MN school desegregation lawsuit heads back to court after Legislature declines to act on settlement

Sep. 13—With a major settlement on hold because of inaction by the Legislature, plaintiffs in the Cruz-Guzman school desegregation lawsuit have asked a judge to decide the case in their favor.

Plaintiffs attorney Dan Shulman wants the judge to find that the state has violated the education clause of the Minnesota constitution by enabling racial and socioeconomic segregation in the Minneapolis and St. Paul school districts.

Shulman has suggested numerous ways the government may be responsible for demographic imbalances in the schools, such as enacting open enrollment laws, exempting charter schools from integration rules and through the Department of Education's soft stance against districts that intentionally segregate.

But he thinks enrollment numbers alone may offer enough evidence to win partial summary judgment and force changes in school enrollment throughout the metro area.

The 2015 lawsuit claims segregated Minnesota schools are preventing Twin Cities-area students of color from getting an adequate education as provided for under the state's constitution.

PLAINTIFFS ATTORNEY: 'SEGREGATED' SYSTEM VIOLATES CONSTITUTION

When the Minnesota Supreme Court revived the lawsuit in 2018, it wrote in a footnote that "It is self-evident that a segregated system of public schools is not 'general,' 'uniform,' 'thorough,' or 'efficient.'"

In order words, students cannot get the adequate education guaranteed by the constitution if the school system is segregated. As long as the judge agrees the schools are segregated, no matter the cause or whether it was intentional or not, then changes must be made to correct it, Shulman argues.

"Little more need be said other than the Minneapolis and St. Paul School Districts are segregated by race and socioeconomic status," Shulman wrote in a brief to the court. "... The Legislature's toleration of their very existence violates the Education Clause."

Speaking for the state during a motion hearing Monday, deputy attorney general Kathryn Woodruff said the mere fact that some schools in the districts have many more students of color than others does not, by itself, mean they're breaking the law.

"No Minnesota court has ever held ... that the state must guarantee a particular mix of students in a school," she said. "Is the system perfect? No, most would say there's room to do more, while disagreeing about what more should be. That's not the issue here though."

DEFINING SEGREGATION

A key issue in the hearing was how to define school segregation.

Shulman suggests the judge start by looking at the state education department's desegregation program, which defines a "racially identifiable school" as one where the share of students from protected classes is 20 percentage points greater than average in the same district.

The Minneapolis district, which is 63 percent nonwhite, has 23 such schools, he said. The St. Paul district, which is 79 percent nonwhite, has one.

Woodruff said Shulman's definition shows only a racial imbalance, not legal segregation. She pointed to the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, a case where school segregation was clearly intentional, and therefore unconstitutional.

"You can not just look at the mix (of students) and say done," she said.

Jack Perry, attorney for two charter schools that intervened in the case, said a finding of segregation alone is not enough for the judge to rule in the plaintiffs' favor at this stage.

He pointed to another recent state Supreme Court decision — the Forslund case that sought to strike down teacher tenure — in which the justices said tenure rules must be shown to result in an inadequate education in order to be found unconstitutional; he said that likewise, the Cruz-Guzman plaintiffs should have to prove that school segregation results in students receiving an inadequate education.

GOOD SCHOOL, BAD SCHOOL

Near the end of Monday's hearing, Hennepin County District Judge Susan Robiner shared her concern about the idea — promoted by Shulman and conceded by the deputy attorney general — that intentionally segregated schools are necessarily unconstitutional.

Hypothetically, she said, an Afrocentric, culturally-affirming charter school that enrolls all Black students and produces "great" academic results would be unconstitutional, while a second school that unintentionally enrolls only Black students and performs "horribly" is legal.

"One of my reactions as an interested observer to this hypothetical is, gee whiz, I feel like, is that what our education clause was designed to result in?" she said. " ... I struggle with this distinction you're making."

Shulman responded with his own hypothetical of a school that admits only white nationalist students and posts great scores.

"Is there any question among anybody here about whether that would not violate the education clause? Of course it would," he said. "The so-called quality of education becomes irrelevant when you're dealing with segregation."

Robiner gave no timeline for when she'll rule on the motion.

SETTLEMENT

Over the objections of the intervening charter schools, the plaintiffs and defendants reached a settlement in the case in spring.

Attorney General Keith Ellison warned lawmakers that a trial would cost around $10 million and that any changes to the way Minnesota enrolls its K-12 students could be in the hands of a judge. Yet, the agreement received no serious consideration from lawmakers, only an informational hearing near the end of the legislative session.

The deal could be acted upon next legislative session, or the case could proceed to trial if Robiner rejects Shulman's motion for partial summary judgment.

The settlement package, at a cost the state of $63 million year, was to:

— replace the state's achievement and integration program with a new one that also requires charter schools to integrate

— create a seven-county busing program to get students from disadvantaged neighborhoods to schools in wealthy areas and vice-versa

— establish four new integrated magnet schools in the Twin Cities

— and force the state to beef up its school-quality dashboard and share strategies for improving outcomes for historically underserved students.