD, 
the effects of which must be remedied. I also agree with the 
court’s conclusion that the record does not reveal sufficient 
interdistrict segregative effects to justify consolidation of the 
three districts.



A-78

I further agree with the court today that the Granite 
Mountain transfer, which occurred in 1953, had an interdis­
trict segregative effect. However, I believe that the current 
effects of this violation are not clearly delineated either in 
the district court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law, or 
in this court’s conclusions today. Contrary to the court’s 
decision today, as well as Judge Arnold’s views, I believe 
that this issue should be remanded to the district court for 
more precise and specific findings as to the current interdis­
trict segregative effect of the 1953 transfer, and for consider­
ation of an appropriate remedy tailored to the constitutional 
violation that is found to exist.

My chief concern with the opinion of the court is that it 
reads too broadly the principles which govern the federal 
equitable remedial power in Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 
(1974) (Milliken 1). Judge Arnold, while recognizing these 
principles and cogently pointing out the manner in which 
the court misapplied them, improperly relies upon his own 
factual conclusions based on an overly generous interpreta­
tion of the record to justify the remedy ordered today.

Milliken I  established that an interdistrict remedy is appro­
priate only upon a showing of “a constitutional violation 
within one district that produces a significant segregative 
effect in another district;” specifically, that “racially dis­
criminatory acts . . .  have been a substantial cause of interdis­
trict segregation.” Id. at 744-45. Further, an interdistrict 
remedy is appropriate only “ to eliminate the interdistrict 
segregation directly caused by the constitutional violation.” 
Id. at 745 (emphasis added). Two courts of appeals have read 
this language to require clear proof of cause and effect of a 
constitutional violation and a careful delineation of the extent 
of the effect before an interdistrict remedy may be involved. 
In Lee v. Lee County Board of Education, 639 F.2d 1243,1256 (5th 
Cir. 1981), the court stated:

We believe the Court’s deliberate choice of phrases 
such as “ substantial” or “direct cause” and “ signifi­
cant segregative effect” also expresses an insistence



A-79

that in cases where an interdistrict remedy is 
requested, there must be clear proof of cause and 
effect and a careful delineation of the extent of the 
effect. In the absence of such a showing, school 
district lines are to be carefully observed and deseg­
regation remedies confined to orders affecting the 
school district in which the condition of segregation 
is manifest.

Accord Goldsboro City Board of Education v. Wayne County 
Board of Education, 745 F.2d 324, 332 (4th Cir. 1984).

The Fifth Circuit also emphasized in Lee that there must 
be “a substantial, direct and current segregative effect,” 639 
F.2d at 1260 (emphasis in original), before an interdistrict 
remedy may be ordered. This argument is persuasive, for a 
remedy cannot be tailored to correct a condition, Milliken I, 
418 U.S. at 738, unless it currently offends the Constitution. 
As the court stated in Milliken I: “ A federal remedial power 
may be exercised ‘only on the basis of a constitutional viola­
tion’ and, ‘[a]s with any equity case, the nature of the 
violation determines the scope of the remedy.’ ” Id. at 738 
(quoting Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 
402 U.S. 11, 16 (1971)). The Court reemphasized this impor­
tant limitation on the federal remedial power in General 
Building Contractors v. Pennsylvania, 458 U.S. 375, 399 (1982), 
in which it cautioned that a remedial decree should “ extend 
no farther than required by the nature and the extent of that 
violation.”

It is also well to observe before we turn to specific issues 
that the court today adopts its own remedy, which has not 
been addressed by the parties in their arguments or briefs, 
and which differs substantially from that ordered by the 
district court. The findings of fact necessary to support this 
court’s remedy simply do not exist. Specifically, there is no 
finding by the district court of a current segregative effect to 
support the conclusion that the boundaries of the City of 
Little Rock and LRSD be made coterminous.



A-80

The court, to support that portion of its discussion mandat­
ing that the boundary of the City of Little Rock and the 
LRSD be coterminous, simply catalogs a portion of the dis­
trict court’s findings in a footnote. See ante at 59 n.20. It 
must be observed, however, that the court, at least with 
respect to the district court’s findings on student assign­
ments, special education, transportation, and employment of 
faculty and administrators, simply has enumerated intradis­
trict violations that may require intradistrict remedies 
within the PCSSD. Neither this court’s nor the district 
court’s opinion indicates in any way that these irteradistrict 
violations manifested an interdistrict effect.

Similarly, neither the opinion of this court nor the record 
from the district court reveals the conduct of the PCSSD 
which has resulted in the lack of low income housing in the 
PCSSD. The only exception with respect to public housing is 
the evidence concerning the Granite Mountain deannexation 
in 1953 and the role that the PCSSD may have played at 
that time.

The court also relies on violations relating to school sitings 
to justify an interdistrict remedy. These violations which 
are discussed at some detail in the court’s opinion involve 
decisions by the PCSSD to build some twelve schools away 
from the centers of black population. This, it is argued, 
served to attract whites to the outlying areas, resulting in a 
number of schools with over 90% white enrollment. This is 
a weak foundation for the remedy the court today orders. 
Adjusting the boundaries of the PCSSD and the LRSD so 
that the latter are coterminous with Little Rock city limits 
will not affect the twelve schools in question, which are 
located far from the city limits. There simply is no indica­
tion in the record that the suspect school sitings had any 
impact on the schools within the Little Rock city limits that, 
as a result of the court’s decision today, will now be turned 
over to the LRSD.

Judge Arnold’s opinion treats in detail what interdistrict 
effects might result from the history of annexations and



A-81

deannexations. The district court’s order stressed the freez­
ing of the boundaries. The court today emphasizes testimony 
that “ the boundaries hardened],” ante at 28, and were “main­
tained to keep the LRSD predominantly black and the 
PCSSD predominantly white,” and concludes that these 
manipulations had a substantial interdistrict segregative 
effect. Admittedly there was expert testimony to support 
this conclusion. The court relies heavily on Dr. Dentler’s 
testimony that beginning in 1968 the board of PCSSD 
refused to modify its boundaries. Ante at 30. To the con­
trary, the United States argued that PCSSD has not refused 
a single deannexation petition since it allegedly froze its 
boundaries. In its brief, LRSD attempts to refute this argu­
ment and support the theory that the PCSSD intentionally 
froze its boundaries:

The record reveals, however, on 4/13/65 the 
PCSSD notified the adjacent Bryant and Cabot 
school districts that it would not accept any more 
black students. PX 10. The minutes further reveal 
the county refused to meet with LRSD officials to 
discuss consolidation on 5/14/68, and refused 
NLRSD’s attempt to annex the Spring Hill area on 
4/8/69. Further, informal efforts of the LRSD to 
discuss cooperative interdistrict agreements failed.

Brief for Appellee at 56.

After argument, this court specifically inquired as to the 
record support for these statements. LRSD answered that 
the first sentence had no record support. As to the second 
sentence, it answered that the PCSSD board had, on May 14, 
1968, voted in favor of consolidation with LRSD.1 On this 
critical point, therefore, LRSD simply was forced to admit 
that its argument had collapsed. This collapse not only 
removes the factual underpinnings from Dr. Dentler’s opin­
ion, but makes it directly contrary to the evidence. Judge *

'The informal efforts referred to in the last sentence occurred 
in a later period, shortly before the filing of this action.



A-82

Arnold is correct in his conclusion that “ it is true . . . that no 
deannexations have taken place since 1968, but to blame this 
on PCSSD’s desire not to increase its black student 
percentage is not plausible.” Ante at 70. On the record before 
us, I can only conclude that the district court’s finding that 
the PCSSD intentionally “ froze” or “ hardened” its bounda­
ries, which the court today accepts, is contrary to the 
evidence, and thus is clearly erroneous.

The only other support for the court’s order today is “ the 
pre- and post-Brown interdistrict transfers and the other 
historical violations with continuing effect.” Ante at 59 n.20. 
Absent a more specific demonstration of the continuing 
effects of historical violations, see ante at 73 (Arnold, J., 
concurring and dissenting), I believe that this evidentiary 
foundation, as well as the entire stated basis for the court’s 
remedy, fails to meet the standards of Milliken I and the 
clarifying interpretation of those standards in Lee and 
Goldsboro.

To Judge Arnold’s credit, he squarely faces the weak­
nesses of the court’s opinion. His further observations on the 
support for making the boundaries of LRSD and the City of 
Little Rock coterminous deserve further comment.

From the decisions of the PCSSD locating schools in areas 
of white suburban expansion farthest from black population 
centers, Judge Arnold argues “ I believe these factors are 
having a substantial current interdistrict effect.” Ante at 71. 
He argues that the movement of families from outside the 
entire Pulaski County area to areas within the City of Little 
Rock also within the PCSSD has been substantially 
influenced by the unconstitutional siting decisions, causing a 
phenomenon labeled “ white overflight.” It must be observed 
that Judge Arnold does not point to any “ substantial 
evidence” proving this “ significant segregative effect,” Mil­
liken /, 418 U.S. at 744-45, or as expressed in Lee, “ clear proof 
of cause and effect and a careful delineation of the extent of 
the effect.” 639 F.2d at 1256. Rather, he relies upon belief. 
Such beliefs do not, within the limitations of our judicial



A-83

power, serve as an appropriate consideration in reviewing 
the order before us. Judge Arnold makes no effort to deter­
mine whether there are findings of the district court which 
support these conclusions. There simply are none. The 
imprecise nature of his conclusions and his departure from 
the principles of Milliken, are best evidenced by his conclu­
sion that the ten percent change in racial makeup which 
results from realigning the LRSD’s boundaries “ seems a fair 
approximation of what the racial percentages would have 
been absent the influence of PCSSD’s violations.” Ante at 72. 
Thus, his vigorous effort to support the court’s conclusion 
ultimately rests on speculation, belief, and fair approxima­
tion, and not upon the principles of Milliken I which must 
guide us.

Judge Arnold’s final observation conclusively demon­
strates the tenuous nature of his conclusion. He points to 
“pro-white emanations” that PCSSD has given off over a 
period of years as a factor which has attracted white parents 
into the PCSSD areas within the City of Little Rock. There 
is no indication as to the record source of these emanations. I 
have substantial question whether such subjectively 
perceived emanations are sufficiently palpable to make the 
showing required by Milliken I or to constitute the clear proof 
of cause and effect which Lee and Goldsboro correctly hold to 
be necessary.

Judge Arnold’s particular approach to these issues must 
rely upon his own findings. This is contrary to the Supreme 
Court’s teaching in Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 105 S. 
Ct. 1504, 1510-11 (1985), that the trial judge must play the 
principal role in the determination of facts.

A final observation is in order. The court stretches might­
ily to find a basis for making the boundaries of the City of 
Little Rock and the LRSD coterminous. This result will 
make the LRSD 60 percent black and 40 percent white. 
However, one most significant factor has been omitted from 
this equation. In 1980 there were 3,632 white students 
enrolled in private schools located in the LRSD, 2,794 white



A-84

students enrolled in private schools in PCSSD, and 1,086 
white students enrolled in private schools in the NLRSD. In 
the LRSD alone, if the white students in private schools 
attended public schools, the district would be approximately 
52 percent rather than 69 percent black. Another significant 
factor which is not taken into account is that the number of 
white students in private schools in LRSD increased by more 
than 1,000 between 1970 and 1980 and the number of white 
students in private schools in PCSSD increased by more than 
1,700 during the same time period. It is evident from the 
sharp increase in enrollment in private schools in these ten 
years, and the impact of these numbers on the total student 
population, that private choice is having a far greater segre­
gative effect than those factors the court points to in its 
opinion today.2 This is a factor, however, that at present, 
and in all likelihood in the future, will pose a significant 
impediment to any effort to achieve desegregation within 
any of the three school districts.

One of the great failings of the court’s opinion, as well as 
that of the district court order, is the failure to address in 
other than a most speculative way demographic factors, such

2 The private school problem seems to be an untouchable issue 
that none of the parties has evidenced any interest in address­
ing. It may well be that a substantial portion of the enrollment 
is in religious and parochial schools. From figures furnished to 
the court by the parties based upon publications of the state of 
Arkansas, however, there are nearly 3,000 students in the Little 
Rock area who attend private schools seemingly having no 
religious affiliation. There simply is no record before us to 
determine whether some of this enrollment is pretext for avoid­
ing the impact of desegregation or springs from other motives. 
We do observe, however, that racial discrimination in private 
schools, including those with a religious affiliation, is deeply 
contrary to public policy, Bob Jones University v. United States, 
461 U.S. 574, 595 & n.32 (1983), and that schools which are 
shown to employ discriminatory practices will be barred from 
enjoying the governmental privileges accorded their nondis- 
criminatory counterparts. Id. at 595-96.



A-85

as population movement and birth rate, common to major 
metropolitan centers, that have significant impact on the 
school problems in this and other communities. Pasadena 
City Board of Education v. Spangler, 427 U.S. 424, 436 (1966); 
see also Bradley v. School Board of City of Richmond, 462 F. 2d 
1058, 1066 (4th Cir. 1972), aff’d mem. by an equally divided 
court, 412 U.S. 92 (1973).

I would remand the case to the district court only for 
further consideration of appropriate relief for intradistrict 
constitutional violations and for further consideration of the 
current segregative effect resulting from the Granite 
Mountain deannexation and for consideration of an appropri­
ate remedy tailored to correct any such violation.

PASCO M. 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 interdistriet relief.

Second, I do not agree with the thrust of footnote 2 of 
Judge Gibson’s opinion, ante at 84. 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



A-86

country, however, the motives of individual parents in opt­
ing to send their children to private school rather than 
public school will remain none of the law’s concern.

A true copy.
Attest:

CLERK, U.S. COURT OF APPEALS, EIGHTH CIRCUIT.



A-87

No. LR-C-82-866 
In The

United §tates district (Eourt
Eastern District of A rkansas 

W estern Division

LITTLE ROCK SCHOOL DISTRICT,
Plaintiff,

v.
PULASKI COUNTY SPECIAL SCHOOL 
DISTRICT No. 1, et al,

Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

I. DESEGREGATION LITIGATION IN THE 
THREE DISTRICTS

A. The Little Rock School District
Nothing better illustrates the failure of the separate but 

equal doctrine1 than the school situation in Pulaski County, 
Arkansas in 1930. There were 2500 black students in the 
Pulaski County School District, which embraced all of Pulaski 
County outside Little Rock and North Little Rock. Twelve of 
these students were attending senior high school. Eight were 
in the tenth grade, four in the eleventh and none in the twelfth. 
There was one black high school (if such it could be called)— 
the Pulaski County Training School. (PX 52) One of the 
justifications for this shocking fact was “any residents of the 
County who might want a ‘city school education’ would find 
the school systems of Little Rock and North Little Rock in easy

1 Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896).



A-88

reach.” (PX52) This statement was partially true, since Little 
Rock’s Dunbar High School, which opened in 1930 with a 1600 
student capacity, was “ considered at that time the most 
modern and complete public high school building in the 
United States created specifically for negroes.” (PX 52) 
Dunbar contained “ thirty-four classrooms, physics, chemistry 
and biology laboratories, a library with 8,000 volumes, a com­
mercial department, a foods laboratory, an auditorium and 
stage with modern lighting equipment, three clothing labora­
tories, a cafeteria, a laundry, and shops for carpentry, wood­
work, plumbing, electricity, automobile mechanics, brick 
laying, and printing.” (PX 52)

It is quite understandable that ambitious black students 
from Pulaski County and North Little Rock and indeed from 
the far corners of Arkansas would make a pilgrimage to 
Dunbar. The sad fact is that in few localities in Arkansas 
were blacks furnished a decent and acceptable high school 
education. Dr. Leroy M. Christophe, former principal of 
Dunbar and retired principal of Howard High School in 
Wilmington, Delaware, testified how he came to Little Rock 
from his family home at Forrest City, one hundred miles 
distant, to get a high school education in the Little Rock 
School District since none was available in his home com­
munity. (T. 17-19) Going to Gibbs High School, the predeces­
sor to Dunbar and located on the same site, was described by 
Dr. Christophe in these terms: “ Well, in those days every­
body knew that— well, we used to call the schools in Little 
Rock ‘Heavenly Schools’ because everybody wanted to 
go— it’s kind of like going to heaven, you know. I mean, 
when you’re a child, when we were children everybody 
looked forward to something good, and so we all looked 
forward to what we called ‘Heavenly Schools’ over here in 
Little Rock, Arkansas.”

