A coalition of plaintiffs in a legal case against New Jersey want their school segregation lawsuit to go before the state Supreme Court.
The state — the defendant in the lawsuit filed nearly eight years ago — argued in court filings on Monday that the case lacks the urgency needed for such an extreme move. That may signal that Governor Mikie Sherrill’s administration will keep in line with her predecessor and continue the fight.
“Plaintiffs appreciate that high profile cases warrant exceptional care and attention by trial courts to assure the litigants and the public that all issues receive appropriate scrutiny,” attorney Lawrence Lustberg, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, wrote in court documents filed last week to argue for Supreme Court involvement. “But the hundreds of thousands of students who continue to be educated in unconstitutionally segregated schools have already waited far too long.”
Skipping an appellate ruling would speed up a case decision, the plaintiffs say.
The plaintiffs are families of nine students who attended schools in towns including Camden, Elizabeth and Newark, plus five advocacy groups that include Latino Action Network and the NAACP New Jersey State Conference,.
The group filed the lawsuit in May 2018, alleging that New Jersey’s public school system violates the state constitution, which bans school segregation and orders the state to provide a “thorough and efficient” education. The plaintiffs argue that the state is aware of de facto segregation that exists in part due to state policies, such as the home rule, which stipulates that students attend the schools in their zip code.
The state asserts that racial imbalance in some schools is due in part to “countless factors” outside its control, “such as parental choice regarding where to live and whether to send their children to private schools,” Attorney General Jennifer Davenport argued in filings on Monday. The state defendants also noted that nothing about the plaintiffs’ claims “requires this court’s immediate intervention before the Appellate Division can issue a decision.”
The state Attorney General’s Office represents the defendants in the case, which include the state Board of Education and Education Commissioner Lily Laux.
New Jersey has some of the nation’s highest segregation rates for Black and Latino students, according to studies by the Civil Rights Project of the University of California at Los Angeles.
In fall 2023, a trial court issued a mixed ruling that prompted mediation discussions that failed after roughly 18 months.
In the plaintiffs’ lawsuit, they identified 23 school districts with enrollment of Latino and Black students above 90% and with high proportions of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The towns included Newark, Orange and Irvington.
Bypassing the appellate court would “reduce by years the time required for resolution of those issues, so that justice will not further be delayed — and thereby denied,” the plaintiffs argued in their Supreme Court motion. “And realistically, only this court has the authority and stature to resolve these issues ‘once and for all.’”
The Supreme Court is nearing the end of its 2025-26 term, when it hears arguments and makes rulings. It’s unclear when the court will weigh a decision on the motion.
“To be sure, a racially and socioeconomically diverse learning environment is an important ingredient in the education of every child,” Davenport wrote. “And there is undoubtedly room to improve the current public education system to further that goal. But plaintiffs’ claim that our entire public school system violates the state Constitution finds no support in the law or the factual record.”
