MINNEAPOLIS (Legal Newsline) - Racial imbalance alone doesn’t violate the Minnesota Constitution’s guarantee of a “general and uniform system of public schools,” a state appeals court ruled, potentially defeating a class action by parents who argued Minneapolis and St. Paul Schools were illegally segregated.
The decision by the Minnesota Court of Appeals answers the specific question of whether racial imbalance, by itself, is de facto evidence of a constitutional violation. Citing the landmark U.S. Supreme Court desegregation decision in Brown vs. the Board of Education, the appeals court said unless that racial segregation is de jure, or the result of intentional government policy, even if state policy contributed to the imbalance.
The appeals court dealt a blow to a case brought on behalf of the parents of present and future students that went to the Minnesota Supreme Court. That court ruled the case could proceed and a lower court certified it as a class action. After 18 months of fruitless settlement talks, the sides agreed to present the question of whether racial imbalance alone violates the state Constitution for interlocutory review. The appeals court answered it doesn’t.
In their complaint, the plaintiffs said minority students are “confined to schools that are separate and segregated in terms of both racial and socioeconomic composition. As a matter of both law and fact, such schools are not equal to neighboring and surrounding whiter and more affluent suburban schools.”
The plaintiffs argued any school where students of color exceeded the district-wide average by more than 15-20%, or where students of color represented less than 20% or more than 60%, were segregated.
The Minnesota Constitution states: “The stability of a republican form of government depending mainly upon the intelligence of the people, it is the duty of the legislature to establish a general and uniform system of public schools. The legislature shall make such provisions by taxation or otherwise as will secure a thorough and efficient system of public schools throughout the state.”
The state Supreme Court previously said in this case: “It is self-evident that a segregated system of public schools is not ‘general,’ uniform,’ ‘thorough,’ or ‘efficient.’”
The appeals court said that didn’t settle the matter however. In order to obtain the remedy of changing school district boundaries or otherwise shifting the composition of the schools, the appeals court said, the plaintiffs had to prove the racial imbalance was de jure, or that the state Legislature had failed to fund schools in a uniform way. There wasn’t evidence of either, the court ruled.
Plaintiffs could still prove a constitutional violation by showing the Legislature violated its duties under the Education Clause, the court concluded.