LITTLE ROCK — U.S. District Judge Robert T. Dawson Friday stayed his ruling striking down Arkansas’ school choice law, saying the ruling will not be in effect while appeals are pending.
Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell had advised schools not to approve transfer requests under the Public School Choice Act, but Friday he issued a memo to superintendents saying the transfer requests can now be accepted.
“The stay means that while the appeals are pending, the Arkansas Public School Choice Act and the Arkansas Department of Education rules governing the guidelines, procedures and enforcement of the Arkansas Public School Choice Act may once again be relied upon and followed as written,” Kimbrell said in the memo.
Dawson ruled June 8 that a race-based provision in the 1989 Arkansas Public School Choice Act violates the equal-protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
The provision prohibits a student from transferring from the district where he or she lives to a district where the student’s race makes up a larger percentage of the student population than the student’s home district.
A group of parents filed a lawsuit challenging the law in 2010 after their children were denied transfers from the Malvern School District to the Magnet Cove School District because they are white.
Both sides in the case asked for a stay pending appeal, as did the Camden Fairview and El Dorado school districts, which are intervenors in the case.