Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Intervenes in Connecticut NCLB Suit

Joins Connecticut NAACP in Opposing State's Resistance to Federal Law

Lawyers for the Connecticut State Conference of NAACP Branches, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, and the Citizens' Commission for Civil Rights announced on January 31, 2006 that they would seek to intervene on behalf of the U.S. Department of Education (ED) in Connecticut's lawsuit challenging the federal No Child Left Behind law. The lawsuit, Connecticut v. Spellings, challenges the law as an unfunded mandate, alleging that it is forcing Connecticut to spend state money in an “arbitrary and capricious” way. The intervening groups, led by the Connecticut NAACP, claim that the state's lawsuit “hurts minority and poor schoolchildren and wastes State resources that could be used to improve schools.”

The lawsuit is part of a growing effort by the Lawyers' Committee to ensure that the civil rights of children are reflected in the quality and equity of their education. Desegregation, adequacy of resources, and parental empowerment are all part of the Education Project of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (Lawyers' Committee). The Lawyers' Committee is a nonpartisan organization, founded at the request of President Kennedy, whose mission “is to secure, through the rule of law, equal justice under law.” Since 1963, when Brown v. the Board of Education was still being implemented, the Lawyers' Committee has fought, using legal expertise and powerful activism, to extend and protect civil rights and equal opportunities for all.

The Lawyers' Committee focuses on several project areas, including Voting Rights, Employment Discrimination, and Environmental Justice. Their Educational Opportunities Project, led by renowned civil rights lawyer John Brittain, “challenges discriminatory tracking programs, the disproportionate placement of minority students in special education and "dead end" courses, and the biased administration of student discipline.”

As numerous education funding lawsuits have documented, the inequality of opportunity for minority students within states is enormous. As policy and legal debates rage over the nation's “achievement gap,” the Lawyers' Committee is working to promote equal opportunities and fair outcomes to the nation's minority students. These projects include filing amicus briefs in Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger, the Supreme Court affirmative action lawsuits; filing an amicus brief in Comfort v. Lynn, which upheld the desegregation plan in Lynn, Massachusetts; and running programs for parental outreach and empowerment.

Desegregation

A primary endeavor of the Lawyers' Committee's Educational Opportunities Project has been to act as co-counsel in Holton v. Thomasville, a class-action desegregation lawsuit brought by the parents of African-American students in Thomasville, Georgia, along with the Thomas County NAACP, against the Thomasville School District. The suit alleged that the de jure segregation in that school district, in place prior to desegregation efforts responding to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, has been “preserved, perpetuated, and reestablished” in the district, thereby violating students' right to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment as well as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

The case was filed in U.S. District Court by lawyers for the Lawyers' Committee in partnership with the law firm Dorsey & Whitney LLP, which was handling the case pro bono, in 1998. After affirming the class status of the plaintiffs, a trial was held, and the court ruled against the plaintiffs in February of 2004. The court found “that the educational system in Thomasville, Georgia, like that in many parts of this country, is not reaching many students, particularly those whose parents happen to be poor.” However, the court further ruled that “The Court has located no provision in the Constitution or accepted principle of federal law that mandates that poor children be guaranteed a high quality education.” Though compelling evidence had shown that the district was segregated in several categories (student, staff, and faculty assignment to schools; student assignment to gifted and talented programs, advanced classes, and special education; and student discipline), the court refused to hold the district accountable for these failures, instead holding “that the record is clear that Defendant has not engaged in intentional discrimination based upon race.”

Lawyers for the plaintiffs appealed the case to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which largely affirmed the District Court. However, the Circuit Court reversed the ruling in regards to “ability-grouping” within schools, finding that the Court did not apply the prevailing precedent of the 11 th Circuit. According to the ruling, this precedent “permits tracking only when it ‘is not based on the present results of past segregation or will remedy such results through better educational opportunities.'” The ruling states,

Instead of determining whether the District's ability-grouping policy was based on present results of past segregation or whether it would remedy such results, the district court focused on whether the tracking practice was intentionally discriminatory.

The case was remanded for reconsideration of the ability-grouping issue. Consideration of the issue in federal court may have real consequences, as the increased national focus on the achievement gap, especially in the controversial No Child Left Behind law, have intensified the legal fight to ensure equal educational opportunity for every student.

Civil Rights Under Law and “Adequacy” Litigations

As rulings such as the one in Holton v. Thomasville have shown, the intersection of the legal fight for adequate educational opportunity has strong ties to the movement for civil rights, a connection that the Lawyers' Committee has recognized and sought to develop. In March, 2005, the Lawyers' Committee and the Southern Education Foundation co-sponsored a conference entitled “Ensuring a Quality Education for All the South's Children: What's Adequacy Litigation Got to Do with It?” Following the conference, the Lawyers' Committee issued a policy memo, stating that

…the overlap between adequacy and racial and ethnic discrimination claims should encourage the Lawyers' Committee to be particularly cognizant of adequacy when evaluating its clients' and potential clients' educational barriers. Adequacy may provide for substantive remedies beyond those that we could secure in pure discrimination cases or provide a cause of action where none other can be made due to adverse changes in school desegregation and anti-discrimination law decided by the federal courts.

Going Forward

The rights of students to equal educational opportunities and a quality education will continue to be an area of focus for litigators involved in school funding and civil rights cases, for policymakers working to shape state and federal laws, and for advocates working to engage the public in improving public schools. Some civil rights groups have become avidly involved in protecting the federal No Child Left Behind law, as witnessed by the recent intervention in the Connecticut lawsuit. While acknowledging its serious flaws, these groups see the law as a first step in documenting the lack of educational opportunity minority students are receiving, and ensuring that schools, districts, and states are held accountable for all their students. This stance places these civil rights groups in opposition to many of their traditional allies in the political and educational spheres, and will be watched closely to see what impact it has on the battle for educational opportunity going forward.

Prepared by Nelly Ward, January 31, 2006