Don’t Like the Ruling, Because I Don’t Like the Law

MO Supremes kinda sorta say that the state law that allows students who live in unaccredited school districts to transfer to accredited districts on the dime of their home unaccredited district is okay, remand the case back to the Appellate level.  It was a weird ruling:  It was a 4-3 ruling for the majority opinion, but Pat Breckenridge’s “dissenting” opnion partially concurred with the majority opinion, and two other Justices sided with her.  So it was 4.5 for, 2.5 somewhat for and somewhat against.  But the majority opinion is the one that has the real legal meat.  That majority opinion was said to be co-written by the four Justices who signed on with it, those being Chief Justice Price, and Justices Teitelman, Wolff and Fischer.  Usually, one judge on the winning side writes the majority opinion, and others merely put their John Hancock on it.  Pat Breckenridge seems to have written the semi-dissenting opinion all by herself, and Justices Russell and Stith signed onto it.

Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s anything the Supremes could have done here.  It’s a screwy law, but I don’t think it’s an unconstitutional law (i.e. vis-a-vis the Missouri Const.).  You’ve read this medium long enough to know that it’s insane to blame school board members and administrators and teachers (even the worst ones, of which the St. Louis City Public Schools has many) for the intellectual deficiencies of their black students.  And make no mistake about it, race is is the big unspoken issue here.  And allowing students to transfer to other nearby districts only perpetuates inter-district deseg, at a time when the Federal courts are winding down on the matter.

If you care, knock yourself out.  Both opinions together are only 30 pages, it’s not long, at least for a Supreme Court ruling.

UPDATE 5 PM: Read the ruling, and it’s not as complicated as the P-D made me think it was.  There were two issues in this case:  One, whether St. Louis City parents who transferred their kids to the Clayton district based on tuition agreements (NOT inter-district deseg; This probably proves that all the parents and children that were plaintiffs are white, because under the inter-district deseg rules, blacks can xfer from city to county, and whites can xfer from county to city, but NOT the other way around — if the kids in this case were black, then they could have gone to Clayton free of charge under inter-district deseg, as IIRC Clayton is still in the deseg program), could not only stop paying tuition, but get the tuition refunded that they paid since their home district of the SLPS became unaccredited, based on the state law that allowed for state dis-accreditation of districts the state takeovers thereof being passed before they entered a tuition transfer contract agreement with Clayton.  The second issue is whether school districts MUST accept refugees from unaccredited districts.  In the case of St. Louis City, ONLY school districts in St. Louis County are legally refugee districts, because the refugee destination must be in the same county as the taken-over district, or in an adjoining county.  St. Louis City is a county unto itself, the SLPS is co-terminus with St. Louis City the city and St. Louis City the county, and the only Missouri county that adjoins the county of St. Louis City is St. Louis County.  (NOTE:  This is why a City-County merger should be opposed.  If the City and County become one, then school districts in Jefferson, Franklin and St. Charles counties might take in (actually, MUST take in, see below) refugees from any failing district in the newly merged city/county entity.  Say for example that city-county merger happens while the Riverview Gardens district is still unaccredited and in state hands.  This means that black kids in the RG district can go to Francis Howell or Union or Festus on RG’s dime.  You moved out all the way to get away from blacks, and just when you get comfortable, their kids will be following you out there.)

All seven Justices agreed that since the tuition contract was rock-solid, and that its terms remain enforceable, as it was drawn and agreed to between the Clayton district and the City parents before the state took over the SLPS, even though the law which permitted state takeovers and requisite refugee transfers on the war-torn district’s dime was passed before these City parents and Clayton made the contract.  (It would be like saying that if you went to the store and bought a TV for $1,000 today, while the state passed a law last year giving certain state agencies the bureaucratic ability to limit TV prices, and tomorrow, the bureaucrats cap TV prices at $900 with the regulation going effect on that very day, this means that the store has the contractual/legal obligation to give you $100 back two days from now.  It does not.)  Where there was a 4-3 disagreement was on issue 2 — Price, Teitelman, Wolff and Fischer think that various and contradictory state laws should be interpreted to mean that refugee districts MUST take in kids from war-torn (so to speak) districts, while Breckenridge, joined by Russell and Stith, thinks that refugee districts have discretion to turn down refugees.  (Because “must” has carried the day with the MO Supremes, this makes my admonition about a city-county merger all the more serious.)  Justice Breckenridge made the point that if only 3% of SLPS students transferred to Clayton, this would double Clayton’s enrollment instantly.

The General Assembly has a really long and disturbing history of insouciance when it comes to getting all its ducks in a row on legislation.  Something that needs to stop.  Pat Breckenridge makes the more convincing point than the majority (in my mind) when it comes to Issue 2, but that’s only because I agree with its substance.  From a purely legal standpoint, both views of Issue 2 are valid, and we won’t have a winner until the General Assembly does what it needs to do.  But with deseg-loving luminaries like Jane Cunningham in the General Assembly, they’d probably make the wrong decision anyway.

UPDATE 7/19: The P-D makes a good point today, in a roundabout way:  This ruling is going to put Governor Nixon in an interesting bind — He made a name for himself as AG because he wanted to wind down the Federal inter-district deseg consent decree, and rode that all the way to numerous landslide victories for re-election as AG and eventually for Governor.  This ruling would essentially keep deseg as long as the SLPS remain unaccredited, and that could be two days short of forever.  Nixon’s response to this ruling will show once and for all whether his opposition to deseg in the 1990s was for real or for show.

UPDATE 8/8: News that should surprise nobody:  Parents in the St. Louis City and Riverview Gardens districts are rushing to transfer their children to accredited St. Louis County districts, such that those districts’ administrators are having to stand athwart the train of history and yell “stop.”

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