Arkansas Attorney General’s Office
LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin on Monday announced he has filed three motions in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas to end decades-long, race-based restrictions on school choice in three Arkansas school districts.
“School choice is the law today in Arkansas. Unconstitutional, race-based consent decrees from decades past are denying equal rights to parents to select the school that best meets the needs of their children,” Griffin said. “I have filed motions to terminate federal consent decrees in the El Dorado, Hope and Lafayette County school districts so that students there can realize the educational opportunities available to their peers across the rest of the state.
The Hope and Lafayette County school districts are currently subject to consent decrees entered into during the 1980s to resolve desegregation litigation. All allegations of segregation were resolved long ago, but those school districts used the still-existing decrees as a basis to opt out of Arkansas’s school choice law beginning in 2013. The Office of the Attorney General successfully blocked the districts’ efforts to continue to exempt themselves from school choice.
The El Dorado School District was desegregated by court order in litigation that resolved in the early 1970s. Despite no allegations of unconstitutional behavior appearing in the decades since, the court’s order was used as a basis to exempt the district from school choice. The district and plaintiffs’ lawyers successfully worked together in 2016 to secure a continuing exemption from Arkansas’s school-choice law that is still in effect.
“Despite segregation ending decades ago, several school districts have left outdated consent decrees on the books and rely on them to opt out of school choice, thereby avoiding competition and retaining funds for students who would otherwise leave. Schools must be accountable to parents, and children should not be stuck in schools that aren’t meeting their needs. Parents, not the government, must be allowed to decide what’s best for their children.”
To read the Hope School District filing, click here.
To read the Lafayette County School District filing, click here.
To read the El Dorado School District filing, click here.