U.S. District Judge George F. Gunn Jr., who had overseen the long-running St. Louis school desegregation case since 1991, died May 20 of cancer. He was 70.
Though semiretired, Judge Gunn retained control of a lawsuit filed in 1972 by black parents who said their children were receiving an inferior education. He was the fourth judge to handle the St. Louis case, and in 1996 he ordered the parties in the case into mediation to encourage a settlement. That effort was unsuccessful, and the case is still ongoing.
Judge Gunn served on the Missouri Court of Appeals and the Missouri Supreme Court before being appointed to the federal bench in 1985 by President Reagan.
