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ROCKFORD ILLINOIS

7th CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS REVERSED DISTRICT COURT AND ORDERED ROCKFORD SCHOOL DISTRICT RELEASED

ROCKFORD STUDENTS FREE TO ATTEND NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOLS WITHOUT REGARD TO RACE

On April 18, 2001 Rockford Public Schools were granted their freedom from twelve years of school "desegregation" litigation and a five year old court order called "ambitious schemes of social engineering," by Judge Richard Posner of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. The decision ordered that the district be granted the relief they sought.

Rockford students are now free to attend neighborhood schools. "The racial balance guidelines imposed by the court are no longer valid," proclaimed school district attorney Tom Lester .

Where the student lives, instead of the color of his/her skin, now determines where the student goes to school.

Under the plan a boundary line is drawn around each elementary school. Students living within that boundary will have a priority to attend that school. Students can apply, however, to go to any school in the district, but priority will be given to those in the neighborhood that the school serves.

Middle and high schools are open enrollment with a priority given to students living within one and one/half miles of the school.

Under performing schools will be targeted with special initiatives to bring up the performance.

Children currently enrolled in a school can stay there even if it is not their attendance area school, and students with brothers and sisters already enrolled in a certain school have a better chance to attend the same school.

Each magnet school is also given an attendance area. Many magnet schools will probably be phased out, sources say.

A 15-member committee recommended the new assignment plan.

Plaintiff Attorney Bob Howard did not give up easily. He had filed for an en banc (full 11- member appeals court) review of the case, but on May 22, 2001, the appeal to the full court was denied.

 U.S. Magistrate Judge P. Michael Mahoney finally made local control of the Rockford district official in a two-page order 6/29/01. ( The Appeals Court ruling that had overruled Mahoney's Aug. 1999 order that the district remain under court control until at least 2006, was handed down in April, over two months before.)

In the words of Rockford school board vice president Patti Delugas, "For Rockford, Independence Day has taken on a whole new meaning."

Mahoney's order said that on June 30, 2002, "the remedial decree is dissolved and this case is dismissed with prejudice."  (Until that date the district is required to continue to fund some remedial programs.)

The April decision by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, said the district regains all decision-making  power over student assignment immediately.

Use of race as a factor in school assignment without a court order requiring the practice would make the district highly vulnerable to a court challenge of the unconstitutional practice.  

In writing the decision, Appeals Court Judge Richard Posner noted that Magistrate Mahoney misdescribed the court's previous warning against social engineering schemes in an earlier appeals court ruling, maintaining only that certain provisions of the decree had been modified. Posner also noted that parties to the case and the magistrate judge and special master had failed to heed the admonition of the Supreme Court to wind up school litigation and release operations of the schools to local school authorities.

Posner noted the heavy taxpayer burden the court order had imposed. 20% of the school district property tax paid by homeowners in Rockford go to fund the decree.

It has cost close to $250 million to comply with the 1990 decree alone.

Posner said that although minority achievement lags behind that of whites, there is no evidence that the lag is any greater in Rockford than in otherwise similar districts that have no history of racial discrimination. He further stated that plaintiffs had not provided any evidence that there are still vestiges of discrimination to be eliminated and that the school board has no legal or constitutional duty to remove vestiges of societal discrimination.

The Plaintiffs' arguments against release consisted primarily of accusations of "lack of good faith" in implementing the court's orders, an argument picked up by the media and others critical of the board's seeking release, and an argument that had no bearing on the board's accomplishments.

Judge Posner had this to say: "It is not, as the plaintiffs would have it, that the school board must 'actively' support the decree, must express commitment to it, and, above all, must not criticize it. The undemocratic implications of this position leaves us almost speechless. Are elected officials, the members of the school board, elected long after and not complicit in the illegalities that gave rise to the litigation, forbidden, under threat of never resuming control of the public school system they were elected to govern, to criticize a decree that in pursuit of an ambitious and possibly quixotic scheme of social engineering has imposed a formidable tax burden on the people who elected these officials?"

