LOUISVILLE Ky.
An attorney who won a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that rejected
the use of race in assigning students to Louisville
schools asked a judge is now seeking fees from the court.
Teddy B. Gordon of Louisville
is asking U.S. District Judge John Heyburn II to award him a yet-to-be
determined amount for his work in winning the case. Gordon took a $1 retainer
from the plaintiffs, but said he spent thousands of dollars on expenses and
court fees.
“Because I am a sole practitioner who has worked
hundreds of hours on these cases, I was not able to take on other
clients,” Gordon said in a written statement Saturday.
School district officials could not immediately be reached
for comment Saturday evening.
The Supreme Court made its ruling in June, and the school
district has since dropped race in making individual assignments. The district
is trying to come up with another system.
The Louisville
school district is about 56 percent white and 37 percent black. The current
plan allows some student choice while seeking to keep minority enrollment at 15
percent to 50 percent of the population at most schools.
Crystal Meredith got involved in the case because her son
was bused 90 minutes round trip each day. She later moved, and her son, now 10,
got into his school of choice.
School district officials have said they plan to comply with
the high court’s ruling and is working on getting a new plan into place by the
2009-10 school year. The board left some of the current plan in place, saying
it did not want to reassign students shortly before school began.
Officials said race would not be the sole factor in school
assignments in the 2008-09 school year even if a new plan has not been approved
by a judge.
– Associated Press
© Copyright 2005 by DiverseEducation.com
