Thursday, June 24, 2010

Verdict in Favor of the Defendant in the Redistricting Lawsuit

According to this article from the Inquirer's web site, Judge Baylson ruled this afternoon that the Lower Merion School District did not break the law when it imposed its redistricting plan.
Posted by Matt Pettigrew at 3:21 PM

3 (comments):

  1. I've now read the opinion. I see several weaknesses, and think there are several bases for appeal. It does not make sense to me that the judge used a "disparate impact" analysis instead of a "disparate treatment" analysis in light of his specific factual finding that race was a factor. And I think he missed on the SD's burden once strict scrutiny was applied. (This post probably makes no sense to anyone but the lawyers-- Matt would you entertain a lengthier exposition and I can try to put in layman's terms?).

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  2. Mike - I'm not a lawyer so please correct me if I'm wrong here. I have read the verdict several times and have followed this case very closely. A couple of questions/issues:

    1. I think in the end Baylson applied the Strict Scrutiny standard based on the requirements of Arlington Heights (p 18) but found that the District met the Strict Scrutiny standard b/c they served compelling Government Interest in a least restrictive way and that even if it were color-blind they would have created 3R for other reasons. Have I got that right? But I don't think there's anything in the record from the District showing they looked at other ways to draw that didn't include race as a factor (in fact Haber testified he used it all the way through) so how can Baylson conclude they had no other alternatives? They didn't look at any ways that didn't 'target' Ardmore.

    Second, when applying the test, I think he mixes both compelling government interests (populating both high schools, finite # of buses) and government preferences that are not compelling - 3-1-1/continuity, walking, short bus rides. He shouldn't apply the non-compelling reasons to the test, right? Only the compelling which would be the first two. If he did that, there were certainly other ways to get equal #s of kids in the schools using the exiting bus fleet size without violating anyone's Consitutional rights. Am I getting that correct?

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  3. I will post more fully, but for a non-lawyer, you picked up some of the very things that I think are problematic! Are you sure you're not a lawyer?

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