Arthur A. Benson, II
Attorney for the plaintiffs in Kansas City, Missouri
desegregation case

By Kaydee Smith, class of 2004

Arthur A. Benson, II was the attorney for the plaintiff schoolchildren in the Kansas City, Missouri school district desegregation case, which spanned 26 years. Benson was born in Kansas City, Missouri on January 24, 1944. He grew up in Kansas City and graduated with honors from Williams College in New Jersey in 1966. He graduated from Northwestern University Law School in 1969. His law firm, Benson & Associates, in Kansas City, Missouri specializes in civil rights and constitutional issues.

The Kansas City desegregation case began in 1977 after attorneys representing school children in the metropolitan district filed lawsuits against school districts in both Missouri and Kansas. At that time, the plaintiffs said the locations of schools for black children in the inner-city and schools for white children surrounding the metropolitan area built before the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision affected the way residential neighborhoods became established. This left segregation unfixed and ingrained in the district. Essentially, the schools in the Kansas City district needed major repairs, suffered from the loss of teachers to districts with higher salaries, used outdated texts and functioned with large class sizes. The plaintiffs claimed that families that had enough money left the district in search of better schools; leaving the district with a poor, largely minority population unable to gain taxpayer support for better schools. In September 1984, the case was realigned to drop the suburban school districts from the case and make the defendants the Kansas City School District and the State of Missouri with only the schoolchildren remaining as the plaintiffs.

Benson took the case in February 1979 and has worked passionately to forge new ground in desegregation cases. By the end of 1987, courts orders were in place to completely revamp the school district. In 1996, the state agreed to vast improvements, giving $320 million to the district. The money left the district with brand-new schools, magnet schools, bussing and additional teachers and staff. Benson sent his daughter to a magnet school when this plan went into action, but the Supreme Court ruled against the plan, which attracted suburban students to the magnet schools. Benson thought this initiative was one of the most innovative components of the plan and described the ruling against it as "getting cut off at the knees by the Supreme Court." He said the plan or "remedy" established findings that disproved the tipping point theory in education. That theory says that once a district gets to some level of black enrollment, the whites will all leave quickly, despite the quality of the schools. The magnet school program in the district disproved the theory. US District Judge Dean Whipple ruled that the district had closed the achievement gap between black and white children (the last requirement of the remedy) August 13, 2003.

Despite improvements, the district has less diversity now than it did when the case was filed, making the case even more important in modern applications of the Brown decision. Benson said that the integration is important in the district even though the quality of the education is good.

"Public education is not only the acquisition of knowledge, but also the socialization of students and learning how to deal cooperatively with others," he said.

>Benson was the attorney through the tumultuous case and stood up for the ideals of education throughout the arduous process. Although, at first, he appealed Judge Whipple’s decision, he released a statement September 26, 2003 withdrawing the appeal.

In the statement he said, "There is nothing more important for this community (not a new arena, not a successful sports franchise, not wider highways) than to have its largest public school system graduate students who are at least proficient, if not advanced, in all areas of study."

Benson said the next step in the Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka battle is to close the black-white achievement gap.

"This remains a persistent problem in our nation and society," he said.