Court Rules Gardendale Cannot Form Own School System

GARDENDALE, AL - A federal appeals court has ruled that Gardendale may not break away from Jefferson County Schools to start its own school system. Judge William Pryor cited racially motivated reasons behind the city's desire to form its own system, and ordered U.S. District Court Judge Madeline Haikala to rescind her order from last year that allowed Gardendale to secede over a three-year period from Jefferson County schools.

Gardendale's efforts caught the eye of national media, including New York Times Magazine, which published a story looking into the segregation seen across Alabama public school systems. The article is a look at how Jefferson County cities have gradually "resegregated" by forming their own school systems and keeping minorities out.

Parents of black students in Gardendale appealed the initial ruling that allowed the city to break from Jefferson County's system, saying the succession was racially motivated to keep the schools from accepting more black children.

Pryor's ruling states:

"The district court (Haikala) found that the Gardendale Board acted with a discriminatory purpose to exclude black children from the proposed school system and, alternatively, that the secession of the Gardendale Board would impede the efforts of the Jefferson County Board to fulfill its desegregation obligations. Despite these findings, the district court devised and permitted a partial secession that neither party requested.

"We conclude that the district court committed no clear error in its findings of a discriminatory purpose and of impeding the desegregation of the Jefferson County schools, but that it abused its discretion when it sua sponte (own her own) allowed a partial secession. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand with instructions (to Haikala) to deny the motion to secede."

The statement continued, "If the Gardendale Board, for permissible purposes in the future, satisfies its burden to develop a secession plan that will not impede the desegregation efforts of the Jefferson County Board, then the district court may not prohibit the secession. We do not belittle the 'need that is strongly felt in our society' to have '[d]irect control over decisions vitally affecting the education of one's children. We hold only that the desire for local autonomy must yield when a constitutional violation is found and remains unremedied."

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