New Ark. desegregation judge has ties to Arnold

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - The federal judge who will oversee Arkansas' school desegregation lawsuit once assisted the judge who made several key decisions during the decades-long court battle.

D. Price Marshall Jr. served as a clerk for two years to Judge Richard S. Arnold, the former chief judge for the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. One of Arnold's rulings cleared the way for the 1989 settlement establishing the state's annual payments to three Little Rock-area school districts.

Those payments are now a central issue in the case before Marshall, who takes over one month after the previous judge, Brian Miller, tried to end most of them.

Marshall clerked for Arnold from 1989 to 1991 after graduating from Harvard Law School. Polly Price, a fellow clerk and law school classmate, said Marshall was involved in discussions between Arnold and his clerks.

"I'm certain that Price Marshall was aware of the desegregation case that came through during that time period and been involved in discussions with the judge collectively," said Price, now a professor at the Emory University School of Law. "I don't believe he worked specifically on a (desegregation) case. That one was assigned to me."

Miller's May 19 ruling cut off most of the $70 million due to the Little Rock, North Little Rock and Pulaski County Special school districts. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stayed Miller's ruling and is scheduled to hear the case in September.

Miller resigned from the case Friday without making a final decision on money for majority-to-minority transfers - the only desegregation payments he left in place. So-called "M-to-M" transfers allow students to go from schools where their race is in the majority to schools where their race is in the minority.

Marshall becomes the fifth federal district judge to take the case. He declined to comment Monday.

Arnold was a key figure throughout the desegregation lawsuit until his death in 2004. In 1982, he voted to reject a district court's ruling to order the consolidation of all Little Rock-area school districts, according to a 2005 article Price wrote for the Arkansas Law Review. Seven years later, Arnold overruled the district court's changes to a settlement involving Arkansas and the three districts.

As a clerk, Marshall was involved in other complicated issues and showed he could learn quickly, Price said.

"It's always struck me that he has the perfect judicial demeanor," she said. "I think he'll be an ideal judge to handle this."

Marshall, 47, later became an attorney in Jonesboro. He joined the Arkansas Court of Appeals in 2007 and was appointed by President Barack Obama to the federal court two years later. The U.S. Senate confirmed him in May 2010.

As an attorney, Marshall represented the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce during the landmark Lake View school funding case, which eventually led to the Legislature changing its school funding formula and passing new accountability reforms.

The tiny Lake View School District sued the state in 1992, challenging the constitutionality of a system that allowed wide funding disparity between wealthy districts and poor ones.

Business leaders argued for improved school standards and other moves to increase the system's efficiency, said Stacy Sells, a former chairwoman of the chamber's board during the case.

Marshall filed a brief on the chamber's behalf in 2004 to push for several measures: consolidating small school districts, raising teacher salaries and opening larger high schools.

"Arkansas could spend its entire state budget on public schools - but then we would have no roads, prisons, social services, or universities," the brief reads. "We could write our public schools a blank check - but then we would have licensed waste."

"Without the discipline provided by the Constitution's efficiency mandate, just spending more of our tax dollars on schools is a recipe for misallocating scarce resources, waste and economic harm," it adds.

Sells called Marshall a "true legal scholar" with a passion for the history behind the case.

Attorneys involved in the case downplayed the differences between Miller and Marshall.

"I think they're both fine judges, and it really won't make a significant difference in the case which judge in the Eastern District of Arkansas is assigned to the case," said Chris Heller, the longtime attorney for the Little Rock School District.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)