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The 2003 settlement in the East Baton Rouge desegregation case that compelled the district to continue racial targets for four more years and to create more magnet programs expires in 2007. THAT SHOULD MEAN NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOLS AGAIN FOR EAST BATON ROUGE STARTING IN 2007.

. The district, however, has other ideas. Their commitment is to "diversity" in the schools.

The planned set up will cause students to have to travel out of their neighborhoods to get programs they want, most of which should be made available in every community, and many which couuld be available in each school.

The distsrict's "top lawyer" Domoine Rutledge says the distsrict is crafting a plan to replace the school system's longstanding use of race.

The current proposal is to use socioeconomic status to ensure diversity at magnet schools.

Officially, the nation's longest-running active school "desegregation" lawsuit ended Thursday August 15, 2003, when Federal District Judge James Brady signed the Final Order, a Settlement Agreement, and dismissed the case. The settlement, the result of more than 14 months of court-ordered mediation.

The end of the case that dragged on for 47 years while middle-class whites largely abandoned the system, leaving the district nearly 75 percent black, gives cause for only minor celebration at this time.

The required caps with "target" percentages of black/white students are clearly quotas even though they are called "targets"

The extra four years allows the agendas of social engineers to be more firmly established.

The Agreement requires the district to "make every reasonable 'good faith' effort to achieve further desegregation." In reality, what is meant by "to achieve further desegregation" is "to achieve further racial balancing or diversity." Such is not desegregation, but social engineering.

If the district had not gone along with an agreement, the motion for unitary status could not have been made for another two years. Judge Brady had made it clear that he expected the terms of the Consent Decree under which the district labored to be honored in that respect.

Then there would have been at least a year of litigation in district court, followed no doubt by the need to appeal Brady's ruling which would have taken another year at least. That adds up to four years at least had the district gone that route. And, there certainly was no guarantee of a desired ruling in the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court.

It is certainly to their credit that the law firm of Cooper and Kirk were able to forge an agreement that got an immediate declaration of unitary status and an end to federal court supervision. There was at least less race-conscious provisions in the Agreement than there were in the Consent Decree under which the district labored

The immediate declaration of unitary status and dismissal of the suit means that a new suit would have to be brought and intentional discrimination would have to be proved for the case to be active again. When Judge Brady ordered mediation toward a possible Agreement, he appointed Federal District Judge Tucker Melancon of Lafayette as the mediator in the case. Because of health problems, Melancon was joined as co-mediator by Bernard A. Boudreaux, executive counsel for Louisiana Governor Mike Foster.

Foster apparently was able to take up the matter at high levels in the Bush administration. An uncooperative Department of Justice seemed to suddenly become much more cooperative.

One by one parties to the case signed the agreement including the Department of Justice. The NAACP voted to sign the agreement by a narrow margin, stating that the settlement needed more safeguards since the district did not completely comply with the 1996 Consent Decree it had signed.

When it was first announced that an agreement had been reached, attorneys for the original plaintiffs insisted that there was no agreement. Two of their attorneys who had signed a memorandum of understanding that served as the basis for the final settlement, filed requests to withdraw from the case. Then the lead attorney, Robert Williams, filed a motion to let the original plaintiffs withdraw from the case, clearing the way for the final agreement. The NAACP was designated as their representative. Williams said it would be counterproductive to continue a fight that many black Baton Rougeans want to end as evidenced by the NAACP vote.

"Let them (the NAACP) take the blame when this doesn't work," said Williams. (The Advocate 7/17/03)

BACKGROUND

Attorneys representing the board argued that since the district has carried out the court's orders to the extent practicable, the Consent Decree could not keep them from the deserved release from the court.

Actually the district was ruled unitary once in 1975 by the district judge at that time, E. Gordon West; but the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals had reversed that decision.

If the district had indeed ended de jure (purposeful) segregation in 1975 as West ruled, it should have been released then -- 26 long years ago. Apparently, however, the 5th Circuit Court defined "desegregation" as "racially balanced," requiring the school board to "correct" not only de jure segregation but de facto segregation as well.

On January 3, Clayton Wilcox, who has been an interim superintendent of the district was hired as full superintendent out of a field of eleven applicants.

The East Baton Rouge Parish school system contended it had "greatly exceeded" the requirements of a 1996 Consent Decree and deserved an end to 46 years of federal court supervision. The Consent Decree forbid the district from seeking unitary status before the year 2004.

Attorney Michael Kirk (of the firm Cooper & Kirk) said, however, that roadblocks could not be used to prevent the district from being declared desegregated. Said Kirk,"Simply put," according to the motion, "if the East Baton Rouge Parish School System is in fact unitary, continued supervision is beyond the constitutional authority of the court, and the parties' agreement in the Consent Decree cannot grant power that the Constitution has withheld."

The district clearly pointed out the danger of continued court supervision. They estimated that if such supervision continued, in 5-10 years the district will consist almost entirely of poor black children.

Such a district is doomed, they pointed out, as parents who refuse to send their children to public schools will not support the taxes necessary to run viable schools for those remaining.

Total enrollment in the district has dropped by nearly 17,000 students since 1975.

ZACHARY, BAKER WITHDRAWAL AGREEMENT

An agreement was reached on February 8, 2002, between the parties in the EBR case allowing Baker and Zachary districts to pull out of the Parish and run separate school districts as approved by the legislature (but denied by the previous judge in the case because their pullout, he said, would harm desegregation efforts in the Parish), On February 15 the agreement was approved by the Baker, Zachary and EBR school boards. The separation took effect July 1, 2003.

The settlement will be in effect so long as the EBR parish remains under the court, and Zachary and the EBR Parish will allow students to transfer in either system through majority to minority and magnet programs.

EBR Superintendent Clayton Wilcox noted that Baker and Zachary would soon have obtained their freedom anyway, as soon as EBR attained unitary status, and the court would no longer be blocking the state-approved pullout for “desegregation” purposes.

A year ago East Baton Rouge activist Lucian A. Mascarella wrote to his Congressman Richard H. Baker seeking help for the district. Baker forwarded the letter to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft. He heard nothing until September when he received a letter from Ralph F.Boyd, Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department.

Boyd proceeded to state that the district had not achieved desegregated schools (obviously defining "desegregation as racial balancing), that the magnet programs had failed to attract students, thus failing as a "desegregation" tool and that the board was required to fully implement the Consent Decree.

NANS RESPONDS TO BOYD LETTER

THE ARROGANCE OF FORMER JUDGE PARKER

The plan under the Consent Decree called for both a sales and property tax totaling $920 million over a period of 25 years. In 1997 the tax was defeated by a large margin. Voters finally approved a tax package scaled down to $286 million including a one-cent sales tax for five years.

Financing the plan was terribly expensive. By signing the Consent Decree, the board put themselves in a position in which Judge Parker could wash his hands of any problems the district might face in carrying out the plan.

Note some of the previous arrogant comments of Judge Parker "You are going to have to spend whatever you need to make the new plan work. If you have to fire your attorney...you will have to do that." "This is your baby. You pay for the magnets. You fund them. You make them work." "I hope the members of this board have finally realized that the way to get out from under court supervision is to desegregate (racially balance) the school system. The sooner, the better."

The Consent Decree said the district could move for unitary status upon the conclusion of the 8th school year following the implementation of the plan. At any time after the conclusion of the 5th school year after the plan was implemented, a joint motion for unitary status could be filed by all of the litigants.

So the Consent Decree which the board unfortunately signed was designed to deny the district's escape from the unconstitutional practice for almost another decade after it was signed.