LITTLE ROCK — An appeals court has ordered the state of Arkansas and the Pulaski County Special School District to pay attorneys’ fees related to a ruling that Arkansas cannot cut millions of dollars spent on desegregation programs in Little Rock-area schools.
A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday the state must pay $69,972 to the Little Rock School District and ordered Pulaski County schools to pay $149,417 to a group of black parents and students known as the Joshua Intervenors.
Little Rock sought attorneys’ fees for its successful appeal of a federal judge’s order cutting off most of the state’s desegregation payments. The intervenors sought money from Pulaski County, which unsuccessfully fought a judge’s ruling that it wasn’t entirely unitary, or substantially desegregated.