A study published in 1941 referred to the “ influx of stu­
dents to Dunbar from neighboring sections . . . drawn to 
Little Rock because of inferior educational facilities in their 
own towns.” (PX 52) In 1938-39 Little Rock was spending



A-89

$39.54 for each black pupil, North Little Rock, $16.33, and 
Pulaski County, $13.74. (PX 52) From the 1938-39 school 
year until the 1946-47 school year, no more than three 
percent of all black students in the Pulaski County School 
District were enrolled in high school as compared to 9-12 
percent in North Little Rock and 12-16 percent in Little 
Rock. (PX 52)

During this period schools in Arkansas were evaluated in 
descending order as follows. The highest rating was an 
accreditation by the North Central Association followed by 
an (A), (B) and (C) rating by the State Department of Educa­
tion. An unaccredited school was given an (X) (T. 160; PX 
52). As late as 1950 Dunbar High School in the Little Rock 
School District was the only black high school in Pulaski 
County with a North Central accreditation. Jones High 
School in North Little Rock had a (B) rating in 1940 and an 
(A) rating in 1950. The Pulaski County District in 1950 had 
two black high schools— Pulaski County Training School at 
McAlmont and J. C. Cook at Wrightsville. The former had a 
(C) rating and the latter an (X) or unaccredited rating. 
(PX 52)

Before Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), the 
only way a black student living outside the Little Rock 
School District could get a high school education from a 
North Central accredited school was to find some way to gain 
access to Dunbar High School or its predecessor, Gibbs High 
School. Fortunately, these schools did not look askance at 
the residence of those who appeared at their doors. Some like 
Dr. Christophe came from Forrest City (T. 17). Some like 
Mrs. Annie Abrams came from Arkadelphia (PX 52). Some 
came from North Little Rock and many came from the 
Pulaski County School District, which had not even the 
semblance of an accredited black high school.

As far as the education of blacks was concerned, school 
district boundaries in Pulaski County were ignored. There 
was interdistrict cooperation in the time period between the 
two World Wars as to busing and student transfers. The



A-90

latter were freely made, both formally and informally, the 
largest volume being from the Pulaski County Special 
School District to the Little Rock and North Little Rock 
School Districts.

It cannot be seriously denied that the Little Rock School 
District’s maintenance of the only North Central accredited 
black high school in the County and indeed in the entire area 
led to a concentration of blacks in this district. For almost 
half a century it has not only assumed the burden of giving 
a quality education to blacks in the County and from far 
corners of the State but has also been the object of racially 
motivated attacks by certain political and cultural groups.

Two years after the Brown decision, an amendment to the 
Arkansas Constitution was adopted which disinterred the 
discredited doctrine of nullification (and which still remains 
as Amendment 44). Section 1 of this amendment, sponsored 
by the political leadership of this state, reads as follows:

From and after the Adoption of this Amendment, 
the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas 
shall take appropriate action and pass laws oppos­
ing in every Constitutional manner the Un-Consti­
tutional [sic] desegregation decisions of May 17,
1954 and May 31, 1955 of the United States 
Supreme Court, including interposing the sover­
eignty of the State of Arkansas to the end of nullifi­
cation of these and all deliberate, palpable and 
dangerous invasions of or encroachments upon 
rights and powers not delegated to the United 
States nor prohibited to the States by the Constitu­
tion of the United States and Amendments thereto, 
and those rights and powers reserved to the States 
and to the People thereof by any department, com­
mission, officer, or employee of such department or 
commission of the Government of the United 
States, or of any government of any Nation or 
Federation of Nations acting upon the apparent 
authority granted them by or assumed by them



A-91

from the Government of the United States. Said 
opposition shall continue steadfast until such time 
as such Un-Constitutional [sic] invasions or 
encroachments shall have abated or shall have rec­
tified, or the same shall be transformed into an 
Amendment to the Constitution of the United 
States and adopted by action of three-fourths of the 
States as provided therein.

The spirit and letter of this amendment was invoked against 
the Little Rock School District when in September, 1957 it 
sought to admit nine black students to Central High School 
in conformity with an order of this court based upon Brown 
v. Board of Education, supra. Their entrance was barred by 
National Guardsmen on order of Governor Orval Faubus. 
The Little Rock School Board had formally stated its inten­
tion to comply with Brown three days after that decision was 
rendered: “ It is our responsibility to comply with Federal 
Constitutional Requirements and we intend to do so when 
the Supreme Court of the United States outlines the method 
to be followed.” Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1, 7 (1958).

The tragic history of the Central High case is recited by 
the Supreme Court in Cooper v. Aaron, supra, pp. 8-12. After 
adopting the above statement of policy, the Board instructed 
the Superintendent of Schools, Virgil Blossom, to prepare a 
plan for desegregation, which was approved on May 24, 1955, 
seven days before the Supreme Court’s second opinion in 
Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U.S. 294 (1955). Desegrega­
tion of the Little Rock schools would begin at senior high 
level and would be progressively extended downward. “ Fol­
lowing the adoption of this plan, the Superintendent of 
Schools discussed it with a large number of citizen groups in 
the City. As a result of these discussions, the Board reached 
the conclusion that ‘a large majority of residents’ of Little 
Rock were of ‘the belief .. . that the Plan, although objection­
able in principle,’ from the point of view of those supporting 
segregated schools ‘was still the best for the interests of all 
pupils in the District.’ ” Id. at 8. The plan was upheld in the



A-92

District Court2 and the Court of Appeals.3 There was no 
appeal from these judgments to the Supreme Court. “ While 
the School Board was thus going forward with its prepara­
tion for desegregating the Little Rock school system, other 
state authorities, in contrast, were actively pursuing a pro­
gram designed to perpetuate in Arkansas the system of 
racial segregation which this court had held violated the 
Fourteenth Amendment.” Id. at 8. The Legislature in 1957 
enacted and Governor Faubus signed a pupil assignment 
law, a statute relieving school children from compulsory 
attendance at racially mixed schools, and a statute establish­
ing a state sovereignty Commission, which was given the 
broadest possible powers to:

(a) Perform any and all acts and things deemed 
necessary and proper to protect the sovereignty of 
the State of Arkansas, and her sister states from 
encroachment thereon by the Federal Government 
or any branch, department or agency thereof, and 
to resist the usurpation of the rights and powers 
reserved to this State or our sister states by the 
Federal Government or any branch, department or 
agency thereof.

(d) Give such advice and provide such legal 
assistance as the Commission considers necessary or 
expedient, when requested in writing to do so by 
resolution adopted by the governing authority of 
any school district, upon matters, whether involv­
ing civil or criminal litigation or otherwise, relat­
ing to the commingling [sic] of races in the public 
schools of the State; such advice and legal assist­
ance to be rendered under such rules and regula­
tions as the Commission may adopt.

2Aaron v. Cooper, 143 F.Supp. 855.
3Aaron v. Cooper, 243 F.2d 361 (1957).



A-93

(e) Study and collect information concerning eco­
nomic, social and legal development constituting 
deliberate, palpable and dangerous invasions of or 
encroachments upon the rights and powers of the 
State reserved to the State under Amendment 
Number Ten to the Constitution of the United 
States.

The Little Rock School District nevertheless continued 
with preparations to carry out its desegregation program. 
Nine black children out of two thousand students were 
scheduled for admission upon the opening of school in 
September, 1957. However, these plans met “with drastic 
opposing action on the part of the Governor of Arkansas who 
dispatched units of the Arkansas National Guard to the 
Central High School grounds and placed the school ‘off 
limits’ to colored students. As found by the District Court in 
subsequent proceedings, the Governor’s participation had not 
been requested by the school authorities and was entirely 
unheralded.” 358 U.S. at 9.

When the children attempted to enter Central High School 
on September 4, 1957, units of the Arkansas National Guard 
“acting pursuant to the Governor’s order stood shoulder to 
shoulder .. . and thereby forcibly prevented the nine . . . from 
entering... . They did not prevent any white students from 
entering the school.” Aaron v. Cooper, 156 F.Supp. 220, 225 
(E.D. Ark. 1957). This outrageous conduct in direct violation of 
a lawful order of this court, never reversed or modified on 
appeal, was continued for three weeks. 156 F.Supp. at 225. On 
September 2, 1957 U.S. District Judge Ronald Davies, sitting 
by assignment, enjoined the actions of Faubus and his military 
subordinates “ to protect and preserve the judicial proceedings 
of this Court, to maintain the due and proper administration of 
justice, and to protect the constitutional rights of the minor 
plaintiffs.” Id. at 226. Judge Davies was unanimously 
affirmed by the Court of Appeals. Faubus v. United States, 254 
F.2d at 797 (1958). After the issuance of the injunction, the 
National Guard was withdrawn and on Monday, September



A-94

23,1957 the nine black students entered Central High School in 
the face of a large and unruly crowd, led and encouraged by 
violent extremists many of whom were imported from outside 
the City of Little Rock. The officers on duty had difficulty 
controlling the hostile mob. They advised the Superintendent 
to remove the children from the school, which was done.4 To 
insure the safety of the children and the enforcement of the 
order of the court, President Eisenhower then dispatched 
federal troops to Central High School. They were later 
replaced by federalized National Guardsmen who remained 
throughout the year. Eight of the students remained in 
attendance through the school year, 1957-58.

On June 20, 1958 Judge Harry Lemley granted a two-year 
postponement of the integration plan. Aaron v. Cooper, 163 
F.Supp. 13 (E.D. Ark. 1958). His order was promptly 
reversed by the Court of Appeals on August 18, 1958. The 
opinion by Judge Matthes bespoke the difficulties of the 
Little Rock School District and its Board. “As we have seen, 
they have been constantly harassed; they have met with 
overt opposition from the public, and the legislature through 
passage of the 1957 enactments. The executive department 
of the State of Arkansas has openly opposed their efforts, as 
demonstrated by the Governor’s statement of the official 
policy of the State of Arkansas against integration, followed 
by the use of National Guardsmen to prevent entry of Negro 
students.” Aaron v. Cooper, 257 F.2d 33, 39 (8th Cir. 1958). 
Judge Matthes closed his opinion with a ringing affirmation 
of the rule of law and the absolute necessity for obedience to 
the lawful orders of a court of law by all within its jurisdic­
tion— whether he be a governor, an ordinary citizen, or even 
the President of the United States. “ The issue plainly comes 
down to the question of whether overt public resistance, 
including mob protest, constitutes sufficient cause to nullify 
an order of the federal courts directing the Board to proceed 
with its integration plan. We say the time has not yet come in 
these United States when an order of a Federal Court must he

4 Aaron v. Cooper, 163 F.Supp. 13, 16 (E.D. Ark. 1958).



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whittled away, watered down or shamefully withdrawn in the face 
of violent and unlawful acts of individual citizens in opposition 
thereto. (Emphasis by the Court.) Aaron v. Cooper, 257 F.2d 
33, 40 (8th Cir. 1958).

In its opinion rendered September 12, 1958 affirming the 
Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court quoted with approval a 
pleading filed by the School Board. “The legislative, execu­
tive, and judicial departments of the state government 
opposed the desegregation of Little Rock schools by enacting 
laws, calling out troops, making statements villifying 
federal law and federal courts, and failing to utilize state law 
enforcement agencies and judicial processes to maintain pub­
lic peace.” Aaron v. Cooper, 358 U.S. 1, 15 (1958). After fully 
reviewing the events at Central High School, the Supreme 
Court reaffirmed several basic principles which must never 
be disregarded if this nation is to remain a constitutional 
democracy dedicated to a rule of law:

The constitutional rights of respondents are not to 
be sacrificed or yielded to the violence and disorder 
which have followed upon the actions of the Gover­
nor and Legislature. . . .  In short, the constitutional 
rights of children not to be discriminated against in 
school admission on grounds of race or color 
declared by this Court in the Brown case can 
neither be nullified openly and directly by state 
legislators or state executive or judicial officers, nor 
nullified indirectly by them through evasive 
schemes for segregation whether attempted ‘inge­
niously or ingenuously.’

Article VI of the Constitution makes the Constitu­
tion the ‘supreme Law of the Land.’ In 1803, Chief 
Justice Marshall, speaking for a unanimous Court, 
referring to the Constitution as the ‘the funda­
mental and paramount law of the nation,’ declared 
in the notable case of Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 
137, 177, that ‘It is emphatically the province and 
duty of the judicial department to say what the law



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is.’ This decision declared the basic principle that 
the federal judiciary is supreme in the exposition of 
the law of the Constitution, and that principle has 
ever since been respected by this Court and the 
Country as a permanent and indispensable feature 
of our constitutional system. It follows that the 
interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment 
enunciated by this Court in the Brown case is the 
supreme law of the land, and Art. VI of the Consti­
tution makes it of binding effect on the States ‘any 
Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to 
the Contrary notwithstanding.’ Every state legis­
lator and executive and judicial officer is solemnly 
committed by oath taken pursuant to Art. VI, cl. 3,
‘to support this Constitution.’

No state legislator or executive or judicial officer 
can war against the Constitution without violating 
his undertaking to support it.

358 U.S. 1, 16-18.

While the appeal in the above case was pending and after 
his nomination in the summer primaries of 1958, Governor 
Faubus called a special session of the Legislature to meet in 
August of 1958. At his behest the Legislature passed Act 4 
which authorized him, by proclamation, to close any or all 
public schools within any school district pending a refer­
endum “ for” or “ against” the “ racial integration of all 
schools within the school district.” Act 9 authorized the 
removal by recall of any or all members of local school 
district boards. Act 6 permitted students to transfer to segre­
gated schools across district lines if the schools they 
ordinarily attended were to be desegregated, and by a later 
1959 statute the State of Arkansas picked up the bill for 
these transfers even if they were to private schools. Ark. 
Acts 1959 No. 236.

On September 13, 1958, the day after the Supreme Court 
rendered its decision in Aaron v. Cooper, supra, Faubus issued



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a proclamation closing the four Little Rock High Schools, 
white and black. They remained closed throughout the 1958- 
59 school year. Thus, the education of 3,400 high school 
students in the Little Rock School District was interrupted. 
(PX 65) For many students it was never resumed.

On November 15, 1958 the five moderate members of the 
School Board resigned in frustration, leaving one avowed 
segregationist on the Board, who was elected to Congress in a 
write-in campaign against a popular eight-term Congressman. 
Moderates in Little Rock nominated five candidates for elec­
tion to the School Board at the regular school election on 
December 6, 1958. Three of these were elected, leaving the 
Board equally divided between segregationists and the moder­
ates, whom the Governor branded publicly as “ integration- 
ists.” (PX 65) All three of the latter were prominent, 
conservative businessmen. The three segregationists on the 
Board voted not to renew the contracts of 44 teachers in the 
Little Rock School District whom they described as “ integra- 
tionists or individuals who collaborated with integrationists.” 
(PX 65) Renewal of the contracts required a majority of the 
School Board. Dismissal of these teachers, many of whom 
were the best and most experienced teachers in the district, 
galvanized a few leading citizens into activity and brought into 
being an organization, the Women’s Emergency Committee, 
which would spearhead the movement to retain the dismissed 
teachers and to reopen the schools. The leadership and com­
mitment of this group of dedicated women made possible the 
first victory for the moderate forces since the controversy had 
begun over integration of the Little Rock School District. The 
Women’s Emergency Committee became the active and front­
line component of a broader movement called STOP (Stop This 
Outrageous Purge) which determined to force the teacher 
dismissal issue by recalling the segregationist members of the 
School Board. Thus, a part of the Faubus 1957 legislative 
package would be used to thwart the teacher firing. The 
Governor’s supporters retaliated with petitions to recall those 
on the Board opposed to the teacher dismissals. A coalition 
composed of representatives from the Chamber of Commerce,



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labor, parent-teacher associations and black groups, organized 
and spearheaded by the Women’s Emergency Committee, was 
victorious in the recall election. The segregationists were 
recalled; the moderates were retained. (PX 65) Act 4, the 
school closing legislation, was declared unconstitutional by a 
three-judge federal court on June 18, 1959 and the way was 
thus cleared to reopen the closed schools for the 1959-60 school 
term. Aaron v. McKinley, 173 F.Supp. 944 (E.D. Ark. 1959).

The election of a School Board committed to a rule of law 
did not by any means solve the problems of the Little Rock 
School District. Until January, 1967 it was faced with a 
hostile governor and state administration and an unfriendly 
legislature. As detailed by Judge Matthes in Clark v. Board 
of Education of Little Rock School Dist., 426 F.2d 1035 (8th Cir. 
1970), cert, denied 402 U.S. 952 (1971), a number of desegrega­
tion plans were advanced by the School Board in the decade 
of 1960 in a good faith effort to provide a solution to continu­
ous litigation. Two of the best known plans, one advanced by 
a team of experts from the University of Oregon and the 
other by School Superintendent Floyd Parsons, failed in the 
hysterical political atmosphere of that period. There was, 
however, significant progress in desegregating the Little 
Rock Schools. In the 1969-70 school year Central High 
School, the scene of so much turmoil ten years earlier, had 
1,542 white students and 512 blacks. “ Where before Negro 
teachers were heavily concentrated in those schools long 
identified as Negro, they are now distributed throughout the 
District so that no school has more than 50% Negro teach­
ers.” 426 F.2d at 1041. In 1971 the Court of Appeals 
approved a plan for the desegregation of grades 6 through 12 
in the Little Rock School District. Clark v. Board of Education 
and the Little Rock School District, 449 F.2d 493 (8th Cir. 1971), 
cert, denied 405 U.S. 936 (1971). The School Board plan for 
integration of the elementary grades in the Little Rock 
District was approved with some modification in Clark v. 
Board of Education of Little Rock School District, 465 F.2d 1044 
(8th Cir. 1972), cert, denied 413 U.S. 923 (1973).



