BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Huntsville City Schools moved a step closer this week to ending part of the federal court oversight that has shaped the district’s desegregation efforts for decades.
In an order issued Monday, Chief U.S. District Judge Madeline Haikala found the district had achieved unitary status in two areas – faculty and staff, and extracurricular activities – meaning the court will no longer supervise the district’s work in those parts of the case.
In desegregation cases, unitary status means a court has found a district has done enough to address the remnants of its former dual school system in a particular area and will be released from federal supervision in that area.
The judge stopped short of ruling on a third area, facilities, saying she needed more information before deciding whether the district should also be released from oversight there.
The ruling does not end Huntsville’s long-running desegregation case, Hereford v. Huntsville City Board of Education, altogether. But it does remove two more pieces from federal supervision and leaves the district with three of the seven areas in its current desegregation plan now declared unitary, including transportation, which was released from oversight in 2020.
Superintendent Clarence Sutton called the ruling a “significant and meaningful milestone” for the district.
“This achievement represents more than compliance,” Sutton said. “It represents transformation.”
Huntsville’s current roadmap dates to a 2015 consent order, a court-approved agreement between the district and the U.S. Department of Justice that laid out the steps the school system would need to take before it could seek release from oversight area by area.
Those areas are often called Green factors, a reference to the 1968 U.S. Supreme Court case Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, which helped define how courts evaluate whether a district has dismantled the vestiges of its formerly segregated school system.
Huntsville’s consent order covers seven areas: student assignment, faculty and staff, extracurricular activities, facilities, course offerings and programs, discipline and transportation.
Attorney Chris Pape said the latest order is significant because it means the court has now either released the district from supervision or found it is operating in good faith in more than half of the areas at issue in the case.
“It means that the board can narrow its focus to its final three factors, and that for the first time in the history of this case, the board is poised to take the final steps to claim a hard fought and well earned designation of unitary,” he said.
Candace White Halverson, chair of the district’s Desegregation Advisory Committee, welcomed the ruling.
“For us, it is reassuring to know that an objective arbitrator, Judge Haikala, has found that the Huntsville Board of Education has, at least to the extent practicable, eliminated those vestiges of segregation when it comes to faculty and staff and extracurricular activities for now, and is considering that in terms of facilities as well,” Halverson said.
In Monday’s ruling, Haikala wrote that the board had shown a good-faith commitment to hiring principals, faculty and staff in a way that prevents schools from becoming racially identifiable and that it appeared committed to retaining its Black principals, faculty and staff.
On extracurricular activities, Haikala wrote that the board had “demonstrated its commitment to continue to organize and make available to all students in each public school extracurricular programs without regard to race.”
On facilities, Haikala wrote that the record shows the board has complied in good faith with the requirements of the 2015 consent order, but that the court is waiting for additional information before issuing a final ruling.
The Huntsville decision comes as old school desegregation cases are drawing renewed attention beyond Alabama, which has nearly four dozen school districts with open cases.
Over the past year, the Justice Department has moved to close some cases entirely, declaring districts unitary without further proceedings. That includes districts in Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi and Tennessee.
Huntsville City Schools April 13 order by Trisha Powell Crain