These words should be shouted from the housetops, written in the sky, and made public in whatever other way possible to undo the propaganda that has deceived and warped the thinking of so many of our nation's citizens

Within those words can be found the truth of the warped use of desegregation orders for social engineering and a misuse of tax money. In that statement we see elected officials who have committed none of the illegalities which the decree supposedly addresses, shackled by the decree. The taxpayers and the children were also wrongly shackled.

Yet Posner also says , "It is provincial and naive to suppose that because Rockford once engaged in de facto segregation of its public schools, the choices of the minority students regarding voluntary enrollment in advanced classes open to all are a legacy of that segregation."

That statement begs the question of how the district could have "engaged in" de facto segregation. The district may have engaged in de jure segregation. But, as the board is not responsible for removing vestiges of societal discrimination, neither should they have been responsible for "correcting" de facto segregation. They are a Board of Education, not a Board of Integration.

"Correcting de facto segregation is social engineering TORT TAX SETTLEMENT

In a special June 27 school board meeting the board voted 6-0 to reimburse people who protested their being forced to pay "court tort" taxes  between 1991 and 1997 to fund the court-ordered  practices.

Protesters of this tax were represented by Rockford Attorney Mike O'Brien who won for the protesters when the Illinois state Supreme Court ruled last October that such use of the tort tax was illegal.

The district has spent more than $238 million to comply with the court orders since the case began, money that could have been used to improve education for all of Rockford's children had the court simply required desegregation (assignment to schools and within such schools without regard to race) and had  a previous school board not agreed to a "controlled (by race) choice assignment plan.

Readers will recall that at one point when the school board voted against use of the tax tort tax to pay for the court-ordered programs, the judge ordered them to go back and change their vote under threat of fines, jail, etc.

Of course, the money to pay back the tax protesters must come from funds provided by the taxpayers.  In April voters overwhelmingly approved a tax increase.  But, at least most of the portion illegally taken from them will be returned.

The Rockford Illinois school district referendum passed by only a thin margin in March 2002 (51 percent to 49 percent). The district sought approval to borrow $23.5 million to pay back people who protested their taxes in the 1990’s when the district, at federal court insistence, used the so-called “tort” tax fund to pay for “desegregation” programs. Referendum opponents, led by tax protest organizers in R.E.A.CH., the Rockford NANS affiliate, argued that the district should make cuts instead of borrowing money to pay off debts. The present school board argues that cuts in what was the desegregation staff cannot be made even though the district has achieved unitary status because duties of those staff members overlap with normal district business. .

ROCKFORD OWES A DEBT OF GRATITUDE TO THOSE WHO ACHIEVED FREEDOM FOR THE DISTRICT

The school board majority (two of whom were unbelievably not reelected in April) fought off extreme pressure to reach a settlement in the lawsuit which, without doubt, would have kept the district continuing many, if not most, of the outrageously expensive social engineering practices, many of which are recognized in more and more court decisions across the nation as unconstitutional.

They fortunately chose instead to seek release from the court. When Magistrate Michael Mahoney ruled in August against their motion for release, they wisely appealed his ruling.

Rockford, and indeed the nation, owes a heavy debt of gratitude to the school board majority, lead during the crucial time by Patti Delugas as president and Ted Biondo as vice president, that bore all the criticism, and mistrust, for their concern and efforts for their constituents and for the children of Rockford. Thanks to them and the wisdom and expertise of the attorneys they chose to argue their case, the burden is lifted. Time will tell if the new school board will understand, respect and keep the freedom achieved.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION U.S. Magistrate Judge P. Michael Mahoney’s August 11 ruling in response to the district’s motion for unitary status was a 58-page revision of the Comprehensive Remedial Order, decorated thorughout with rhetoric condeming the elected school board for daring to challenge the awesome power of the federal court. Mahoney had ruled that “controlled choice” must continue through the 2005-2006 school year, and that the court retained jurisdiction to redress any discrimination which might occur. Court-ordered education programs were to continue through the 2006 school year.

The school board appealed the ruling to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals

On March 27 the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals heard the arguments. Attorney for the Plaintiffs, Bob Howard, basically based his entire arguments on the "bad faith" of the district in carrying out the court orders.