A-99

In the most recent decision involving the Little Rock 
School District, the Court of Appeals affirmed Judge 
Overton’s approval of what is known as the “ Partial K-6” 
plan for the elementary grades. Clark v. Board of Education of 
the Little Rock School District, 705 F.2d 265 (8th Cir. 1983). 
This decision has important implications for the case at bar 
and contains significant statistical history with regard to the 
changing racial makeup of the Little Rock School District. 
In the 1973-74 school year 48% of the 21,095 students in the 
Little Rock District were black. By the 1976-77 year the 
percentage had increased to 54%. During the same period 
the range of blacks in the elementary grades had increased 
from 41-77% to 31-90%; in the middle school from 44-58% to 
44-60%; in junior and senior high schools the percentages 
remained fairly constant.

By the fall of 1981, three thousand less students were 
enrolled in the Little Rock School District than in the fall of 
1973. The percentage of black students had increased from 
48% to 65%. Seventy-six percent of the elementary students 
were black, compared to 69% of the intermediate students, 
62% of the junior high students and 55% of the high school 
students. “The district court found that the decline in the 
percentage of white students enrolled in the Little Rock 
public schools could generally be explained by the movement 
of white families from the district to the suburbs, some of 
them to avoid sending their children to integrated schools, 
and by an increase in the black population in the school 
district, caused in part by a higher birth rate in the black 
population.” 705 F.2d at 267. The Court of Appeals noted 
and emphasized the 1980 remark of the school’s Super­
intendent that “ Little Rock is fast becoming a black school 
district.” A team from Stephen F. Austin State University 
was retained to survey the problem. Its December, 1981 
report confirmed the superintendent’s assessment “ that if the 
demographic shifts and white flight continued, the school 
district would have an all-black enrollment within the next 
few years. . . . Black students were being bused to schools in 
which they attended virtually all-black classes. Financial



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support of the schools was eroding, and the public’s con­
fidence in the ability of the public school system to provide 
quality education was decreasing.” 705 F.2d at 271.

The “ Partial K-6” plan was a response to these critical 
problems. It increased black enrollment of four elementary 
schools in black neighborhoods— Carver, Ish, Mitchell and 
Rightsell— to the point where they were virtually all black. 
It reduced blacks in five white or integrated neighborhoods 
and in one school located in a black neighborhood. “ The 
theory behind the adopted plan was that by making these 
changes in enrollment patterns, integrated schools could be 
preserved at least for a time in the six schools listed and in a 
number of other schools in which smaller adjustments were 
made.” 705 F.2d at 270.

The School Board and the Court of Appeals both noted 
that the above steps were only stopgap measures. “ The plan 
as adopted represented the Board’s attempt to temporarily 
reorganize attendance patterns while the School Board pur­
sued longer range plans to ensure an integrated school sys­
tem.” 705 F.2d 265. Significantly the Court alluded to the 
case at bar as such a possible solution, quoting in some detail 
from the relief sought in the complaint.

The Superintendent’s prophecy concerning the racial 
makeup of the Little Rock School District is being rapidly 
realized. Enrollment by race in the District schools for the 
year 1983-84 is shown in Exhibits 1, 2 and 3 to this opinion. 
Exhibit 1 shows the elementary school breakdown of enroll­
ment; Exhibit 2 shows the junior high school enrollment 
breakdown; and Exhibit 3 shows the senior high school 
enrollment breakdown.

As will be later established, there is considerable differ­
ence in the attitude of the Board and staff of the Little Rock 
School District vis-a-vis integration and the attitude of 
defendants. It can be safely said that the former is striving 
mightily to eliminate segregation “ root and branch” from 
the Little Rock schools; efforts of the latter leave much to be



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desired. The Little Rock effort is reflected by its programs, 
policies, resource commitment, and the high percentage of 
black teachers and staff members. Educational opportunities 
for black students are thus provided in many ways that are 
absent in the other systems.

B. The Pulaski County Special School District
There was little or no integration in the Pulaski County 

Special School District until a private desegregation suit was 
filed in 1968. Zinnamon v. Board of Education of the Pulaski 
County Arkansas Special School District, No. LR-68-C-154. As a 
result of this litigation, the District filed a plan for the 1971- 
72 school year which was approved with some modification 
by then District Judge J. Smith Henley. Their plan called 
for integration of staff and faculty and a limited integration 
of four elementary schools, whose enrollment was 12,453 
whites and 2,901 blacks (19%). Under the plan six of the 
twenty-seven schools would be all white. Almost half the 
blacks were concentrated in three schools: College Station 
with 510 blacks and 11 whites; Cook with 463 blacks and 76 
whites; and Scott with 253 blacks and 141 whites. In a 
number of other schools the black minority was far below 
19%. Only one black was projected for Lawson School; 10 at 
Bayou Meto (out of 919); 28 at Landmark (out of 388); 38 at 
Mabelvale (out of 642); 68 at Sylvan Hills (out of 710). With 
reference to the situation in the elementary schools, Judge 
Henley stated “ that more is going to have to be done about 
the elementary schools in the future.” (Mem. Op. p. 5)

The district then operated four senior high schools, two 
junior-senior high schools and seven junior high schools. The 
total projected enrollment for the 1971 school year was 11,000 
with about 9% being black. Under its plan students would 
be assigned to these schools on the basis of geographical 
attendance zones. (PCSSD X 53) Judge Henley found that 
racial balance could not be achieved without a radical redis­
tricting of the secondary school system because “ there are 
simply not enough black secondary students in the district.” 
(Mem. Op. p. 7) An appeal was taken from Judge Henley’s 
decision, which was subsequently dismissed.



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In June, 1973 the parties to this litigation entered into a 
consent decree which, among other things, required:

A. At least six black elementary school principals 
and two black secondary principals.

B. School construction plans which are not 
racially discriminatory.

C. Bi-Racial Committees and the appointment of 
two blacks as ex-officio members of the School 
Board.

D. Use of the criteria found in Swann in the 
construction of new schools.

E. Black teachers to be employed in proportion to 
the ratio of black pupils in the district.

F. The assignment of pupils to various schools so 
that there would be no racially identifible 
schools. (T. 202)

In a number of respects there has not even been minimal 
compliance with the mandates of this decree. The selection of 
sites for new schools built after the entry of the Zinnamon 
decree has been made without any consideration for the impact 
such selection would have on desegregation. The Pulaski 
County Special School District has never made an attempt to 
establish a bi-racial committee as required by the Zinnamon 
decree nor has it complied with the mandate requiring that two 
black citizens elected and selected by the black community 
serve in an ex-officio capacity on its Board of Education. The 
District has never instituted any procedure as required by 
Zinnamon to encourage administrators to structure curricular 
and extracurricular activities to insure the participation of a 
proportionate number of blacks.

Blacks are underrepresented in the central administration 
and in teaching positions in the district. Paragraph 4(e) of 
the Zinnamon decree required that the district operate a 
unified school system so that “ each school would (except one 
or two schools distant from the black community) have a 
black enrollment of not less than ten nor more than twenty-



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five percent.” Ten years after this direct mandate of Judge 
Henley, fifty percent of the schools are not in compliance 
therewith, as admitted by the Superintendent.

In summary, the Pulaski County Special School District 
Board has failed to demonstrate any efforts or intentions to 
comply with the directives of the Zinnamon decree or to 
eliminate the last vestiges of segregation as required by 
Judge Henley’s order.

C. The North Little Rock School District
While desegregation of the Little Rock schools began in 

1957, no effort was made to desegregate the North Little Rock 
schools until the opening of the 1964 term some ten years after 
Brown v. Board of Education, supra was decided. A freedom of 
choice plan adopted in 1965 brought 117 blacks into white 
schools in 1965-66; 468 in 1966-67; 625 in 1967-68; and 712 in
1968- 69. In 1968-69 the total enrollment in the North Little 
Rock School District was 12,879, of which 2,887 were blacks. 
No white student ever expressed a desire to attend a black 
school and none was ever assigned to such a school. Graves v. 
Board of Education of North Little Rock School District, 299 F.Supp. 
843, 846 (E.D. Ark. 1969). In response to litigation by blacks, 
the District came forward with a desegregation plan for the
1969- 70 school year which Judge Henley declined to approve 
since the plan would maintain “ an essentially segregated 
faculty” and a freedom of choice plan which had not “ served to 
disestablish the existing dual elementary school system.” 
Judge Henley noted that there was no reason “ to believe that 
any white 10th or 11th grader will choose to go to Jones High 
School [black].” Id. at 848. The District was directed to file an 
amended plan, which it submitted on May 14, 1969. The 
amended plan for the 20 elementary schools proposed 
attendance zones under which ten of the twenty elementary 
schools would be all white and one all black; of the remaining 
nine schools, six had minorities of four percent or less. Graves 
v. Board of Education of No. Little Rock, Ark. Sch. Dist., 302 
F.Supp. 136,139-140 (E.D. Ark. 1969). Minorities in the other 
three ranged from 11% to 31%. Id. at 140. Judge Henley 
approved the attendance zone plan for one year only and



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warned that “ the Board is ultimately going to have to devise 
another method for assigning elementary students to particu­
lar schools.” Id. at 141. The Board was ordered to completely 
desegregate staff and faculty in the 1970-71 school year. This 
position was substantially maintained by Judge Henley in an 
unpublished opinion rendered in August, 1970. There was an 
appeal to the Court of Appeals which remanded the case to the 
District Court for further consideration in view of a series of 
recent Supreme Court cases.5 The Court was directed to call for 
a new plan no later than August 1, 1971. North Little Rock 
filed a new plan on June 8,1971. Judge Henley questioned the 
sufficiency of this plan and an alternative plan was submitted 
known as the “Storm” plan, named for a member of the Board 
who was its principal author. “ Under it the twenty ele­
mentary schools of the District are divided into four groups 
with each group containing one of the traditional black schools. 
The heart of the plan is the transfer of large numbers of black 
students from the black schools in the respective groups to the 
white schools in these groups and replacing them with white 
students.” Davis v. Board of Education of North Little Rock, Ark., 
328 F.Supp. 1197, 1202 (E.D. Ark. 1971). Judge Henley 
approved this plan but because it required busing and the 
North Little Rock School District had no such provision, 
implementation of the “Storm” plan was deferred until the 
1972-73 school year, twenty years after Brown v. Board of 
Education, supra.

With respect to the operation of the Storm plan at the 
secondary level, a short explanation is in order. The 
geographical attendance zones for the two high schools are 
defined by a north-south line bisecting the city into eastern 
and western divisions. Interstate 30 serves as the divider 
between these two zones in the southern half of the city. Ole 
Main High School is centrally located south of 1-40 and west 
of 1-30, a short distance from their intersection. Northeast

6 Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. of Education, 402 U.S. 1 
(1971); Davis v. Board of Commissioners of Mobile County, 402 U.S. 33 
(1971); North Carolina State Bd. of Education v. Swann, 402 U.S. 43 
(1971); McDaniel v. Barresi, 402 U.S. 39 (1971).



A-105

High School, located north of 1-40 and east of 1-30, is not 
centrally located. Lakewood Junior High shares a campus 
with Northeast High School. Prior to 1969 Jones High 
School was maintained as an all-black facility in the Pine 
Addition, an almost totally black area. Under the Storm 
plan it was converted to a school for all seventh grade 
students and renamed Central Junior High School. Because 
of deterioration of this facility from a physical standpoint, 
the Board petitioned to close it and transfer all the seventh 
graders to the Poplar Street School. This court approved the 
Board’s petition and was affirmed by the Court of Appeals. 
Davis v. Board of Education of North Little Rock, Ark. Sch. Disk, 
520 F.Supp. 108 (E.D. Ark. 1981), affirmed 674 F.2d 684 (8th 
Cir. 1982). Eighth and ninth grade students attend Ridge 
Road, Lakewood and Rose City schools. The black 
percentage of students at these schools in the 1981-82 school 
year ranged from 28% to 35%. 674 F.2d 684, 688 n.6.

The “Storm” plan was approved by the Court of Appeals. 
Davis v. Board of Education of North Little Rock, Ark. Sch. Dist., 
449 F.2d 500 (8th Cir. 1971). At the same time the District 
Court was directed “to modify its decree to require the board 
to establish and implement standards with respect to the 
reassignment of faculty and staff. . . .” Id. at 502. On 
August 10, 1973 Judge Henley reluctantly approved the 
District’s plan for segregated kindergartens. Davis v. Board 
of Education of North Little Rock, Ark. Sch. Dist., 362 F.Supp. 
730 (E.D. Ark. 1973).

After an unreported hearing before Judge Terry Shell, the 
District was ordered to provide additional transportation to 
black students residing in the Dixie addition who were 
required to attend Northeast High School. Judge Shell was 
affirmed by the Court of Appeals. Davis v. Board of Education 
of North Little Rock, Ark., 635 F.2d 730 (8th Cir. 1980), cert, 
denied, 454 U.S. 904 (1981). “Judge Shell noted that although 
twenty-six percent of the students and twenty percent of the 
faculty were black, only one of the twenty-three adminis­
trators and supervisors in the central office was black; that 
only five of the twenty-six principals were black (four of the



A-106

five being assigned to elementary schools); that only two of 
the fourteen guidance counselors were black; and that only 
two of the librarians or audiovisual staff assistants were 
black.” Id. at 732. To ameliorate this situation Judge Shell 
mandated specific recruitment policies, notices of vacancies, 
and employment criteria, all of which were affirmed by the 
Court of Appeals. Id. at 733. The Court of Appeals made the 
following significant comments:

We also note that the record is replete with 
evidence that black students do not participate in 
proportion to their numbers in certain extracurricu­
lar activities . . . .  The record also shows that black 
students are suspended more frequently than white 
students and that they tend to be numerically over­
represented in the special education classes for slow 
learners.

Id. at 733.

At the present time the North Little Rock School District 
has only one black on its administrative staff and one black 
high school coach. Black teachers are also underrepresented. 
An even more disturbing fact, as recently noted by the Court 
of Appeals, is that twenty percent of the blacks in the North 
Little Rock District are classified as being mentally retarded 
or as having learning disabilities.

II. FINDINGS OF FACT

In addition to the findings contained in the Court’s discus­
sion of the desegregation litigation in the three districts, the 
Court makes the following findings:

Background
1. Three school districts serve public school students in 

Pulaski County, Arkansas: the Little Rock School District, 
the North Little Rock School District, and Pulaski County 
Special School District No. 1.



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2. Pulaski County can best be described as one large 
metropolitan area. Although the Arkansas River dissects 
the cities of Little Rock and North Little Rock, the presence 
of five major transportation bridges renders any transporta­
tion barriers meaningless. (PX 35)

3. The boundaries of the Little Rock School District and 
the City of Little Rock are not coterminous. While the City 
of Little Rock encompasses approximately 91 square miles, 
the Little Rock School District covers 53 square miles. (PX 
63 at 9-10) Approximately 40 percent of the City of Little 
Rock falls outside of the Little Rock School District.

The student population of the Little Rock School District 
for 1983-84 is 19,052 (70% black— 30% white). (T. 1448) 
There are 27 elementary schools and 9 secondary schools. 
(PX 63 at 228-229, 233 and 235)

4. The North Little Rock School District boundaries 
cover an area of approximately 26 square miles and for the 
most part encompass all of the City of North Little Rock. 
(PX 35 and PX 63 at 9-10)

The student population (excluding kindergarten) of the 
North Little Rock School District for 1983-84 is 9,051 (36% 
black— 64% white). (D NLR X  3) There are 18 elementary 
schools and 6 secondary schools. (PX 63 at 230, 233 and 235)

5. The Pulaski County Special School District serves an 
area of approximately 755 square miles and includes the 
remaining parts of Pulaski County not included in the Little 
Rock School District or the North Little Rock School Dis­
trict. (PX 35)

The student population of the Pulaski County Special 
School District for 1983-84 is 27,839 (22% black— 78% 
white). (D PCSSD X  64, Table 1) There are 31 elementary 
schools, 16 secondary schools and 2 kindergarten centers. 
(PX 63 at 231-32, 233-34, 235)

6. The three school districts are and for many years have 
been subject to judicial decrees requiring them to disestablish



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their previously existing dual school systems. None of the 
districts have been declared unitary. The history of the 
litigation involving these districts has been set forth, supra.

Interdistrict Cooperation
7. Until approximately 1968, a historical pattern of 

interdistrict cooperation (e.g. student transfers and deannex­
ation of territory by the Pulaski County Special School 
District) existed among the three districts. (PX 36, T. 91-95,
T. 124-28) An independent study of the status of education 
in Pulaski County done in 1960 referred to the “ excessively 
high amount of transference of pupils among schools across 
district lines.” (Jt.X 5, p. 3)

8. Transportation across district lines was often relied 
upon to accomplish these voluntary interdistrict transfers. 
(T. 115, 118, 129-32)

9. Both the North Little Rock School District and the 
Pulaski County Special School District accepted white chil­
dren from the Little Rock School District when the Little 
Rock schools were closed in 1958. (T. 130, PX 36, PX 12, 10- 
30-58, 8-13-59)

10. Participation by the North Little Rock School Dis­
trict in interdistrict transfers declined substantially when it 
became embroiled in the litigation challenging its dual 
school system. (T. 1163)

11. In addition to formal transfers, it was a common prac­
tice for black students to “ move” to the Little Rock School 
District from the defendant districts by simply coming to 
Little Rock to live with a relative. (T. 84-85, 91-92) Since the 
students reported a Little Rock address, they did not appear on 
the official transfer report form. The number of black transfers 
to the Little Rock School District from these two defendant 
districts has therefore been consistently understated.

