RIP Gerald W. Heaney, Influential Judge Behind Racial Integration of STL Public Schools

By Nicholas Phillips

Jun 24, 2010 at 10:37 am

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Heaney was an influential member of the bench for 40 years.

The passing of 92-year-old Gerald W. Heaney, former federal appeals court judge in Minnesota, has been noted in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Post-Dispatch and at length in The Beacon.

His importance here in St. Louis was the following, according ot the Gray Lady (which refers to him as a "stalwart liberal"):

For 18 years, starting in 1981, Judge Heaney oversaw the integration of schools in St. Louis, writing 27 opinions that outlined strategies to bring students together from all over the city. In 1990, he was a member of a three-judge panel that allowed more than a fourth of black students in Kansas City, Mo., to transfer to predominantly white schools in the suburbs at the state's expense.

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