Desegregation reports stir objections
Attorneys for black students in the Pulaski County Special and Jacksonville/North Pulaski school districts objected Monday to recent reports by a court-appointed expert on the districts’ efforts to meet desegregation obligations.
An attorney team of Austin Porter Jr., Robert Pressman, Shawn Childs and Lawrence Walker — representing the black McClendon intervenors in a 37-year-old federal school desegregation lawsuit — told U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. that reports by court expert Margie Powell were mostly one-sided, favoring the districts, and that she had “lost all sense of neutrality.”
Marshall is the presiding judge in the case, in which the Pulaski Special and Jacksonville districts are the remaining defendants.
Marshall last year directed Powell to prepare a series of eight reports on the districts’ compliance with their remaining desegregation obligations, including whether they are operating equitably in terms of student achievement opportunities, student discipline practices and the condition of their school buildings.
The Powell reports were prepared in preparation for a multiweek court hearing set to begin in July to determine whether the districts have met the requirements and are entitled to be released from further court supervision.
The McClendon attorneys argued to Marshall against the use of the Powell reports and her testimony about them at the upcoming hearing.
“Intervenors emphasize … that in five of the eight instances the Court expert afforded the intervenors no opportunity to provide input in the content of the report,” the legal team wrote. “This speaks volumes,” they said, and added, “It is quite apparent that the Court’s expert has lost all sense of neutrality that has adversely impacted her ability to report accurately to the Court.”
The motion filed by the intervenors is accompanied by about two dozen exhibits, including email exchanges between Powell and the attorneys in which the attorneys provide their observations about operations in the two districts and ask that their input be included in her reports.