12. Informal, but frequent, “breakfast meetings” between 
the three school superintendents took place during the 1960’s



A-109

to discuss school operations and consolidation was often dis­
cussed (T. 1124-1125, 1129)

These “breakfast meetings” were also attended by city 
officials of Little Rock and North Little Rock as well as 
representatives from the two city housing authorities. (T. 
1125)

13. Historically, as the boundaries of the City of Little 
Rock expanded, the Pulaski County Special District will­
ingly permitted the Little Rock School District to annex 
portions of the Pulaski County Special School District. (T. 
69)

14. An annexation in 1964 was accomplished for the 
purposes of building a new vocational high school (Metropol­
itan High) to be operated by the Little Rock School District, 
but to serve all three districts. A narrow strip of land 
extending approximately three miles into the Pulaski 
County Special School District was the subject of the annexa­
tion, and Metropolitan High continues to educate students 
from all three districts. (PX 1)

15. The practice of expanding school district boundaries 
as city boundaries expanded continued until the last two 
annexations of residential territory to the Little Rock School 
District which occurred in 1967 and 1968.

16. The historic intention that the boundaries of the 
Cities of Little Rock and North Little Rock remain cotermi­
nous with the respective school districts is found in a 
September 19, 1944 resolution of the Pulaski County Board 
of Education:

“ [I]t is therefore by the Board ordered that all of 
Pulaski County outside the territory embraced in 
the cities of Little Rock and North Little Rock be 
created and organized into a special school district 
to be named and known as the Pulaski County 
Special School District.” (PCSSD X  41)



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Voluntary Consolidation Efforts
17. Two major efforts to consolidate the districts took 

place in 1960 and 1967. (PX 20-23, 25, 35 and T. 1146-1147)

18. It is clear from reading the minutes of the Pulaski 
County Special School District and accompanying resolu­
tions concerning consolidation that the board members of the 
Pulaski County Special School District were concerned pri­
marily with the educational opportunities of all of the 
Pulaski County school children and were not simply focus­
ing their interests on students within their district bounda­
ries. (PX 20-23, 25, 35)

19. Similarly when consolidation was discussed, the 
North Little Rock School District Board members demon­
strated their concern for the entire student population of 
Pulaski County. (PX 22)

20. In response to Act 21 of the 1966 Legislature, all 
three districts appointed members to the Pulaski County 
School Study Commission to study consolidation. (PX 35) 
This commission prepared a plan for consolidation of all 
three districts. (PX 35) The Pulaski County Special School 
District adopted the Commission’s recommendations., (PX 
21) The North Little Rock School District discussed this 
issue on December 15, 1966 and held a hearing on the 
proposed consolidation on January 24, 1967. While the 
North Little Rock School District was considering consolida­
tion, a desegregation suit was filed against that district. 
Consolidation efforts ceased.

21. Because of the large numbers of formal and informal 
transfers of students among the districts and the abetting of 
the transfers by the districts, the cooperation among the 
districts and their personnel in other areas, the recurrent 
consideration of consolidation and the long-standing prac­
tices of annexations to the two city districts, the Court finds 
that the three school districts in Pulaski County were not 
historically separate and autonomous.



A -lll

22. The Pulaski County Special School District was 
interested in consolidation with the other districts in the 
county and was willing to have its territory annexed to the 
Little Rock (and North Little Rock) School District(s) until 
approximately the time when the Little Rock School District 
adopted an essentially full-scale desegregation plan. Since 
that time the Pulaski County district has not been willing to 
consolidate with the other districts or to allow its territory to 
be annexed to Little Rock or to North Little Rock.

23. It was only with the increasing development of white 
suburban housing within the boundaries of the Pulaski 
County Special School District and the institution of desegre­
gation efforts directed at the defendant districts that the 
defendant districts developed separate autonomous attitudes 
about their districts vis-a-vis the Little Rock School District. 
The assumption of these separate identifiable autonomous 
attitudes sprang from impermissible racial motives.

24. Recent informal efforts by the Little Rock School 
District to achieve consolidation failed.

25. The refusal of the Pulaski County Special School 
District, with its long history of deannexations and support 
of consolidation, allow this court to infer that race is a factor 
in its decision to energetically oppose interdistrict relief.

26. The Pulaski County Special School District’s acts of 
freezing its boundaries to discontinue the practice of 
allowing city and Little Rock School District boundaries to 
remain coterminous springs from an unconstitutional racial 
motive that has significant interdistrict effects on the Little 
Rock School District.

Taxation and Housing
27. The Pulaski County Special School District receives 

substantial revenues from tax monies generated from proper­
ties located within the boundaries of the City of Little Rock. 
(PX 47— $4,504,073) Additionally, the county has received 
approximately $1,332,000 in revenue from Act 9 industrial



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development bond issues let by the City of Little Rock. The 
Little Rock School District has received no revenues from 
these bond issues. (T. 547) The Pulaski County Special 
School District is financially dependent on its association 
with the City of Little Rock.

28. Public housing in Pulaski County has historically 
been the subject of racial segregation.

29. Ark.Stat.Ann. § 19-3004 authorizes city and county 
governments to operate housing authorities upon adoption of 
an appropriate enabling resolution. The Cities of Little Rock 
and North Little Rock have adopted such resolutions, but 
Pulaski County has never chosen to operate a housing 
authority. However, Ark.Stat.Ann. § 19-3003(g) permits city 
housing authorities (such as Little Rock and North Little 
Rock) to construct housing projects within ten miles of their 
corporate limits. Even though they possessed this power, no 
housing project has ever been constructed within the bounda­
ries of the Pulaski County Special School District by either 
the Little Rock or North Little Rock housing authorities.

30. The development of the Granite Mountain project 
together with the Federal Housing Administration’s devel­
opment of an all black subdivision adjacent to the project 
serves as a good example of the manner in which blacks have 
been located to the south and east in Little Rock. The impact 
on public education in the county from the Granite 
Mountain development is also apparent, for once again the 
Little Rock School District annexed and the Pulaski County 
Special School District willingly “ de-annexed” this area.

31. During the early 1950’s, the Little Rock Housing 
Authority was also engaged in several clearance projects 
through which housing units were razed. (T. 61) Areas of 
central Little Rock were the subject of selective clearance (T. 
62) while black projects located north and west in Little Rock 
and closer to predominantly white neighborhoods were the 
subject of complete clearance.



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32. The black residents of these two clearance areas were 
relocated to the black housing projects in the eastern parts of 
the city. (T. 65-66) White families who were relocated from 
the central Little Rock clearance area were relocated to the 
west, rather than to the eastern parts of the city. (T. 142-43)

33. The relocation of blacks from the western and north­
ern parts of the city, and from areas where black housing 
was found adjacent to white housing, to the eastern parts of 
the city was done pursuant to a deliberate policy of the Little 
Rock Housing Authority and other governmental bodies to 
maintain residential racial segregation. (T. 59-60, 70-71)

34. There were other policies designed to concentrate 
blacks in the eastern and central parts of the city. Up until 
at least the 1960’s, the real estate practices of “ steering” and 
“ redlining” were common in Little Rock. (T. 74-76) Steering 
is the practice of real estate agents’ directing potential house 
purchasers to certain residential areas if they were white but 
to other areas if they were black. Redlining is the practice of 
not making mortgage loans, or making only a few loans, to 
whites who wish to purchase homes in black areas or to 
blacks who wish to purchase homes in white areas. (T. 74-75) 
Formal redlining, in the sense of lines actually being drawn 
on maps, did not occur to any significant extent in Little 
Rock because it was not necessary; because of the relatively 
small size of the city and because mortgage lending officers 
knew which areas were supposed to be black and which were 
supposed to be white, the loan officer could be relied upon to 
perpetuate residential segregation. (T. 75-76)

35. Mr. Andrew Jeffries, a black real estate broker, vio­
lated a policy of his employer by selling a home to a black in 
an area which had not previously been occupied by blacks. 
(T. 148) This same sale also violated an Arkansas Real 
Estate Commission regulation which provided that “ a realtor 
should never be instrumental in introducing into a 
neighborhood a character of property or occupancy, members 
of any race or nationality, or any individuals whose presence 
will clearly be detrimental to property values in that



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neighborhood.” (PX 50-A, Article 34 of the Code of Ethics of 
the National Association of Real Estate Boards) Mr. Jef­
fries’ sale was reported by his employer to the Arkansas Real 
Estate Commission whereupon he was advised that this 
“ misconduct” might prevent him from receiving his real 
estate license. He did receive his license but was forced to 
resign his employment by his employer.

36. These housing practices, both public and private, 
together with the manner in which predominantly black 
areas were willingly transferred to the Little Rock School 
District from the Pulaski County Special School District 
contributed greatly to the disparity in the racial composition 
of these school districts.

37. The North Little Rock Urban Renewal and Housing 
Authority programs operated in a similar fashion to Little 
Rock’s. The low-income housing projects in North Little Rock 
were all constructed south of Interstate 40, in the less-affluent 
portions of the city. The projects which were initially for 
white occupants, Windamere Hills and Silver City Courts, 
were located west of Interstate 30 and south of Interstate 40, 
while black projects, Hemlock and Eastgate, were located east 
of Interstate 30 and south of Interstate 40. (PX 4)

38. The only major clearance project in North Little 
Rock was a complete clearance of the Military Heights area 
lying south of Interstate 40 and west of Interstate 30. This 
project had become all black and when it was razed, blacks 
were moved to Little Rock as well as south and east in North 
Little Rock.

39. A review of the minutes of the North Little Rock 
School Board reflects that decisions concerning school con­
struction and renovation were made in a manner which 
considered and sought to preserve the racial identification of 
North Little Rock neighborhoods.

40. Some tracts purchased for school construction were 
subject to racially restrictive covenants. (PX 51) Such pur­
chases necessarily were more beneficial to the white patrons



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of the North Little Rock School District than they were to 
its black patrons. Furthermore, this type of action would 
only serve to make the North Little Rock School District less 
attractive to current and prospective black residents of 
Pulaski County.

41. The goal of preserving residential segregation has 
been successful. The southern and eastern parts of the Little 
Rock School District remain heavily black to this day. The 
black population of the city has expanded to the west to some 
extent, but the far western portions of the city remain white 
today. (PX 5 and 40, p. 13) Northern and northwestern 
parts of the city, including the area where the black West 
Rock clearance area was formerly located, remain virtually 
all-white today. (PX 5 and 40, p. 13) Similarly in North 
Little Rock, the residential areas near the housing projects, 
that is, those lying south of Interstate 40, have become 
substantially black. The area north of Interstate 40 has 
remained overwhelmingly white. (PX 5)

42. The existence and location of the housing projects, the 
location of other government-subsidized housing units, the 
failure to build projects within the geographic boundaries of 
the county district, and the private and public steering and 
redlining practices are major contributing factors to the resi­
dential segregation in Pulaski County which exists today.

The Expert Witnesses
43. Dr. Robert Dentler, a witness for plaintiff and Profes­

sor of Urban Sociology and Education at the University of 
Massachusetts and former Dean of Education at Boston Uni­
versity, analyzed the existing status of the three districts with 
reference to their achievement of a unitary, desegregated sys­
tem. Dr. Dentler was one of the three court appointed experts 
in Liddell v. Board of Education of the City of St. Louis, et al, No. 72- 
100C(4) (E.D. Mo.), which has been the subject of voluminous 
litigation in this Circuit and involves the consolidation of 
multiple districts in the St. Louis metropolitan area. He is 
widely recognized as an expert in school desegregation.



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44. Dr. Dentler began with a data base which included 
but was not limited to the following: Student enrollments in 
the pertinent time period, description of facilities in each of 
the districts, the date facilities were constructed, types of 
repairs and renovations made on the facilities, the racial and 
ethnic composition of the student bodies of the three systems 
over a period of time, curricular and instructional program 
materials of each district, the location of housing projects 
and public assistance projects in Pulaski County, industrial 
development, and on-site visits to each of the three districts. 
This data base was submitted to the Court during the trial 
and all documents were available for inspection and cross- 
examination. Dentler further used demographic, educa­
tional and transportation facilities data gathered in the 
formal discovery process. (T. 328-30)

45. Dr. Dentler expanded his data base further by 
gathering substantial information from administrators at 
the Little Rock School District Central Office; the Director of 
Management Information Services of the University of 
Arkansas, Mr. Jim Lynch; surveys and reports published by 
the University of Arkansas; and plans and officials of 
Metroplan, a countywide metropolitan planning agency of 
which all three of the districts involved in the case at bar are 
members. (T. 331-32)

46. Another expert witness for plaintiff was Dr. Charles 
Willie, Professor of Education and Urban Studies at the 
Harvard Graduate School of Education for the past nine 
years. Dr. Willie previously taught at New York University 
and Syracuse. Dr. Willie’s areas of expertise are educational 
sociology, educational planning, educational administration 
and race relations, community organization and population 
demography. He has published extensively in each of these 
areas. Of significant relevance to the instant case are “ Com­
munity Organization and Educational Politics” , “The Soci­
ology of Urban Education” , “ Black Students at White 
Colleges” , and “ Race Ethnics, and Associated Economic 
Status” and a book currently in press outlining in detail the



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desegregation efforts in Atlanta, Milwaukee, Boston, and 
Seattle. (T. 179-80; PX 14) Dr. Willie has served as a court 
appointed master in the Boston school desegregation case, 
and as an expert witness in the Denver school desegregation 
case for the defendant school board. He was later appointed 
by the court to a compliance assistance panel in Denver. He 
was an expert witness for the plaintiff in the Dallas school 
desegregation case, and an expert witness for the United 
States Government in the North Carolina Higher Education 
desegregation case. (T. 180)

47. Dr. Willie was retained for the purpose of looking at 
the defendants, North Little Rock School District and the 
Pulaski County School District, to examine the court orders 
to desegregate the defendant districts, and to determine 
whether or not the actions of the defendant districts had 
complied with the court orders and whether or not the 
failure of those districts to comply with the orders of this 
District Court had interdistrict effects on the Little Rock 
School District. (T. 186)

48. The data base for his testimony consisted of census 
bureau reports having to do with social and economic charac­
teristics of the cities and county in the metropolitan area, the 
metropolitan data book, the data obtained from various 
school systems through the discovery process and from read­
ing of the court orders and opinions. (T. 187-90)

49. The other expert witness for the Little Rock School 
District was Dr. Martin Shapiro of Emory University who 
has a Ph.D. from Indiana University and a J.D. from Emory 
University.

50. Dr. Shapiro has recently been involved in two school 
desegregation cases dealing primarily with the placement 
and testing of children in special educational programs and 
with ability tracking. (T. 1031)

51. Dr. Shapiro’s assignment here was to read and 
analyze magnetic tapes from the federal Office of Civil 
Rights of the Department of Education. These contain data



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gathered every year, more extensively in the even numbered 
years, and concern placement of children in special educa­
tion programs. (T. 1031)

52. Dr. Finis Welch testified as an expert witness for the 
defendant Pulaski County Special School District. Dr. 
Welch is a professor of economics at UCLA. He also heads 
his own consulting firm, Welch Associates, which develops 
statistical information and provides expert statistical tes­
timony for defendants for litigation. (T. 1352)

53. The other expert witness for the defendants was Dr. 
J. Michael Ross. He has a Ph.D. from Harvard in Social 
Psychology and has taught at the University of California, 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston Univer­
sity. He has done research on school desegregation for 20 
years and has served as a consultant in those fields.

54. As will appear in these findings, the Court has to a 
considerable extent accepted the findings and opinions of the 
plaintiff’s experts and discounted those of defendants’ 
experts. The former are some of the most eminent authori­
ties in the field of school desegregation. While the latter are 
distinguished scholars, I am not satisfied as to the validity of 
many of their premises and conclusions in this case.

Status of Desegregation in the Little Rock School District
55. The Little Rock School Board, the Superintendent of 

Schools and the staff of the Little Rock School District have 
a dedicated and demonstrable commitment to the extirpation 
of segregation “ root and branch” as evidenced by programs, 
policies and resource commitments. (T. 351, 1400-1403, 1427- 
1430)

56. The Little Rock School Board and staff are know­
ledgeable as to court orders mandating total integration. 
(T. 1321-22)

57. The Little Rock School District has complied with 
the directives establishing a Bi-Racial Committee for the 
District, as ordered by the Court. (T. 1319; PX 56) Further



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efforts to achieve desegregation resulted in a bi-racial com­
mittee at each school (T. 1319, 1404) and a student bi-racial 
committee.

