143746P.pdf   08/31/2015  Heath Adkisson, et al  v.  Blytheville School District #5
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  14-3746
   U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas - Jonesboro   
   [PUBLISHED] [[Smith, Author, with Beam and Bye, Circuit Judges] 
   Civil case - Arkansas Public School Choice Act. The 2013 Arkansas Public 
   School Choice Law contained a broad school choice transfer option but gave 
   school districts the ability to claim an exemption from the Act if the 
   district was subject to desegregation order or mandate of a federal court 
   or agency remedying the effects of past racial segregation. Here, 
   plaintiffs are parents of the Blytheville School District and were 
   prevented from sending their children to another district because the 
   District claimed the exemption. Given that the Arkansas General Assembly 
   has stricken the exemption clause at issue in this suit - Sec. 
   6-18-1906(b)- and that the district has claimed an exemption under the 
   newly added Sec. 6-13-113, the plaintiffs' request for declaratory and 
   injunctive relief, in so far as it pertains to the 2013 Act, is moot; 
   however, plaintiffs could potentially recover money damages for any 
   constitutional violation arising from the School District's alleged 
   violation of the 2013 Act, and that part of their claim is not moot and 
   the court will address plaintiffs' underlying due process and equal 
   protection claims; none of plaintiffs' cited cases establish that a 
   parent's ability to choose where his or her child is educated within the 
   public school system is a fundamental right of liberty; the Act does not 
   create a property interest in exercising public school choice because 
   plaintiffs do not have more than a mere subjective expectancy of school 
   choice under the Act since the receiving nonresident districts retained 
   discretion to accept or reject transfer students, such as plaintiffs' 
   children; plaintiffs failed to prove the district had a disparate purpose 
   in claiming the exemption and strict scrutiny analysis is not required; 
   applying the rational basis test, the district had a rational basis for 
   believing it was subject to a federal court desegregation order or federal 
   agency mandate which it would violate if it failed to claim the exemption. 
   Judge Beam, concurring in part and dissenting in part.