A federal appeals court today upheld a lower-court ruling granting unitary status to the Little Rock, Ark., school district in a long-running desegregation case.
“The judgment declaring the Little Rock School District to be completely unitary is affirmed,” said the unanimous decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, in St. Louis.
The court rejected an appeal from a group of black parents who intervened in a desegregation case that began in 1982, well after Little Rock’s historic battle over integrating its Central High School in the late 1950s.
U.S. District Judge William R. Wilson Jr. ruled in 2007 that the Little Rock district had substantially complied with a 1998 desegregration plan and should be released from federal court supervision.
The Associated Press reports here.