Mar
23
Written by:
William Lutz
3/23/2010 10:01 AM
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit yesterday rejected an attempt by the late William Wayne Justice (a federal district judge at the time of his death) to micromanage the state's bilingual education programs from a federal courthouse. Yesterday, the court reversed a year-old Justice ruling and sent the case back to the lower courts with specific instructions to narrow the scope of the case. The Fifth Circuit's ruling both savings the state hundreds of millions of dollars and preserves state control over education. Click here to read the ruling.
The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) tried to revivie a case that had been dormant for more than two decades. In 1971, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a desegregation case involving eight East Texas school districts. Because the boundaries of school districts are partly a state function, the State of Texas was the main defendent. Justice tried to use that case as an attempt to provide for federal court oversight of state desegregation programs generally, though the Fifth Circuit narrowed Justice's early rulings in 1982.
In 2007, LULAC tried to revive the case, arguing that the state has failed to provide equal educational opportunity to Limited English Proficient students. At first, Justice rejected LULAC's efforts, but on rehearing Justice reconsidered and entered an order directing the state to improve monitoring and services to Limited English Proficient students.
Yesterday's Fifth Circuit opinion aruges that Justice's recent order does not comply with current case law or the court's 1982 ruling in this case. It reversed Justice's order and directed the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas to remove from the case any school district that is currently the subject of a desegration case in federal court or has been declared unitary (was under desegregation order but convinced a federal court that it has fully complied with the U.S. Supreme Court's desegregation ruling). It also directed the district court to consider whether specific school districts should be named as defendants and whether venue is proper in the Eastern District of Texas. In other words, the court expressed skepticism about the current need for this four-decade-old lawsuit without shutting it down directly.
The opinion was written by Circuit Judge Will Garwood of Texas, and the unanimous panel consisted of Garwood and Circuit Judges Carolyn Dineen King of Texas and W. Eugene Davis of Louisiana. Garwood and Davis were appointed by President Ronald Reagan and King was appointed by President Jimmy Carter. Plaintiffs can request rehearing either by the panel or the full Fifth Circuit Court or appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Unless these appeals succeed, the case returns to an East Texas federal courtroom for assignment to a new judge and for further proceedings in line with yesterday's ruling.