58. In an effort to remedy disparity between blacks and 
whites on the nationwide SRA test, the Little Rock School 
Board adopted a policy to develop programs and expend 
resources to close the gap. Some of the programs imple­
mented by the District have been: homework centers, hot­
lines, a kindergarten failure program and the Carver School. 
(T. 1331)

59. The school district has a master learning concept 
which is designed to assist teachers in becoming more sensi­
tive to the needs of minority youngsters. (T. 1401-1403) The 
district has developed a Free Reading program which is 
aimed at reducing the difference in the reading levels 
between black and white students; it has instituted a tutor­
ing program; it has opened study centers in areas which are 
easily accessible to minority students. (T. 1403)

60. In addition to having a staff which is sensitive and 
responsive to the desegregation process, the Little Rock 
School District utilizes auxiliary units or programs to assist 
in the integration process. (T. 141)

61. With regard to staffing, the Little Rock School Dis­
trict employs a desegregation officer whose title is Assistant 
to the Superintendent in Charge of Desegregation. However, 
his responsibilities in desegregation are shared with virtu­
ally all the other staff members in the administration. 
(T. 1401)

62. The Little Rock School District’s conscious efforts 
regarding desegregation are further evidenced by the num­
ber of blacks and whites the district employs. (T. 1427-30) 
Currently, the percentage of black staff members (teachers, 
principals and administrators all included) is approximately 
48%. (T. 1430; PX 26)



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63. Educational programs in the Little Rock School Dis­
trict have observable consequences for the upgrading of black 
student achievement and retention rates in the Little Rock 
school system. (T. 352)

64. Conversely, the Pulaski County School System and 
the North Little Rock School System have no programs of 
this kind to provide compensatory or supportive assistance 
for blacks. (T. 352)

65. Further program inequities in the North Little Rock 
and the Pulaski County School Districts can be demonstrated 
in the major difference between the program and curricular 
guides. In the Little Rock School District, educational 
opportunity for black students figures in the agenda and the 
business of instruction in many ways that are absent in the 
other two systems. (T. 352)

66. The magnet factors of relatives, jobs, and public hous­
ing units have encouraged high proportions of blacks migrat­
ing to move to the Little Rock School District. (T. 225, 226)

Status of Desegregation in the Pulaski County 
School District

67. The staff and Board of the Pulaski County School 
Board have displayed only minimal knowledge of this 
court’s mandates in Zinnamon v. Pulaski County Special School 
District, supra, which may partially account for substantial 
noncompliance with its terms. (T. 842-49)

68. The Pulaski County Special School District does not 
have any programs, policies, or practices to guarantee com­
pliance with the court’s order requiring that construction site 
selection be racially neutral. (T. 850-51)

69. In selecting new school construction sites, the Pulaski 
County Special School District Board has not complied with 
Paragraph 4(h) of the Zinnamon decree which required that 
new school site selection and school enlargement be deter­
mined on the basis of the objective criteria set out in Swann 
v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1. In



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fact, the Board members are unfamiliar with this specific 
requirement, have never seen or read a copy of Swann or 
Zinnamon and have never been informed of the meaning of 
the “ racially neutral” requirement set out in Swann. The 
selection of all sites for new schools built after the entry of 
the Zinnamon decree has been made without any considera­
tion given to the impact or effect such selection would have 
on desegregation and is therefore a constitutional violation. 
As stated repeatedly during the testimony of the various 
board members, race has been completely ignored in school 
site selection. The racial characteristics of a proposed con­
struction site must be taken into account by the Board in 
order for it to discharge its responsibilities under the Zin­
namon decree:

The construction of new schools and the closing of 
old ones are two of the most important functions of 
local school authorities and also two of the most 
complex. They must decide questions of location 
and capacity in light of population growth, 
finances, land values, site availability, through an 
almost endless list of factors to be considered. The 
result of this will be a decision which, when com­
bined with one technique or another of student 
assignment, will determine the racial composition 
of the student body in each school in the system.
Over the long run, the consequences of the choices 
will be far reaching. People gravitate toward 
school facilities, just as schools are located in 
response to the needs of people. The location of 
schools may thus influence the patterns of residen­
tial development of a metropolitan area and have 
important impact on composition of innercity 
neighborhoods.

In the past, choices in this respect have been used 
as a potent weapon for creating or maintaining a 
state-segregated school system. In addition to the 
classic pattern of building schools specifically



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intended for Negro or white students, school 
authorities have sometimes, since Brown, closed 
schools which appeared likely to become racially 
mixed through changes in neighborhood residential 
patterns. This was sometimes accompanied by 
building new schools in the areas of white suburban 
expansion farthest from Negro population centers 
in order to maintain the separation of the races 
with a minimum departure from the formal princi­
ples of ‘neighborhood zoning.’ Such a policy does 
more than simply influence the short-run composi­
tion of the student body of a new school. It may 
well promote segregated residential patterns which, 
when combined with ‘ neighborhood zoning,’ 
further lock the school system into the mold of 
separation of the races.

420 U.S. at 20-21.

70. The Pulaski County Special School District staff 
member in charge of school construction planning also testi­
fied repeatedly that race played no part in site selection. 
(T. 833-34, 837, 841) He had not heard of the term “ racially 
neutral site,” and knew nothing about the Zinnamon decree. 
(T. 834)

71. The building of new schools that are racially identifi­
able, even to the point of being in excess of 90% white, 
indicates that the school district is ignoring or rejecting the 
court orders to desegregate. (T. 229, 230; PCSSD X  9)

72. Through its power of annexation, the City of Little 
Rock has played an instrumental role in the site selection of 
new schools constructed in the Pulaski County Special 
School District. This has been particularly true as to Otter 
Creek Elementary School and Fair High School where the 
City has provided the necessary city services to facilitate the 
location of these schools in predominately white areas. This 
will inevitably spur more white movement out of the Little



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Rock School District to the Pulaski County Special School 
District. (T. 1204-1208; 838-840)

73. Due to the aggressive annexation practice of the City 
of Little Rock, the population of the unincorporated portions 
of Pulaski County had decreased between 1970 and 1980 by 
one-half, while the white population of the Pulaski County 
Special School District was holding steady or even increas­
ing. (T. 218) At the same time the white population in the 
North Little Rock School District and the Little Rock School 
District diminished. (T. 218)

74. In Pulaski County, outside the boundaries of Little 
Rock and North Little Rock, the per capita median income is 
lower, as is pupil expenditure. There was thus no economic 
basis for the movement to Pulaski County and it therefore 
was probably racially motivated. (T. 219)

75. The defendant Pulaski County Special School Dis­
trict’s Exhibit 13 confirmed Dr. Willie’s theory that the 
movement of whites is related to the size of the black and 
minority population in that school system by showing that a 
disproportionate number of whites were moving into the 
Pulaski County Special School District. (T. 223, 224)

76. Fewer employment opportunities for blacks, absence 
of role models in teaching and administration, deployment of 
students, and total absence of blacks at levels of decision 
making are all factors which discourage minorities from 
moving to Pulaski County Special School District because 
there is no indication that they will be treated fairly or with 
openness and inclusiveness. (T. 227)

77. The future plans of the City of Little Rock include 
carrying forth an assertive annexation plan designed to 
bring virtually all of Pulaski County south of the river 
within the limits of the city. (T. 1219-1220) The annexation 
and resulting availability of services in these outlying areas 
will provide the impetus for population growth in these 
areas (T. 1209), further increasing the tendency toward white 
flight to the suburbs. (T. 1209)



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78. In developing attendance zones for the Pulaski 
County School District, the staff and Board did not follow 
the mandate of the Zinnamon decree. Admittedly this was 
difficult in view of the site selection policies. These zones 
were formulated without the requisite professional, legal, 
and expert assistance. As a result over 50% of the schools 
are not in compliance with paragraph 4(e) of the Zinnamon 
decree requiring black enrollment of “ not less than ten or not 
more than twenty-five per cent.” (T. 630-36; 697-724; 856-58)

79. The County Board Members were unaware of the 
Pulaski County Special School District’s obligation to estab­
lish a Bi-Racial Committee as set out in Paragraph 4(k) of 
the Zinnamon decree, and unaware of any effort undertaken 
by Pulaski County Special School District to establish such a 
committee. (T. 585, 586, 587, 629, 689, 875-77) The absence of 
a bi-racial council in Pulaski County Special School District 
is a serious violation of the court order. (T. 216)

80. The Pulaski County Special School District Board 
has never complied with Paragraph 4(1) of the Zinnamon 
decree requiring that two black citizens, elected and selected 
by the black community, serve in an ex-officio capacity on its 
Board of Education. (T. 587, 588, 589, 629, 878) Ex-officio 
Board members who sit and participate in all deliberations, 
although they may not vote, are even more important than 
bi-racial committees. (T. 217) Failure to designate such 
members is also a serious violation of the court order.

81. The Pulaski County Special School District has never 
had a black in a top level administrative position. (T. 865-868)

82. The Pulaski County Special School District has never 
instituted or implemented any policy, practice, or procedure 
as required under the Zinnamon decree to encourage 
principals and other responsible administrators to structure 
curricular or extracurricular activities to insure the par­
ticipation of a proportionate number of blacks. (T. 871)

83. The Pulaski County Special School District has no 
mechanism to monitor the percentage of blacks and whites in



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the school’s Talented and Gifted (TAG) program, the Edu- 
cably Mentally Retarded (EMR) program, or the Learning 
Disabled (LD) program. (T. 871-72; 894)

84. Blacks are underrepresented in the administrative 
offices of the Pulaski County Special School District and also 
on the teaching faculty of schools in the district. (T. 203-204, 
208)

85. Only 2,196 students in Pulaski County Special School 
District are bused for purposes of desegregation. In a district 
which is 23% black, 56% of the 2,196 students bused for 
desegregation purposes are black. (T. 346)

86. A black student enrolled in the Pulaski County Special 
School District System is 2y2 times more likely to be bused for 
desegregation purposes than a white student. (T. 346)

87. Defendant’s Exhibit No. 10, entitled Pulaski County 
School District School Enrollment from Neighborhood and 
Satellite Zones, together with transportation summary 
makes it clear that disproportionate numbers of blacks are 
transported and that some blacks are transported long dis­
tances just to go to a school which is already racially identifi­
able as black.

88. These transportation figures are not surprising when 
considered in light of the site selection practices of the 
Pulaski County Special School District.

89. It is clear that the Pulaski County Special School 
District maintains identifiably black schools by simply refus­
ing to bus in whites or by busing in additional blacks. 
Examples of schools maintained identifiably black by busing 
in blacks include Wakefield, Watson and Cloverdale. (T. 346)

90. In contrast, the identifiably white schools, Baker, 
Bayou Meto, Cato, Oak Grove, and Fair are maintained as 
white schools because blacks are not bused to them. Busing 
is used for desegregative purposes in Pulaski County only at 
Harris, Mills and Fuller schools and not sufficiently in those



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to bring those schools out of their identifiably black status. 
(T. 347)

Status of Desegregation in the North Little Rock 
School District

91. Blacks are underrepresented on the administrative 
staff and on the teaching faculties of the schools in the North 
Little Rock School District. (T. 1182; 191) The North Little 
Rock School District is required by court order to desegregate 
its staff so that the proportion of its staff will be similar to 
that of the students enrolled in the system. The percent of 
principals found in the North Little Rock system is 16 
percentage points less than the proportion of black students. 
(T. 191) The faculty of the North Little Rock School District 
is 22% black and 78% white. Since there is a 34% to 35% 
minority school population, growing at !/£>% to 2% per year, 
the proportion of minority teachers is violative of the court 
order. (T. 191)

92. Whites are underrepresented in schools south of 
Interstate 40. (T. 195) Blacks are underrepresented in schools 
north of Interstate 40. Thus, blacks are concentrated in 
schools in the southern part of North Little Rock closest to 
Little Rock and whites are concentrated in schools in the 
northern part of the district.

93. The North Little Rock School District has failed to 
become a unitary district by its failure to have blacks at the 
central administration, concentrating whites in schools north 
of Interstate 40 while concentrating blacks in schools south 
of Interstate 40, its failure to have black principals and 
administrators at the high school level, and its failure to 
have blacks coaching at the senior high school level.

94. Twenty percent of the black student body is classified 
as mentally retarded or as having learning disabilities. 
(T. 1183) This unusual statistic was analyzed by Dr. Martin 
Shapiro.



A-127

95. PX 27 is a voluminous set of three printouts assem­
bled by Dr. Martin Shapiro. The first set is the actual raw 
data, the second set summarizes the data in terms of class­
room assignments, and the third, analyzes the placement of 
children with respect to the Educable Mentally Retarded 
(EMR) and Specific Learning Disabled (SLD) categories. 
(T. 1033) Dr. Shapiro made findings and reports for the 
years 1972, 1976, 1978 and 1980. (T. 1034; PX 63)

96. The data Dr. Shapiro reviewed included the number 
of expulsions, corporal punishments and suspensions by race; 
the subject matter and grade level of each class; the number 
of EMR seriously emotionally disturbed, trainable mentally 
retarded, and SLD by race; and number of diplomas by race. 
(T. 1036-1038)

97. Dr. Shapiro developed a statistical methodology 
which allows for inferential statistical techniques, stating 
conclusions in terms of standard deviations. The Court 
approves of this methodology. (T. 1039) Shapiro’s method is 
described fully in PX 63-H. (T. 1039) Shapiro’s analysis 
resulted in a statistical index showing the disproportionality 
of blacks and whites between schools in a district and within 
schools. (T. 1040, 1041)

98. In each instance his analysis used standard statisti­
cal methods of standard deviations and chi squares, and 
their associated probabilities. (T. 1046)

99. Blacks in all three of the districts are overrepresented 
in special education (T. 1049), with there being a serious 
overrepresentation of blacks in the EMR category in North 
Little Rock and a very high one in the Pulaski County 
Special School District. (T. 1050) The results in these two 
systems are extreme compared to other systems which 
Shapiro has analyzed. (T. 1052) No valid testing procedure 
could end up placing one out of every four or five children in 
special education. (T. 1084)

100. The gifted program in North Little Rock for 1980 
reflects that only 9.4% of the program was black. This is an



A-128

underrepresentation of blacks in the gifted program of 6.8 
standard deviations, which would occur only seven times in 
a billion by chance. (T. 1062)

101. In 1980, 5.66% of blacks in the Little Rock School 
District were classified as retarded or learning disabled, 
19.41% of blacks in North Little Rock were so classified, and 
11.40% in Pulaski County Special School District were so 
classified. Said another way, a black student moving from 
the Little Rock School District to Pulaski County Special 
School District doubles his risk of receiving a retarded or 
learning disabled classification, while the risk is quadrupled 
if a black moves from the Little Rock School District to the 
North Little Rock School District. (T. 1067)

102. Analysis of Exhibit 63-G reveals that blacks are 
overrepresented in dropout rate and expulsions in all of the 
districts except in the Little Rock School District. (T. 1069)

Interdistrict Effects
Policies and Practices of the Three Districts

103. After review and investigation of each of the dis­
tricts and the findings herein, a determination was made of 
the interdistrict effects of the racial isolation between and 
among the districts. The Court is in agreement with Dr. 
Dentler as to the following interdistrict effects:

(1) Interdistrict effects for educational programs.

(a) Black students in Little Rock and North Little Rock 
are denied access to the very predominantly white enrolled 
programs for gifted and talented students located in the 
Pulaski County Special School District. (T. 372)

(b) Conversely, black students in North Little Rock and 
the Pulaski County Special School District are denied access 
to the only magnet schools that operate in the County; these 
schools are accessible only to students in the Little Rock 
School District, with the single exception of the Metropolitan 
Vocational Technical school, which is located outside of the



A-129

Little Rock School District but is operated by it on behalf of 
all three districts. (T. 372)

(e) Black students in Little Rock receive strong compen­
satory instructional support. Little Rock School District 
resources and resources sought from the state and federal 
governments have been aimed at upgrading the learning 
opportunities of black students in Little Rock particularly 
during the last 5 years. (T. 372) Neither the North Little 
Rock School District nor the Pulaski County Special School 
District provide comparable compensatory instructional sup­
port for black students. (T. 372)

(d) Before the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of 
Education, there were many totally segregated schools. Dur­
ing the next 25 years, however, schools for black students 
disappeared. These schools were replaced by institutions 
that were allegedly designed to serve students with special 
needs; known as exceptional schools, they were predomi­
nantly black. (T. 374) The next phase of development 
involved the concept of mainstreaming under which school 
districts were obligated to give students with special needs 
access to regular schooling. (T. 374) Nonetheless some dis­
tricts reflect a heritage of racial discrimination by placing 
black students in segregated special education programs. (T. 
374) In both the Pulaski County Special School District and 
North Little Rock School District white students are classi­
fied as students with “ learning disabilities,” while blacks in 
those districts are labeled as “mentally retarded.” (T. 375)

(e) Classification of black students into one category or 
another for special education treatment differs according to 
the school district residence of the black student. (T. 373)

(f) The chances that a black student will be classified as 
educably mentally retarded statistically are significantly 
much greater in the North Little Rock School District and 
the Pulaski County Special School District than they are in 
the Little Rock School District. (T. 373)



A-130

(g) The North Little Rock and Pulaski County school 
districts emphasize learning disability programs which host 
predominantly white students, while black students in those 
districts are hosted in special education classes for alleged 
mental retardation. (T. 373)

(2) Interdistrict effects in area staffing:

(a) The three districts in Pulaski County hinder one 
another with respect to achieving racial and educational 
equity in staffing. (T. 375) Blacks have a greater chance of 
becoming school administrators in the Little Rock School 
District than they do in either the North Little Rock School 
District or the Pulaski County Special School District. (T. 
375)

(b) The chances of a black teacher being hired are iy 2 
times greater in the Little Rock School District than they are 
in either the Pulaski County Special School District or the 
North Little Rock School District. (T. 376)

(3) Interdistrict effect of student distribution among the 
districts.

