Video showcases St. Louis mother’s battle to prevent discrimination in school choice for her son

St. Louis, Missouri;  May 4, 2016: A new Pacific Legal Foundation video describes the legal battle a mother has undertaken to challenge the St. Louis schools’ race-based transfer policy that blocks her son from attending the school of his choice because he is black.

La’Shieka White is represented by PLF in a lawsuit against the Voluntary Interdistrict Choice Corporation that was created to administer the St. Louis Student Transfer Program.  According to the program, only students who are not African-American are eligible to transfer from St. Louis County into a school located in the City of St. Louis.

In the new video, La’Shieka explains that her third-grade son, Edmund, who is excelling at Gateway Science Academy, cannot transfer to the school after she moved into a new house in St. Louis County.

“With us living in our new house, if our neighbor wanted to send their son to Gateway Science Academy, they could if they were any other race and, once I read that, I knew it was discrimination,” La’Shieka said.  “How do you be a black family and explain to your child how to still treat everyone equal if he is not being treated fairly?  To face something like that is terrible.”

PLF’s lawsuit argues that the race-based transfer policy violates the Equal Protection Clause.

“How could a law this blatantly unconstitutional exist?” asked PLF Principal Attorney Joshua P. Thompson, who filed the lawsuit.  “It results from a desegregation order of the St. Louis schools that dates back to the 70s and 80s.  The St. Louis schools were heavily segregated and to desegregate those schools, the school districts encouraged white kids to transfer into the city schools and black kids to transfer to the county.  That policy doesn’t make any sense in Edmund’s case.”

Thompson explains that Edmund’s school is predominantly white, so he actually improves the racial diversity if he is allowed to continue attending Gateway Science Academy.

The lawsuit, White v. Voluntary Interdistrict Choice Corporation, was filed in federal district court in St. Louis on May 4.

About Pacific Legal Foundation
Donor-supported Pacific Legal Foundation is the leading legal watchdog organization that litigates for limited government and individual rights, in courts across the country.  Since 1973, PLF has served as an important check on government power and used its strategic litigation to push back and restore constitutional limits at the local, state, and federal levels of government.