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Volume 4 Number 4 SUPREME COURT CASES INVOLVING THE AUTHORITY OF FEDERAL COURTS TO EFFECTUATE REMEDIES
The Supreme Court has recently considered two cases that address how far federal courts can go to force compliance with court orders. In Missouri v. Jenkins, pending before the Court, the district court set aside a state law that limited the school district's ability to increase taxes to cover the costs of a court ordered school desegregation plan. In Spallone v. U.S. the Court in a 5-4 decision said that the district court went too far in imposing sanctions against individual council members who refused to comply with the housing desegregation remedial orders.
School Desegregation in Kansas City, Missouri
On October 30, 1989 the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Missouri v. Jenkins No. 88-1150. The ques tion before the Court is "whether federal courts may set aside state laws that prohibit a school district from in creasing its property tax; where the school district would otherwise be unable to meet its constitutional obliga tion to remedy its past racial discrimination and had exhausted all other alternatives for meeting that obliga tion". There is also a question of whether the State's appeal of the Eighth Circuit's decision was timely filed and thus whether the Supreme Court has jurisdiction to consider the merits of the case. If the Court answers the question of jurisdiction in the negative, it will not address the substantive question.
The Supreme Court previously had refused to review a major educational improvements component of the school desegregation order (compensatory education, reduced pupil-teacher ratios, capital improvements, etc.) that involved millions of dollars. Thus, the question before the Court is not whether the program will be funded but whether the district court could order a tax increase as the method for funding it.
Background
As described in the Respondents' Brief filed on August 28, 1989, the facts in the case are as follows:
In 1977 the Kansas City, Missouri School District (KCMSD) and a group of KCMSD school children filed suit in federal district court alleging that the State of Missouri maintained unconstitutionally segregated and inferior schools for black children in the District and failed to eradicate the effects of that discriminatory conduct.
On September 17, 1984 District Court Judge Russell G. Clark found both the State and KCMSD liable for un constitutionally discriminating against black children attending KCMSD schools, both by operating the schools on a segregated basis and by providing a substandard educational program ... [and] found also that the State and KCMSD had failed in their affirmative duty to undo the continuing harm caused by that conduct within KCMSD.
On June 14, 1985, Judge Clark approved the key components of the desegregation plan: magnet schools, capi tal improvements, and encouraging voluntary transfers of students to desegregate KCMSD schools. On appeal the en banc Eighth Circuit held that the particular programs approved by Judge Clark are necessary for successful desegregation.
The district court then proceeded to address the precise methods to be used to implement the remedial plan.
Judge Clark heard the testimony of representatives of the plaintiff school children, State and District officials, as well as parents, teachers, and experts. On the basis of this evidence, he found that "as a result of the con stitutional violations KCMSD's physical facilities have literally rotted and that the overall condition of the schools remained generally depressing and thus adversely affects the learning environment and continues to discourage parents who might otherwise enroll their children in the KCMSD".
  
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