(a) The interdistrict consequences of student assignments, 
student transportation and facility provisions result in a 
situation which makes black students and their families 
more attracted to the Little Rock School District than to 
either the North Little Rock School District or the Pulaski 
County Special School District. (T. 377)

(4) Interdistrict effects created by all three districts operat­
ing under separate and independent court orders to 
desegregate.

(a) Each of these court orders to desegregate was drawn up 
as an occasional patch in a patchwork quilt, without regard 
to the consequences or implications for the other school 
districts in Pulaski County. (T. 377)

(b) The magnet schools in use in Little Rock are not 
workable on a single-district basis within a metropolitan



A-131

area. Magnet schools cannot have educational success when 
some students can enter and others cannot. (T. 378)

(5) The separate transportation plans and programs of the 
three districts have interdistrict effects.

(a) Busing designed for desegregative purposes has 
resulted in a greater percentage of black students being 
bused in the North Little Rock School District and the 
Pulaski County Special School District than should be 
expected with less than satisfactory desegregation results. 
(T. 379)

(6) The boundary lines themselves have interdistrict 
effects.

(a) The boundary lines are maintained to keep the Little 
Rock School District predominantly black and limit oppor- 
tunites therein for black students. (T. 379)

(b) The boundaries have generated consequences with 
respect to difference in state aid for instructional and related 
services and state aid for transportation. (T. 380)

(c) While the differences which favored the county over 
the years were remedied in the 1983 special legislative ses­
sion, the effects continue from all the years in which the 
state aid formula supported the county and was a dis­
advantage to the Little Rock School District and the North 
Little Rock School District. (T. 380)

(d) The boundary conditions as they exist led to a system 
that allows school construction to follow real estate develop­
ment and not educational needs or constitutional mandates. 
(T. 380)

(e) The boundary lines cause the overcrowding of stu­
dents, particularly black students, in some schools and 
produce empty seats in others. (T. 381)

104. Dr. Willie agreed with the above conclusions of Dr. 
Dentler that these acts impacted on the Little Rock School



A-132

District and contributed to the interdistrict effect of a dis- 
porportionate concentration of blacks in the Little Rock 
School District. (T. 228)

105. The disparity between the districts in the classifica­
tion of black students into the special ed categories has an 
interdistrict effect. Blacks are discouraged from moving out 
of the Little Rock School District by this disparity.

III. SUMMARY

The Little Rock School District in spite of good faith 
efforts to comply with orders of this court and to establish a 
unitary school system will become a segregated all-black 
district in a few years if present trends continue, which 
appears highly likely.

The Pulaski County Special School District has failed to 
comply with the mandates of this court delivered in 1973 to 
establish a unified, integrated system. Such non-compliance 
by the Board and staff is so substantial that the Pulaski County 
district is not now operating a constitutional school system.

The North Little Rock School District has also failed to 
establish a unitary, integrated district for the reasons noted 
in the above findings and in the observations of the Court of 
Appeals quoted at some length, supra. There is minimal 
integration in the administrative staff and there is blatant 
discrimination in the classification of students into mental 
retardation and slow learning categories.

The deficiencies in the Pulaski County and North Little 
Rock districts have had severe interdistrict effects, as noted 
in the findings, supra. The only long-term or even short-term 
solution to these problems is consolidation. Not only will 
this solution provide the basis for establishment of a unitary 
school system, but it should provide economy in administra­
tion and transportation that will contribute toward a quality 
education for all students in this county. Financial support 
for the schools, which shows signs of waning particularly in 
Little Rock, can be equalized and stabilized. It is obvious



A-133

from the last school election that Little Rock whites, many 
of whom are educating their children in private schools, are 
unwilling to commit financial support to a school system 
rapidly becoming all black. The same trends so evident in 
Little Rock are now beginning to gather momentum in 
North Little Rock. North Little Rock now is approximately 
at the point where Little Rock was ten years ago in terms of 
black enrollment.

The collapse of support for public education would be a 
tragic event. It is axiomatic that a democracy cannot long exist 
without a system of free public schools providing a quality 
education. In my view public eduction in this community has 
reached a crisis stage. The problem cannot be avoided by 
equivocation or half measures. I am today ordering a con­
solidating of the three school districts now operating in 
Pulaski County. Consolidation is feasible, workable, and in 
the best interests of all students in Pulaski County. The precise 
nature of the means to accomplish such a consolidation plan 
will be examined at a hearing on April 30, 1984.

IV. CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

1. The court has jurisdiction of the parties and the sub­
ject matter of this action under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331(a), 1343(3) 
and (4), 2201, and 2202. Plaintiff alleges that its cause of 
action arises under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983, 1988 and 2000(d), 
and the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the 
United States.

2. None of the three school districts in this case has 
achieved unitary status. Cf United States v. Texas Education 
Agency, 647 F.2d 504 (5th Cir. 1981). The Pulaski County 
Special School District has never applied for unitary status; 
the North Little Rock District and the Little Rock District 
have applied for but been denied unitary status. Clark v. 
Board of Education, 705 F.2d 265 (8th Cir. 1983); Davis v. 
Board of Education, 675 F.2d 684 (8th Cir. 1982).



A-134

3. The well established history of de jure segregation
together with judgments and orders of the United States 
District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas, place 
upon each of the Districts in the instant case the affirmative 
duty to eliminate every vestige of the state-mandated system 
of segregation. Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Edu­
cation, 402 U.S. 1 (1971); Liddell v. State of Missouri,__ F.2d
__, 8th Cir., slip opinion 2/8/84, No. 83-1957, at n. 10.

4. The history of interdistrict transfers, ignoring of 
boundary lines, pattern of annexations, the interdependence 
of all parts of the metropolitan area, the county as the basic 
taxing and collecting unit, the history of cooperation among 
the districts, and the County Board of Education’s supervis­
ory role for the three school districts demonstrate that the 
three districts historically had fluid boundary lines and were 
not meaningfully separate or autonomous. Evans v. 
Buchanan, 393 F.Supp. 428 (D. Del. 1975) (three-judge court).

5. The Little Rock School District has standing to bring 
this suit in furtherance of its affirmative duty to eliminate 
all vestiges of segregation root and branch, and in compli­
ance with prior orders of this Court to provide a desegregated 
education for its students. Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg 
Board of Education, supra; Clark v. Board of Education, supra. 
In addition, voluntary efforts to achieve interdistrict relief 
have failed.

6. The predominantly segregated residential patterns of 
Pulaski County have been caused in a significant degree by 
the actions of many governmental bodies, acting in concert 
with each other, with the defendants, and with private 
interests, and are not solely attributable to a series of 
individualized private housing choices. Hills v. Gautreaux, 
425 U.S. 284 (1975); Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of 
Education, supra.

7. The governmental actions affecting housing patterns in 
Pulaski County have had a significant interdistrict effect on 
the schools in Pulaski County, which has resulted in the great



A-135

disparity in the racial composition of the student bodies of the 
Little Rock district and the two defendants districts. Swann v. 
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, supra.

8. The segregative actions taken by the two defendant 
districts and their failure to take desegregative actions have 
had a significant interdistrict effect on the schools in Pulaski 
County, which has also contributed to the great disparity in 
the racial composition of the student bodies of the Little 
Rock district and the two defendant districts. Swan v. Char­
lotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, supra.

9. The Pulaski County Special School District has com­
mitted the following purposeful acts with continuing 
racially segregative interdistrict effects: (a) failed to adhere 
to the requirements of the Zinnamon decree; (b) constructed 
schools in locations which ensured that they would be 
racially identifiable schools; (c) failed to apportion the 
burdens of transportation equally on black and white stu­
dents; (d) refused to hire and promote black faculty and staff; 
(e) refused to allow deannexation to or consolidation with the 
other two districts; (f) failed to assign students to schools in 
such a way as to maximize desegregation; (g) assigned stu­
dents to special education classifications and gifted programs 
on a discriminatory basis; (h) assigned black principals to 
schools with high black enrollments; (i) created and main­
tained a racial imbalance in almost half its schools; and (j) 
closed and downgraded schools in black neighborhoods and 
failed to build new schools there.

10. The North Little Rock School District has committed 
the following purposeful acts with continuing racially segre­
gative interdistrict effects: (a) failed to assign blacks to its 
central administration or to high school principalships and 
coaching positions; (b) concentrated whites in schools north 
of Interstate 40 and blacks in schools south of it; (e) assigned 
students to special education classifications on a dis­
criminatory basis; and (d) failed to apportion the burdens of 
transportation equally on black and white students.



A-136

11. When Pulaski County Special School District and 
North Little Rock School District took the purposeful acts 
set forth in Conclusion Nos. 9 and 10 above, they knew or 
should have known that they would have interdistrict segre­
gative effects.

12. The unconstitutional and racially discriminatory acts 
of the Pulaski County and North Little Rock School Dis­
tricts have resulted in significant and substantial interdis­
trict segregation. Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 744.

13. Since there are constitutional violations with 
interdistrict effects, an interdistrict remedy is appropriate. 
Milliken v. Bradley, supra; Liddell v. State of Missouri, supra. 
The remedial hearing will begin April 30, 1984.

14. The Pulaski County Board of Education and Arkan­
sas State Board of Education are necessary parties who must 
be made subject to the Court’s remedial order.

This 13th day of April, 1984.

/ s /  Henry W oods

Henry Woods,
U.S. District Judge



“Exhibit 1”

Table 8. ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS: FACILITIES, ENROLLMENTS, AND STAFF

N A M E
Y E A R
B L T .*  ** C O N D I T I O N G R A D E S C A P A C I T Y 0 *

1 9 8 2
E N R L M N T .

%
U T I L I Z A T I O N

B L A C K
E N R L M N T .

%
B L .

#
T C H R S .

#  B L . 
T C H R S .

#
A D M R S .

#  B 
A D M .

Little Rock
1) Brady................ . . .  ’54 3 K-3 525 340 65 266 78 20.7 4.6 i 0

2) Fair Park........... . . .  ’29 2 K-3 325 304 94 240 79 19.1 12.1 l l

3) Forest Park....... . . .  T3 2 K-3 475 345 73 210 61 19.8 6.0 l l

4) Fullbright........... . . .  ’79 1 K-3 625 480 77 369 77 25.8 6.0 l 0
5) Jefferson............. . . .  ’50 3 K-3 500 357 71 233 65 23.4 6.0 l 0
6 )  McDermott......... . . .  ’67 2 K-3 600 432 72 330 76 24.6 8.6 l 0
7) Meadowcliff....... . . .  ’56 2 K-3 500 413 83 301 73 24.2 9.5 l 0
8) Terry.................. . . .  ’64 2 K-3 600 521 87 345 66 28.8 5.0 l 0
9) Woodruff............. . . .  ’ l l 1 K-3 325 258 79 189 73 17.4 5.4 l 0

10) Bale.................... . . .  ’59 3 K-3 500 330 67 226 68 19.9 7.8 l 1
11) Carver ................ . . .  ’24 3 K-6 480 495 104 495 100 27.7 15.0 l 1

12) Ish...................... . . .  ’64 2 K-6 400 397 99 397 100 24.3 8.0 l 0
13) Mitchell ............. . . .  ’08 2 K-6 275 396 144 396 100 23.6 8.8 l 0
14) K in g.................. . . .  ’37 2 K-6 300 377 126 299 79 22.1 8.0 l 1

15) Rightsell............. . . .  ’06 3 K-6 400 348 87 323 93 21.6 10.0 l 0
16) Romine............... . . .  ’61 2 K-6 650 659 101 492 75 32.5 17.5 l 0
17) Western His........ . . .  ’66 3 K-6 225 315 140 151 48 16.0 5.0 l 0
18) Williams............. . . .  ’58 2 K-6 550 452 82 212 47 28.4 11.0 l 1
19) Wilson................ . . .  ’27 2 K-6 500 470 94 275 _59 26.3 9.0 j _ 0

Total:......... 8,755 7,689 88% 5,749 75% 446.2 163.3 19 6

* Dates of additions to base plant not shown.
** Portable classrooms not included in capacity count.

A-137



“Exhibit 1”

Table 8. ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS: FACILITIES, ENROLLMENTS, AND STAFF— (cont’d.)

N A M E
Y E A R

B L T . C O N D I T I O N G R A D E S C A P A C I T Y
1 9 8 2

E N R L M N T .
o/

U T I L I Z A T I O N
B L A C K

E N R L M N T .
%

B L .
#

T C H R S .
#  B L . 

T C H R S .
#

A D M R S .
i B 

A D M .

Little Rock Intermediate Elementary Schools 
20) Booker........................ ’63 2 4-6 645 411 64 342 83 20.5 10.5 l l

21) Franklin ............. . . . .  ’49 3 4-6 550 465 85 347 75 22.5 7.0 l 0
22) Garland............... . . . .  ’22 3 4-6 380 384 1 0 1 318 83 20.0 14.5 l 0
23) Gibbs .................. . . . .  ’53 3 4-6 375 419 1 1 1 364 87 22.0 13.5 l i

24) Pulaski Hts.......... . . . .  ’25 3 4-6 500 427 85 263 62 21.5 6.0 l 0
25) Rockefeller ......... . . . .  ’79 1 4-6 500 402 80 288 72 23.5 9.5 l 0
26) Stephens ............. . . . .  ’50 2 4-6 425 341 80 233 68 18.5 8.5 i 0
27) Washington......... . . . .  ’50 3 4-6 375 307 _82 217 71 17.5 8.5 j . 0

Total:........... 3,750 3,156 84% 2,372 75% 166.0 78.0 8 3

A-138



“Exhibit 1”

Table 8. ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS: FACILITIES, ENROLLMENTS, AND STAFF— (cont’d.)

N A M E B L T . C O N D I T I O N  G R A D E S C A P A C I T Y *
1 9 8 2

E N R L M N T .
%

U T I L I Z A T I O N
B L A C K * *

E N R L M N T .
%

B L .
#

T C H R S .
#  B L . 

T C H R S .
#

A D M R S .
id B 

A D M .

North Little Rock 
28) Amboy.................. K-6 370 288 78 67 23 24.5 5.0 l 0
29) Argenta................ K-6 400 224 56 71 32 19.5 5.0 l 0
30) Belwood................ K-6 250 153 61 31 20 15.5 3.0 l 0
31) Boone Pk................ K-6 565 565 100 222 39 34.5 9.5 l 0
32) Crestwood ............. K-6 300 211 70 87 41 18.5 3.5 l 0
33) Glenview............... K-6 300 185 62 95 51 18.5 3.0 l 0
34) Indian His............. K-6 470 434 92 92 21 27.0 6.5 l 0
35) Lakewood............... K-6 500 268 54 107 40 20.0 6.0 l 1

36) Levy...................... K-6 600 229 38 82 36 16.0 5.0 l 0
37) Lynch Dr............... K-6 400 345 86 130 38 26.0 5.5 l 0
38) Meadow Pk............ K-6 300 268 89 109 41 20.0 4.0 l 0
39) No. Heights ......... K-6 500 434 87 156 36 23.5 7.0 l 0
40) Park Hill............... K-6 550 241 44 90 37 22.0 3.5 l 0
41) Pike View............. K-6 350 334 90 86 26 26.0 4.5 l 0
42) P ine...................... K-6 400 265 66 136 51 19.5 4.5 l 0
43) Redwood ............... K-6 550 232 42 112 48 19.0 6.5 l 1

44) Rose City............... K-6 650 285 44 70 25 23.0 4.5 l 0
45) Seventh St.............. K-6 450 372 _83 164 44 25.5 5.5 l 0

Total:............. 7,905 5,333 67% 1,907 36% 398.5 92.0 18 2

* Data not directly available. Estimated from 1954-1980 record of enrollments, using highest year, rounded.
** Data not directly available on kindergarten students. Also, district does not distinguish black from other minority students in records. 

Estimates made by interpolating from two reports.

A-139



“Exhibit 1”

Table 8. ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS: FACILITIES, ENROLLMENTS, AND STAFF— (cont’d.)

N A M E
Y E A R

B L T . C O N D I T I O N G R A D E S C A P A C I T Y
1 9 8 2

E N R L M N T .
%

U T I L I Z A T I O N
B L A C K

E N R L M N T .
%

B L .
#

T C H R S .
#  B L . 

T C H R S .
#

A D M R S .
#  B 

A D M .

