Deric Liddell v. State of Missouri, No. 21-1262 (8th Cir. 2023)
Annotate this Case
This case started more than fifty years ago when Minnie Liddell sued to desegregate the St. Louis public school system. The NAACP joined the lawsuit, and the State of Missouri (among others) became a defendant. The parties struck a deal that lasted until 1999 when they agreed to end Missouri’s remedial obligations. The Missouri Legislature ratified the parties’ settlement agreement and created a charter-school option. A group of charter schools complained to the Missouri Legislature, which altered the funding formula in 2006. The revised formula, part of Senate Bill 287, is what has led to the current dispute. The St. Louis Public School District and one of the plaintiffs asked the district court to enforce the settlement agreement by having Missouri reimburse it for the special-sales-tax revenue it had lost under the new funding formula. The district court sided with Missouri, and both sides appealed. Plaintiffs continued to believe that the St. Louis Public School District should receive all the special-sales-tax revenue. And Missouri argued that the desegregation-spending condition finds no support in the settlement agreement.
The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment but vacated the part requiring charter schools to spend those funds on “desegregation measures.” The court explained that there has been no “disproportionate adverse financial impact” on the St. Louis Public School District because it never had a right to keep all the special-sales-tax revenue for itself. Moreover, the court rejected the argument that allowing charter schools to spend their money as they see fit is inconsistent with the “purpose” of the settlement agreement.
Court Description: [Stras, Author, with Colloton and Wollman, Circuit Judges] Civil case - St. Louis School Desegregation Case. The district court correctly determined that charter schools always had the right to a portion of the special-sales-tax revenue at issue; the district court erred, however, in concluding that charter schools must spend their share of special-sales-tax revenue on school-desegregtion measures as such a conclusion is not compelled by the settlement agreement in the desegregation case.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.