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OpinionJune 29, 2000

Let's see if we can sort our the $2 billion-dollar-plus school desegregation case in Kansas City. It may not be easy with a severe case of whiplash, but let's try. Twenty-three years ago, a lawyer, Arthur Benson III, went to court on behalf of some black students in the Kansas City School District, claiming the district had never been properly integrated despite the U.S. ...

Let's see if we can sort our the $2 billion-dollar-plus school desegregation case in Kansas City. It may not be easy with a severe case of whiplash, but let's try.

Twenty-three years ago, a lawyer, Arthur Benson III, went to court on behalf of some black students in the Kansas City School District, claiming the district had never been properly integrated despite the U.S. Supreme Court's historic Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education ruling some 23 years before that which led to an end nationwide of segregated schools for whites and blacks under the former separate-but-equal policy.

As a result of that lawsuit, the Kansas City district was handed over to a federal judge, Russell G. Clark, who subsequently had the dubious job of running the district for nearly 20 years. To point out the obvious, Judge Clark, as well-intentioned as he might have been, was trained in the law, not in education or school administration. Like his counterparts in similar cases around the country, Clark soon proved to have serious shortcomings in running a school district.

KANSAS CITIANS REFUSED TO FOOT THE BILL

A major downfall of the Kansas City district those many years ago was a crumbling system whose buildings were old and inadequate. Voters in the urban district failed repeatedly to tax themselves to provide the local financial footing the district desperately needed. On the basis of desegregating the Kansas City school, Clark relied on the only technique he thought would work: money. Lots and lots of money.

And where did the money come from? Instead of ordering taxpayers in the district to pay their fair share for public education, Clark placed the burden on all the taxpayers of Missouri. Another federal judge in a similar case in St. Louis did the same thing. As a result, Missourians have paid several billion dollars for the two urban systems while all the other districts in the state had to make it on their own, relying on local taxes and a complicated state funding formula.

After years of overseeing the case, Clark removed himself, and the case wound up in the lap of U.S. District Judge Dean Whipple. In short order, Whipple ruled last November that the folly of throwing money at the district clearly wasn't the answer. Moreover, Whipple declared that, from his perspective, no evidence of district-sanctioned segregation existed in the district. Yes, the enrollment at most schools was predominantly black, but so was the population of the district as white flight had produced a suburban building boom around Kansas City.

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ONE JUDGE USED A LITTLE COMMON SENSE

But lawyer Benson wasn't happy with this. So he appealed Whipple's decision. Ultimately, the 8th U.S. District Court of Appeals ordered the desegregation case reinstated. And guess which judge they gave the whole mess to? Judge Whipple, the only judge in more than 20 years to impose a smattering of common sense in all the legal wrangling.

In initially deciding the desegregation case should come to an end, Whipple had said "retention of judicial control may be more disruptive than beneficial" to the district.

And he added something else: The community which should have been paying to resolve its problems has "repeatedly used the court's presence as a shield from responsibility."

It is easy to imagine Whipple's frame of mind now that he has been told that he was wrong to throw out the costly case and that he must assume the role of overseer of a school district.

AFTER $2 BILLION, THE SAME BLACK-WHITE RATIOS

More than $2 billion after the case began, Judge Whipple faces pretty much the same black-to-white ratios in Kansas City's schools as in the beginning. The big difference, of course, is that expensive buildings have been constructed and millions of dollars have been wasted on frills that in no way improved the quality of education.

Whipple's job won't be easy. Perhaps he deserves a promotion. Someone should remember his name -- and his common sense -- the next time there's a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court.

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