Pulaski County
46) Adkins................ . . . .  ’63 3 K-6 300 347 116 113 33 15.0 0.0 l 0
47) Arnold................ . . . .  NA NA K-6 500 491 98 93 19 18.0 4.0 l 0
48) Badgett............... . . . .  ’63 2 K-6 350 352 101 185 53 16.0 5.0 l 0
49) Baker.................. . . . .  ’59 2 K-6 300 280 93 4 1 13.0 6.0 l 0
50) Baseline............... . . . .  ’75 2 K-6 500 583 117 285 49 27.0 5.0 l 0
51) Bayou Meto......... . . . .  ’67 3 K-6 400 615 154 10 2 24.0 3.0 l 0
52) Cato.................... . . . .  ’74 2 K-6 600 606 101 15 3 28.0 6.0 l 0
53) Chicot.................. . . . .  ’75 2 K-6 650 664 102 215 32 28.0 6.0 l 0
54) Cloverdale........... . . . .  ’60 3 K-6 500 572 114 192 36 25.0 4.0 l 0
55) Coll. Stn............... . . . .  ’59 2 K 375 116 31 93 80 6.5 2.0 l 1
56) Cook.................... . . . .  ’54 2 K 350 223 64 t—* CO CO 55 13.5 4.5 l 1
57) Dodd.................... . . . .  ’61 2 K-6 375 340 91 91 27 15.0 3.0 l 0
58) Dupree................ . . . .  ’59 2 K-6 450 454 101 69 15 18.0 4.0 l 0
59) Fuller.................. . . . .  ’59 2 K-6 400 485 121 167 34 21.0 5.0 l 0
60) Geyer Spr............. . . . .  ’59 2 K-6 200 222 111 75 34 10.0 1.0 l 0
61) Harris ................. . . . .  ’55 2 K-6 1,125 600 53 203 34 27.5 7.0 l 1
62) Jacksnvle.............. . . . .  ’63 2 K-6 775 734 95 162 22 30.0 6.0 l 0
63) Landmark........... . . . .  ’59 2 K-6 450 517 115 125 24 21.0 5.0 l 0
64) Lawson................ . . . .  ’57 3 K-6 350 386 110 4 1 19.5 4.5 l 0
65) Mabelvale ........... . . . .  ’58 2 K-6 550 601 109 141 22 26.0 5.0 l 0
66) Oakbrooke........... . . . .  ’80 1 K-6 500 491 98 92 19 22.0 5.0 l 0
67) Oak Grove........... . . . .  ’71 2 K-6 725 565 78 59 10 23.0 5.0 l 0
68) Otter Creek......... . . . .  ’79 1 K-6 500 444 89 70 16 20.0 4.0 l 0
69) Pine Forest......... . . . .  ’80 1 K-6 500 528 106 62 12 23.0 4.0 l 0

A-140



“Exhibit 1”

Table 8. ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS: FACILITIES, ENROLLMENTS, AND STAFF—(cont’d.)

N A M E
Y E A R

B L T . C O N D I T I O N G R A D E S C A P A C I T Y
1 9 8 2

E N R L M N T .
%

U T I L I Z A T I O N
B L A C K

E N R L M N T .
%

B L .
#

T C H R S .
#  B L . 

T C H R S .
#

A D M R S .
#  B 

A D M .

70) Pinewood....................  74 2 K-6 500 547 109 128 23 23.0 8.0 l l

71) Robinson ....................  74 2 K-6 500 477 95 94 20 20.0 5.0 l 0
72) Scott.................... .......  ’30 1 K-8 525 214 41 98 46 18.5 4.0 l 0
73) Sherwood....................  ’60 2 K-6 610 674 110 150 22 27.0 6.0 l 0
74) Sylvan His..................  ’63 2 K-6 750 780 104 121 16 33.5 6.5 l 0
75) Taylor................ .......  ’80 1 K-6 500 463 93 110 24 20.0 4.0 l 0
76) Tolleson......................  NA NA K-6 700 585 83 91 16 23.5 5.0 l 1
77) Wakefield ..................  ’59 3 K-6 575 512 89 170 33 20.0 6.0 l 1
78) Watson................ .......  ’67 2 K-6 600 560 _93 234 42 27.0 5.0 _i 0

Total:........... 16,985 16,028 94% 3,843 24% 702.5 149.5 33 6

A-141



“Exhibit 2”

Table 9. JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS: FACILITIES, ENROLLMENTS, AND STAFF

N A M E
Y E A R

B L T . C O N D I T I O N G R A D E S C A P A C I T Y
1 9 8 2

E N R L M N T .
%

U T I L I Z A T I O N
B L A C K

E N R L M N T .
%

B L .
#

T C H R S .
#  B L . 

T C H R S .
i

A D M R S .
#  B  

A D M .

Little Rock
79) Dunbar.................. . . .  ’29 2 7-9 870 692 80 375 54 35.0 18.5 3 2
80) Forest His.............. . . .  ’56 3 7-9 725 769 106 502 65 40.0 17.0 3 1

81) Henderson............. . . .  ’64 2 7-9 955 862 90 494 57 50.0 14.0 3 1

82) Mann.................... . . .  ’55 3 7-9 661 654 99 501 77 39.5 19.5 3 2
83) Pulaski Hts............ . . .  ’21 2 7-9 700 600 86 360 60 34.0 9.0 3 1
84) Southwest............. . . .  ’56 3 7-9 765 710 93 467 66 38.0 15.5 _3 1

Total:.................... 4,676 4,287 92% 2,699 63% 236.5 93.5 18 8

North Little Rock
85) Central.................. . . . NA NA 7 1,000 812 81 231 28 54.0 9.5 2 0
86) Lakewood............... . . . NA NA 7-9 800 523 65 157 30 38.0 4.5 2 0
87) Ridgeroad ............. . . . NA NA 7-9 1,000 645 65 206 32 37.5 6.0 1 1
88) Rose City............... . . . NA NA 8-9 400 433 108 164 38 32.5 7.0 _2 0

Total:.................... 3,200 2,413 75% 758 31% 162.0 27.0 7 1

Pulaski County
89) Cloverdale............. . . .  ’58 3 7-9 747 840 112 235 28 41.5 6.0 2 0
90) Fuller.................... . . .  ’53 2 7-9 722 485 67 167 34 52.5 16.0 3 1
91) Jksnvle/No........... . . .  ’55 3 7-9 946 594 63 149 25 32.5 8.0 2 1
92) Jksnvle/So ........... . . .  ’53 2 7-9 896 570 64 154 27 32.5 7.0 2 1
93) Mabelvale ............. . . .  ’53 2 7-9 847 611 72 39 6 31.0 5.5 2 0
94) North wood............. . . .  ’79 1 7-9 1,000 976 98 59 6 47.5 7.0 3

A-142



“ Exhibit 2”
Table 9. JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS: FACILITIES, ENROLLMENTS, AND STAFF—(cont’d.)

N A M E
Y E A R

B L T . C O N D I T I O N G R A D E S C A P A C I T Y
1 9 8 2

E N R L M N T .
. %

U T I L I Z A T I O N
B L A C K

E N R L M N T .
%

B L .
#

T C H R S .
#  b l . 

T C H R S .
#

A D M R S .
#  B 

A D M .

95) Robinson* ........... . . . .  ’54 3 6-8 772 477 62 94 20 24.5 5.5 2 l

96) Sylvan His........... . . . .  ’56 2 7-9 971 949 98 105 11 47.5 9.5 J l

Total:.................. 6,901 5,502 80% 1,002 18% 309.5 64.5 19 6

Middle school



“Exhibit 3”

Table 10. SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLS: FACILITIES, ENROLLMENTS, AND STAFF
Y E A R 1 9 8 2 % B L A C K % #  B L . * * B

N A M E B L T . C O N D I T I O N G R A D E S C A P A C I T Y E N R L M N T . U T I L I Z A T I O N E N R L M N T . B L . T C H R S . T C H R S . A D M R S . A D M .

Little Rock
97) Central.................. . . .  ’26 l 10-12 1,909 1,989 104 1,106 56 94.5 31.0 5 3
98) H all...................... . . .  ’57 3 10-12 1,180 1,084 92 594 55 61.5 20.0 5 3
99) Parkview............... . . .  ’68 2 10-12 1,038 1,208 116 762 63 67.0 17.0 J 2

Total:............. 4,127 4,281 104% 2,462 58% 223.0 68.0 14 8
North Little Rock
100) Northeast............. . . .  ’70 2 10-12 1,400 1,050 75 284 27 66.5 10.5 3 1
101) Ole Main............. . . .  ’34 2 10-12 2,000 1,083 54 393 36 69.5 11.5 J 1

Total:............. 3,400 2,133 63% 677 32% 136.0 22.0 5 2
Pulaski County
102) Fair .................... . . .  ’81 1 7-12 850 832 98 97 12 48.5 10.5 3 1
103) Jacksnvle.............. . . .  ’69 3 10-12 1,220 1,181 97 331 28 55.5 5.0 3 0
104) McClellan ........... . . .  ’65 3 10-12 1,494 1,472 102 268 18 70.0 11.0 4 1
105) Mills.................... . . .  ’69 3 10-12 946 1,020 108 409 40 50.0 11.0 2 0
106) Oak Grove........... . . .  ’62 3 7-12 672 825 123 119 14 43.0 6.0 3 1
107) N. Pulaski........... . . .  ’76 2 10-12 1,121 726 65 41 6 36.0 6.0 2 1
108) Robinson ............. . . .  ’54 3 9-12 772 459 59 53 11 31.0 7.0 2 1
109) Sylvan His........... . . .  ’56 3 10-12 896 864 _96 119 14 43.0 7.0 _2 1

Total:............. 7,921 7,379 93% 1,437 19% 377.0 63.5 21 6

A-144



A-145

No. LR-C-82-866 
In  T h e

United §tates district (Eourt
Eastern District of A rkansas 

W estern Division

LITTLE ROCK SCHOOL DISTRICT,

v
P la in tiff,

PULASKI COUNTY SPECIAL SCHOOL 
DISTRICT, et al,

D efen d a n ts ,

MRS. LORENE JOSHUA, as Next Friend of 
Minors LESLIE JOSHUA, et al,

In  t e r v e n o r s ,

KATHERINE KNIGHT, Individually and as 
of The Little Rock Classroom Teachers

President

Association (LRCTA), et al,
In te r v e n o r s .

JUDGMENT

In accordance with the opinions of the Court filed this date 
and April 13, 1984, judgment is entered consolidating the 
Little Rock School District, Pulaski County Special School 
District and the North Little Rock School District into one 
school district. While the planning processes set forth in 
these opinions must be immediately undertaken, the actual 
operation of this consolidated district is stayed until such 
time as the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit issues its 
opinion on appeal. Any further stays after the opinion of 
the Eighth Circuit must be sought from that court.



A-146

This 19th day of November, 1984.
/ s /  Henry W oods

Henry Woods, 
U.S. District Judge



A-147

No. LR-C-82-866 
In The

United §tates district (Eourt
Eastern District of A rkansas 

W estern Division

LITTLE ROCK SCHOOL DISTRICT,
Plaintiff,

v.
PULASKI COUNTY SPECIAL SCHOOL 
DISTRICT, et al,

Defendants,

MRS. LORENE JOSHUA, as Next Friend of 
Minors LESLIE JOSHUA, et al,

Intervenors,

KATHERINE KNIGHT, Individually and as President 
of The Little Rock Classroom Teachers 
Association (LRCTA), et al,

Intervenors.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

I. INTRODUCTION

This Court issued its Memorandum Opinion on April 13, 
1984, Little Rock School District v. Pulaski County Special School 
District, et al, 584 F.Supp. 328 (E.D. Ark. 1984), finding, 
among other things, that the defendant districts had 
engaged in unconstitutional and racially discriminatory acts 
resulting in substantial interdistrict segregation. In its com­
plaint the Little Rock School District (LRSD) prayed that 
this Court order consolidation of the school districts found in



A-148

Pulaski County. Having determined that the substantial 
interdistrict violations could be rectified only by correspond­
ing substantial interdistrict relief, the Court ordered the 
requested consolidation. The parties were informed that a 
hearing would be conducted on April 30, 1984 to consider the 
precise nature of the consolidation plan to be implemented.

At the April 30, 1984 hearing all parties were afforded an 
opportunity to present any testimony they desired concern­
ing the remedial aspects of this case. The LRSD presented a 
plan that was authored primarily by Dr. Robert Dentler. 
Rather than offering alternative plans or constructive criti­
cism of the LRSD plan, the defendant districts chose to 
attack the consolidation concept at every juncture and 
destroy the LRSD plan. Much of their effort seemingly was 
aimed at relitigating the liability portion of this case rather 
than assisting the Court in the formulation of a workable 
solution to the interdistrict violations which were found to 
have occurred. While the Court recognized the need for all 
parties to fulfill their duties as adversaries in this litigation, 
it was hoped that, without prejudicing their right to appeal, 
the defendant districts would take a more constructive 
approach to the remedial portion of this case. On numerous 
occasions subsequent to the April 30, 1984 hearing, the 
defendant districts voiced the opinion that this court fore­
closed them from puting forth alternative remedies. Due to 
the negative approach taken by the defendant districts at the 
April 30, 1984 hearing (in the face of this court’s need for 
their constructive participation) and the resulting cloud of 
confusion created by their complaints that they had been 
prevented from offering alternative remedies, the Court 
adhered to the suggestion of the Court of Appeals that the 
remedial hearings be reopened for the purposes of permitting 
these defendants to advance different remedies. A hearing to 
afford these defendants that opportunity, as well as to allow 
the various intervenors to participate in the remedial aspects 
of the case, was held beginning on July 30, 1984.



A-149

Subsequent to the conclusion of this portion of the 
remedial hearings, Intervenors Knight, et al sought to substi­
tute an exhibit reflecting the current Professional Negotia­
tions Agreement (PNA) between the Little Rock Classroom 
Teachers Association and the LRSD, and the Pulaski County 
Special School District (PCSSD) sought permission to supple­
ment the record to reflect offers to engage in some form of 
voluntary transfers of students among the districts.

PCSSD’s motion to supplement the record to include the 
aforementioned correspondence is granted. The attorneys 
representing PCSSD are directed to meet with this Court’s 
courtroom deputy clerk to facilitate the marking and listing 
of these exhibits for the record.

Intervenors Knight, et al’s motion to substitute a current 
PNA is granted, and her attorney should likewise meet with 
the Court’s courtroom deputy so as to ensure that this substi­
tution of exhibits is accomplished.

The parties have submitted post-hearing briefs, and the 
Court has reviewed its April 13, 1984 Memorandum Opinion 
and the transcript of the remedial hearings. With this 
background and a view toward tailoring the remedy to fit the 
nature and extent of the constitutional violations, Milliken v. 
Bradley, 418 U.S. 717, 94 S.Ct. 3112, 41 L.Ed.2d 1069 (1974), 
the Court is prepared to render its opinion concerning the 
remedial aspects of this case.

II. ALTERNATIVE PLANS
A. The Pulaski County Special School District Plan

The PCSSD plan (PCSSD X  83) was generally described 
as voluntary with mandatory backup. Fritz Friedl, 
Administrator for Research, Planning and Quality 
Assurance for Pulaski County Special School District, coordi­
nated efforts within the PCSSD staff and patrons in drafting 
the plan and presented the plan at the July 30, 1984 hearing. 
The plan retains the three autonomous school districts and 
relies on the development of specialty or magnet schools to 
attract students from one district to another. These magnet



A-150

schools would be governed by a tri-district committee that 
would oversee the location of schools, student assignments, 
transportation, faculty and financing. The fatal flaw with 
this plan is its undue reliance on voluntary transfers. This 
Circuit held that “voluntary interdistrict transfers . . .  as a 
remedy for an intradistrict violation . . . comply with constitu­
tional standards,” Liddell v. State of Missouri, 731 F.2d 1294, 
1305 (8th Cir. 1984) (emphasis added) and in some cases these 
“ freedom of choice” features may still have some vitality. 
Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, 391 U.S. 430, 
88 S.Ct. 1689, 20 L.Ed.2d 716 (1967). However, in the face of 
the dejure segregative acts found to have occurred and which 
are continuing, it would be naive to conclude that such a 
voluntary plan would succeed in this case. The PCSSD plan 
fails to adequately address the interdistrict segregative 
effects found to exist and cannot be approved. Little Rock 
School District v. Pulaski County Special School District, supra, 
findings of fact numbered 103-105.

B. The North Little Rock School District Plan
The North Little Rock School District (NLRSD) had con­

sistently taken the position that they would not offer an 
alternative plan, notwithstanding their criticism that they 
had been denied such an opportunity. However, on the eve 
of the July 30, 1984 hearing, the NLRSD apparently 
reached the conclusion to support what has been referred to 
as the “ Masem/Western Wedge Plan.” One of the pro­
ponents of this plan was Dr. Paul Masem, former Super­
intendent of the LRSD and an expert retained by the Joshua 
Intervenors. Dr. David Armor, one of the NLRSD’s expert 
witnesses, presented testimony in favor of such a plan.

The “ Masem/Western Wedge Plan” calls for the NLRSD 
to retain its separate autonomous identity. The PCSSD 
north and west of Interstate 30 and south of the Arkansas 
River would become part of the LRSD. The LRSD east and 
south of Interstate 30 would become part of the PCSSD. 
Desegregation under the NLRSD plan would depend largely 
upon voluntary “ M to M” (majority to minority) transfers.



A-151

The NLRSD plan defines a desegregated school as one 
having between 20-50% black enrollment. The plan would 
allow a deviation of five percentage points on either side of 
these parameters. A racially isolated school under this plan 
is defined as one having 90% or more students of one race. 
An Interdistriet Policy Board would be established to 
administer and coordinate the various provisions of the plan. 
This Board would include representatives from each district, 
as well as the Joshua Intervenors.

The Court finds that this plan, like the PCSSD plan, 
places too much reliance upon the voluntary motivations of 
the county patrons. The magnet school concept and “ M to 
M” transfer theories have a great deal of public appeal. 
However, the Court agrees with Dr. Charles Willie’s opinion 
that there are insufficient incentives offered by the NLRSD 
plan to expect the transfers under the “ M to M” plan to be 
successful in desegregating the county schools. Any 
advances in the effort to desegregate these districts made by 
the suggested alterations in the various district boundary 
lines would be temporary. The approach suggested by the 
NLRSD plan fails to adequately address the interdistrict 
constitutional violations found by the Court and is the sort of 
half measure condemned by this Court in its earlier opinion.

C. The Interventors Joshua Plan
The Intervenors Joshua chose not to advance any particu­

lar plan, but rather through their experts Masem and Dr. 
John Finger submitted a Position Statement on Consolida­
tion (IX 2). Masem did offer testimony with regard to three 
options available to the Court which would not necessitate 
consolidation of all three districts. These options were pri­
marily concerned with alterations in the boundary lines of 
the existing districts. Option A basically would establish the 
boundary lines as set forth in the “ Masem/Western Wedge” 
plan espoused by the NLRSD. Option B would have the 
LRSD bounded on the south and east by Interstate 30 to the 
county line and on the north by the Arkansas River and 
Interstate 40 from the current NLRSD boundary to the 
county line. The NLRSD would administer the remaining



A-152

portion of the county north of the Arkansas River, and the 
PCSSD would administer the remaining portion of the 
county south of the Arkansas River. Under Option C, the 
LRSD would exist as set forth in Option B and the remain­
ing PCSSD would be consolidated with the NLRSD. These 
options are not supported by sufficient data to convince the 
Court that any of them would adequately remedy the consti­
tutional violations found by the Court. In fact, Masem 
opined that consolidation of all the school districts within 
Pulaski County would be the most effective plan from a 
desegregation point of view (T. 3651). Some of the concerns 
expressed by these Intervenors have been taken into con­
sideration by this Court in the drafting of this opinion and 
will, of course, be kept in mind during the finalization of the 
attendance zones, transportation routes, etc.

D. The Little Rock School District Plan
The LRSD plan (PX 63), often referred to as the “ Dentler 

Plan,” resulted from Dr. Dentler’s consideration of various 
alternatives. His thorough consideration of alternative 
plans, as well as his extensive background of serving as a 
retained and court-appointed expert in school desegregation 
litigation, impressed upon this Court his dedication to an 
objective approach of tailoring the remedy to fit the violation 
at issue.

In what is referred to as the “ St. Louis Case,” Dr. Dentler 
(serving as a court-appointed expert) assisted in the formula­
tion of a consent decree to assist desegregative efforts in that 
case. It was highly doubtful at the time the LRSD plan was 
drafted that any sort of consent resolution was possible in 
this case. Furthermore, the Court accepts Dr. Dentler’s other 
reasons for rejecting this possibility. First, this case involves 
three districts whereas the St. Louis case involved twenty- 
five districts. There are also differences in the relative size of 
the student populations and differences in the degree of 
utilization of the magnet school concept in St. Louis vis-a-vis 
the three districts herein. Evidence that suburban school 
districts offered superior educational opportunities was not 
present in this case as it was in the St. Louis case, and there



A-153

existed a greater number of surplus seats in the St. Louis 
case allowing greater planning flexibility. Finally, the St. 
Louis court did not need to address the specific constitutional 
violations found by the Court in this case. (T. 1766-70.) The 
voluntary measures incorporated to a large extent in the St. 
Louis area cannot be utilized here because of the absence of 
demographic and educational opportunity factors necessary 
to make a voluntary plan effective.

Although the magnet school-centered concept has many 
attractive features, it was rejected by Dr. Dentler. This 
Court accepts much of the criticism made by Dr. Dentler of 
this alternative. An interdistrict magnet concept cannot be 
the basis of any plan adopted by this Court to cure the 
constitutional violations. These districts are not adequately 
experienced in the magnet concept, and the Court finds that 
this approach is not economically feasible at this time. How­
ever, partial and increased future utilization of the magnet 
concept could enhance educational opportunities in this 
county, as well as assisting in making the court-imposed 
desegregative efforts more palatable.

The alternative of merely extending LRSD lines to be 
coterminous with the City of Little Rock boundaries would 
have at most minimal and temporary results and would not 
adequately address the constitutional violations found in 
this Court’s prior opinion. Likewise, allowing the NLRSD to 
remain as an “ island” within a PCSSD and LRSD consoli­
dated district ignores the need to address the NLRSD’s 
constitutional violations and would enhance the likelihood of 
creating further racial imbalances.

The Court also agrees with Dr. Dentler’s conclusion that 
an interdistrict voluntary exchange of students would place 
a disproportionate busing burden upon black students. Fur­
thermore, as Dr. Charles Willie testified, desegregation plans 
based upon freedom of choice have proved to be total failures. 
Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, supra at 440.

Dr. Dentler also considered a consolidation plan espoused 
by Dr. Colton in the St. Louis case which allowed for a



A-154

mandatory redistribution of resources, teachers, etc. with a 
voluntary approach to the redistribution of students. This 
approach does not adequately address the constitutional vio­
lations found by this Court, and the voluntary aspect of 
student transfers would be less than adequate in accomplish­
ing the required desegregation.

Finally, Dr. Dentler concluded that the only legitimate 
prospect of remedying the unconstitutional interdistrict vio­
lations and achieving a unitary status of any or all of the 
party districts is through consolidation. This Court agrees 
that a countywide interdistrict remedy must be utilized to 
correct the countywide interdistrict violation found to exist 
and that this is the only manner of placing the victims of 
this discrimination in the position they would have occupied 
absent the discrimination. Consolidation will eradicate the 
ill effects of these prior segregative violations, and the Court 
believes there are a number of reasons to conclude that 
consolidation can be successful in this case. (See, e.g., Little 
Rock School District v. Pulaski County Special School District, 
supra, findings numbered 2, 7-22.) Failure to utilize a county­
wide consolidation plan would exacerbate white flight prob­
lems in the county’s residential growth.

The LRSD consolidation plan utilizes a geocoding process 
of arriving at student assignment areas and divides Pulaski 
County into six (6) subdistricts. Rather than calling for a 
specific racial balance (the constitution mandates no “ par­
ticular degree of racial balance,” Swann v. Charlotte- 
Mecklenhurg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1, 24 (1971)), this 
plan establishes a racial composition standard of (+) or (—) 
25% of the racial makeup of the student population. The 
schools are to be equal in quality and have uniform grade 
structures (K-6); (7-9); (10-12) so as to enhance the ability of 
students to move about the district more freely. The parties 
must immediately begin compiling the data necessary to the 
development of the geocoded student assignment areas. The 
specific attendance zones of the various grades cannot be 
defined until the parties cooperate in the assimilation of this



A-155

data. The final attendance zones must be submitted to the 
Court for its approval.

Transportation within the district, one of the more emo­
tional issues of this consolidation, must be accomplished with 
a view toward minimizing the number of students that must 
be bussed. When the Court reviews the final attendance 
zones, the transporation routes will be strictly scrutinized to 
ensure that the final plans utilize the shortest possible routes 
to accomplish consolidation. Financially, the additional 
transportation burden should not impact too greatly on the 
overall budget requirements of the consolidated district.

While the magnet school concept is not acceptable to the 
Court as an overall remedy, Dr. Dentler’s incorporation of 
magnet schools into the LRSD consolidation plan is sound. 
It encourages voluntary complaince with the goals of the 
consolidation plan in exchange for enhanced educational 
opportunities. Locating these magnet schools in areas popu­
lated primarily by blacks should make the transfer of white 
students from other parts of the district more attractive. The 
creation of a technical vocational magnet at Metropolitan 
High is a logical starting point for the use of magnet schools 
within the consolidated district (Little Rock School District v. 
Pulaski County Special School District, supra at 340, finding of 
fact number 14). The development of additional magnets can 
occur in the future where they compliment the desegregation 
efforts of the consolidated district.

For desegregation to be successful under the LRSD con­
solidation plan, the administration must likewise reflect a 
desegregated staff at all levels and in all units. This must be 
one of the initial goals of the superintendent and board of 
the consolidated district. An interim board of directors will 
be selected by this Court, and it will be their duty to immedi­
ately retain the services of a qualified superintendent. These 
board members and the superintendent must be dedicated to 
the effective implementation of the LRSD consolidation 
plan. The board of directors will be responsible for submit­
ting interim reports to the Court reflecting the efforts to 
implement the LRSD consolidation plan. The frequency of



A-156

these reports will be no less than annual, but will be estab­
lished in the future subsequent to appointment of an interim 
board and selection of a superintendent by that board. The 
Court sees no necessity at this time for a separate monitoring 
committee as suggested by Dr. Dentler.

The boundary lines within the district for the election of 
the members of the board of directors were significantly 
altered at the hearings (PX 74, 74A). Mr. Jim Lynch, 
Director of the Department of Management and Information 
Services of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, com­
piled much of the data and developed this facet of the 
consolidation plan with the assistance of Mr. Howard 
Deimer, elections coordinator for the Pulaski County Elec­
tion Commission. The altered electoral plan calls for a nine- 
member school board elected from nine single member dis­
tricts. This method of selection increases the likelihood of 
minority representation on the board. The date of an election 
of persons to replace the interim court-appointed board will 
be established in the future.

Dr. Dentler’s analysis of the federal fiscal aspects involved 
in implementing the Little Rock School District consolida­
tion plan reflects that implementation can occur without 
significantly increasing the total budgets of the affected 
districts. Only with more refined study of the costs associ­
ated with implementing the LRSD consolidation plan by the 
new superintendent and board of the consolidated district 
can a determination be made as to the millage rate which 
must be uniformly applied within the consolidated district. 
See, e.g., Liddell v. State of Missouri, supra at 1320.

During the course of his testimony, Mr. Gene Reville, 
Superintendent of the Buffalo, New York School District 
and the court-appointed expert, stated it was his opinion that 
the success of any consolidation plan depended primarily 
upon its acceptance by the parents of the consolidated dis­
trict’s school children. The Court was impressed with his 
analysis of the Dentler plan. His testimony provided the 
sort of practical insight that only an experienced, profes­
sional school administrator could offer. While he approved



A-157

Dr. Dentler’s plan as an effective desegregation tool, the 
concerns he expressed about the refusal of the defendant 
districts to participate in the formulation of a consolidated 
plan should not be overlooked. These school districts have a 
continuing duty to obey and implement the orders of this 
Court. In the discharge of their court responsibilities, the 
districts owe their patrons an even higher duty. They must, 
during the planning and implementation of any consolidated 
plan, consult with their patrons and seek the adoption or 
modification by this Court of a plan which remedies the 
interdistriet violations found by the Court but does not 
ignore the educational and safety needs of the county chil­
dren. With this in mind the three districts are directed to 
hold no less than three public meetings within their district 
for the purposes of explaining the LRSD consolidation plan 
to their patrons and allowing constructive criticism. These 
meetings must not be a forum for the condemnation of the 
consolidation concept. Rather they must solicit comments 
which will assist in the finalization of attendance zones and 
transportation routes. Each district’s superintendent must 
be present and be familiar with the consolidation plan so as 
to be able to explain the plan to the district patrons. A 
transcript of these public meetings should be submitted to 
this Court at the cost of each district, and these meetings 
must be held no later than March 29, 1985.

E. Input of Knight Intervenors
The primary focus of the post-hearing submission of the 

Knight Intervenors concerned securing and protecting the 
contractual rights of the teachers employed by the three 
districts. Their interests will be protected by the Court. 
However, it would be premature at this time to impose any 
particular contract on the consolidated district. The Court 
will involve itself in this potential contractual dispute only 
when it becomes apparent that the interim board is unable to 
come to an agreement with its teachers. The Court realizes 
the importance of teacher support and participation in the 
successful implementation of any remedy and will address 
any financial and assignment disputes between the new



A-158

board and the teachers when and if they arise. Of course, the 
parties should not construe this portion of the opinion as an 
expression of the Court’s intention to become an arbitrator of 
all disputes arising between the district and its teachers.

III. THE STATE DEFENDANTS

The LRSD requests at this time that the Court enter 
findings concerning the basis for retaining the state 
defendants in this case for remedial purposes. In its earlier 
opinion the Court advised these defendants that they would 
remain in the case for remedial purposes. LRSD v. Pulaski 
County Special School District, supra at 353.

The State Board of Education has, by statute, general 
supervision over all public schools in the State of Arkansas. 
Ark.Stat.Ann. § 80-113. In addition to that general responsi­
bility, the State Board and the Department of Education 
have numerous specific duties, including the approval of 
plans and expenditures of public school funds for new school 
buildings (Ark.Stat.Ann. §§ 80-113, 80-3506; T. 775); review, 
approval and disapproval of local school district budgets 
(Ark.Stat.Ann. §§ 80-113, 80-1305; T. 773); administration of 
all federal funds for education (Ark.Stat.Ann. §§ 80-123, 
80-140); disbursement of State Transportation Aid Funds to 
local school districts (Ark.Stat.Ann. §§ 80-735, 80-736); assist­
ing school districts in the operation of their transportation 
system (T. 774); lending funds from the State Revolving 
Loan Fund to local school districts (Ark.Stat.Ann. § 80-942); 
approval or disapproval of bonds issued by local school dis­
tricts (Ark.Stat.Ann. § 80-1105; T. 775); advising school dis­
tricts regarding the issuance of bonds (T. 777); and regulation 
of the operation of school buses (Ark.Stat.Ann. §§ 80-1809, 
80-1809.2).

The State Board of Education has broad statutory author­
ity to supervise the public schools of the state generally, and 
to take what action it may deem necessary to “promote the



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physical welfare of school children and promote the organi­
zation and increase the efficiency of the public schools of the 
State.” Ark.Stat.Ann. § 80-113.

The State Board of Education has the authority to promul­
gate regulations concerning the earmarking and use of funds 
used by local school districts (Ark.Stat.Ann. § 80-1305), the 
use of federal education funds by local school districts 
(Ark.Stat.Ann. § 80-142) for the administration of State 
Transportation Aid Funds by local school districts 
(Ark.Stat.Ann. § 80-735), and for the operation of school 
buses by local districts (Ark.Stat.Ann. §§ 80-1809, 80-1810).

The State Board of Education may lend funds from the 
State Revolving Loan Fund for the purchase of school buses 
and other equipment, for making major repairs and con­
structing additions to school buildings, for the purchase of 
sites for new school buildings, for the construction of new 
school buildings, and for the purchase of surplus buildings. 
Ark.Stat.Ann. § 80-942.

The State Board of Education has never acknowledged its 
affirmative duty to assist the local school districts in their 
desegregation efforts. In the performance of its statutory 
duties, as set forth above, the State Board has never promul­
gated any rules or guidelines which would encourage the 
local districts to eliminate discrimination in their school 
systems. These omissions have had their greatest impact on 
the issues of school construction, student transportation, and 
financial assistance to local districts. Had the State Board 
taken affirmative steps in providing incentives to local school 
districts to comply with desegregation requirements, desegre­
gation within the school districts in Pulaski County would 
have been greatly enhanced. These deficiences in the State 
Board’s discharge of its affirmative duty to encourage deseg­
regation in the local school districts had an interdistrict 
effect upon the Little Rock, Pulaski County, and North 
Little Rock school districts. Other branches of the State, as 
set forth in the court’s earlier opinion, Little Rock School 
District v. Pulaski County Special School District, supra at 328- 
335, share responsibility with the State Board for these



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constitutional violations, but the State Board must be the 
remedial vehicle for their violations as well. The State 
Board therefore has remedial responsibilities with respect to 
this case. Adams v. United States, 620 F.2d 1277 (8th Cir. 1980 
(en banc)), cert, denied, 449 U.S. 826; Liddell v. State of Missouri,
731 F.2d 1294 (8th Cir. 1984), cert, denied, _  U.S----- The
precise nature of these financial and oversight responsibilites 
must await further refinement of the consolidation plan and 
development of a budget for such consolidated district.

IV. SUMMARY

The three districts in this case have an affirmative obliga­
tion to eliminate segregation “ root and branch.” Swann v. 
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, supra. Having 
failed in the discharge of this responsibility, it is the duty of 
this Court to fashion a remedy of a nature and scope suf­
ficient to meet the constitutional violations found to have 
occurred. Milliken v. Bradley, supra-, Hills v. Gautreaux, 425 
U.S. 284, 96 S.Ct. 1538, 47 L.Ed.2d 792 (1976). This Court 
cannot shrink from this duty and in approving a remedy, the 
Court must restore “ the victims of the discrimination as 
nearly as possible to the position they would have occupied 
absent that discrimination.” Liddell v. State of Missouri, supra 
at 1306.

The Court therefore approves the LRSD consolidation 
plan and directs that the parties undertake the implementa­
tion of said plan.

This 19th day of November, 1984.

/ s /  Henry W oods

Henry Woods, 
U.S. District Judge



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