[S]chool districts themselves retain a state-law obligation to take reasonably feasible steps to desegregate, and they remain free to adopt reassignment and busing plans to effectuate desegregation (emphasis added)); School Comm. A non-profit group, Parents Involved in Community Schools (Parents), sued the District, arguing that the racial tiebreaker violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Washington state law. The fact that it is possible that children of group members will not be denied admission to a school based on their racebecause they choose an undersubscribed school or an oversubscribed school in which their race is an advantagedoes not eliminate the injury claimed. In this respect, Swann was not a sharp or unexpected departure from prior rulings; it reflected a consensus that had already emerged among state and lower federal courts. "[6] Justice Breyer noted, "No one here disputes that Louisville's segregation was de jure" and cites a 1956 memo where the Seattle School Board admitted its schools were de jure segregated as well. Third, real-world efforts to substitute racially diverse for racially segregated schools (however caused) are complex, to the point where the Constitution cannot plausibly be interpreted to rule out categorically all local efforts to use means that are conscious of the race of individuals. The dissent overreads Grutter, however, in suggesting that it renders pure racial balancing a constitutionally compelling interest; Grutter itself recognized that using race simply to achieve racial balance would be patently unconstitutional, 539 U. S., at 330. 05908, at 42a. in Davis v. County School Board, O.T. 1952, No. in No. Not even the dissenters thought the race-conscious remedial program posed a constitutional problem. For example, in Wygant v. Jackson Bd. The NAACPs First Legal Challenge and Seattles Response, 1969 to 1977. ), I shall adopt the first alternative. The Court in Grutter expressly articulated key limitations on its holdingdefining a specific type of broad-based diversity and noting the unique context of higher educationbut these limitations were largely disregarded by the lower courts in extending Grutter to uphold race-based assignments in elementary and secondary schools. we mean the freedom of the slave race); Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303, 306 (1879) ([The Fourteenth Amendment] is one of a series of constitutional provisions having a common purpose; namely, securing to a race recently emancipated . [Footnote 2] In this and other ways, The Chief Justice rewrites the history of one of this Courts most important decisions. 1 L. Kohn, Priority Shift: The Fate of Mandatory Busing for School Desegregation in Seattle and the Nation 2730, 32 (Mar. In this hearing en banc, the Ninth Circuit reversed itself yet again, ruling that the Seattle school districts admission program was narrowly tailored and constitutionally acceptable. Opinions differed. The Nations schools strive to teach that our strength comes from people of different races, creeds, and cultures uniting in commitment to the freedom of all. Because the referendum would have prohibited the adoption of a school-integration plan that involved mandatory busing, and because it would have imposed a special burden on school integration plans (plans that sought to integrate previously segregated schools), the Court found it unconstitutional. And to the extent the plurality opinion can be interpreted to foreclose consideration of these interests, I disagree with that reasoning. Space was available at Bloom, and intercluster transfers are allowed, but Joshuas transfer was nonetheless denied because, in the words of Jefferson County, [t]he transfer would have an adverse effect on desegregation compliance of Young. This is not to deny that there is a cost in applying a state-mandated racial label. Ante, at 17 (Kennedy, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). surrounding their adoption, are in some respects quite different. Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist. This Court has carved out a narrow exception to that general rule for cases in which a school district has a history of maintaining two sets of schools in a single school system deliberately operated to carry out a governmental policy to separate pupils in schools solely on the basis of race.[Footnote 4] See Swann, 402 U. S., at 56. ", 488 U.S., at 519, 109 S. Ct. 706, 102 L. Ed. Thus, the school districts must demonstrate that their use of such classifications is narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling government interest. 3, p.17 (The Court is dealing with thousands of local school districts and schools. This cannot be justified in the name of the Equal Protection Clause. The parties and their amici dispute whether racial diversity in schools in fact has a marked impact on test scores and other objective yardsticks or achieves intangible socialization benefits. Plessy, supra, at 559 (Harlan, J., dissenting). The plan required each middle school student to be assigned to his or her neighborhood school unless the student applied for, and was accepted by, a magnet middle school.
Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 By the dissents account, improvements in racial attitudes depend upon the increased contact between black and white students thought to occur in more racially balanced schools. 05915, p.97. Post, at 3436 (citing 426 F.3d 1162, 11931194 (CA9 2005) (Kozinski, J., concurring); Comfort v. Lynn School Comm., 418 F.3d 1, 2829 (CA1 2005) (Boudin, C.J., concurring)). Seattles plan, by contrast, relies upon a mechanical formula that has denied hundreds of students their preferred schools on the basis of three rigid criteria: placement of siblings, distance from schools, and race. Courts are not alone in accepting as constitutionally valid the legal principle that Swann enunciatedi.e., that the government may voluntarily adopt race-conscious measures to improve conditions of race even when it is not under a constitutional obligation to do so. Some schools are more popular than others. Compare, e.g., App. Family Law Center Abstract In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. The NAACPs First Legal Challenge and Seattles Response, 1969 to 1977. Both districts rethought their methods over time and explored a wide range of other means, including non-race-conscious policies. See Grutter, 539 U.S. at 334; Gratz, 539 U.S. at 27071. How do the remedial interests here differ in kind from those at issue in the voluntary desegregation efforts that Attorney General Kennedy many years ago described in his letter to the President? Extending Grutter to this context would require us to cut that holding loose from its theoretical moorings. The District further argues that the plan passes muster under the strictest scrutiny. seattleschools.org/schools/aaa/history.htm (all Internet materials as visited June 26, 2007, and available in Clerk of Courts case file). Nowhere is this more profoundly true than in the field of education); Tr. of Cal. 377 F.3d at 958. Laws arise from a culture and vice versa. . Roberts cites Adarand, supra, at 227, 115 S. Ct. 2097, 132 L. Ed. In a typical year, say, 1995, about 20,000 potential high school students participated. According to PICS, in the schools in which the tiebreaker was used, there was only a two to six percent change in the racial make-up of the student body. [Footnote 26], What was wrong in 1954 cannot be right today. of Ed., 402 U. S. 1, 16 (1971). If so, its interpretation threatens to produce divisiveness among minority groups that is incompatible with the basic objectives of the Fourteenth Amendment. It is an interest in teaching children to engage in the kind of cooperation among Americans of all races that is necessary to make a land of three hundred million people one Nation. See ibid. For instance, students who attend Franklin and Ballard will receive metro passes rather than bus service. The Current Plan, 1999 to the Present. The school board plans before us resemble many others adopted in the last 50 years by primary and secondary schools throughout the Nation. However, the government is entitled to consider race as one of several factors in determining school admissions and enrollment. . Id., at 3839, 82. Contractors of America v. Jacksonville, 508 U. S. 656, 666 (1993), an injury that the members of Parents Involved can validly claim on behalf of their children. in No. Id., at 39a. See Washington State Report The dissent attempts to buttress the integration interest by claiming that it follows a fortiori from the interest this Court recognized as compelling in Grutter. But our precedent has recognized that de jure discrimination can be present even in the absence of racially explicit laws. And what of the long history and moral vision that the Fourteenth Amendment itself embodies? Second, a school cannot remedy racial imbalance in the same way that it can remedy segregation. The dissent finds that the school districts have identified a compelling interest in increasing diversity, including for the purpose of avoiding racial isolation. United States v. Montgomery County Bd.
10 important Supreme Court cases about education No. The districts also quote with approval an in-chambers opinion in which then-Justice Rehnquist made a suggestion to the same effect. Another Connecticut regulation provides that [a]ny school in which the Proportion for the School falls outside of a range from 25 percentage points less to 25 percentage points more than the Comparable Proportion for the School District, shall be determined to be racially imbalanced. Conn.
(PDF) Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District McFarland v. Jefferson County Public Schools & Parents Involved in of Jefferson Cty., 489 F.2d 925, 932 (CA6), vacated and remanded, 418 U. S. 918, reinstated with modifications, 510 F.2d 1358, 1359 (CA6 1974), and in 1975 the District Court entered a desegregation decree. None of these elements is compelling. To raise the specter of resegregation to defend these programs is to ignore the meaning of the word and the nature of the cases before us. This Court has made many decisions of widespread effect; none would affect more people more directly in more fundamental interests and, in fact, cause more chaos in local government than a reversal of the decision in this case). The first case started in 1998 when five African American high school students sued JCPS to allow them to attend Central High School, a magnet school. Between 80% and 90% of all students received their first choice assignment; between 89% and 97% received their first or second choice assignment. See, e.g., Yonezawa, Wells, & Serna, Choosing Tracks: Freedom of Choice in Detracting Schools, 39 Am. Many proceeded under the now-rejected view that classifications seeking to benefit a disadvantaged racial group should be held to a lesser standard of review. Hence, I am not surprised that Justice Kennedy finds that, a district may consider it a compelling interest to achieve a diverse student population, including a racially diverse population. The Courts holding in Grutter demonstrates that the Court meant what it said, for the Court upheld an elite law schools race-conscious admissions program. Can the government force racial mixing against the will of those being mixed? of Ed etal., on certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. To McDaniel? says nothing about the ultimate validity of any particular law. Id., at 229230 (internal quotation marks omitted). For example, at Franklin High School in Seattle, the racial tiebreaker was applied because nonwhite enrollment exceeded 69 percent, and resulted in an incoming ninth-grade class in 20002001 that was 30.3 percent Asian-American, 21.9 percent African-American, 6.8 percent Latino, 0.5 percent Native-American, and 40.5 percent Caucasian. The plans are tied to each districts specific racial demographics, rather than to any pedagogic concept of the level of diversity needed to obtain the asserted educational benefits. Approximately 307 student assignments were affected by the racial tiebreaker in 20002001; the district was able to track the enrollment status of 293 of these students. At the time, the districts public school population was approximately 30% black. I believe that the law requires application here of a standard of review that is not strict in the traditional sense of that word, although it does require the careful review I have just described. 5, p.27 (Respondents ask this Court to upset a long established and well settled principle recognized by numerous state Legislatures, and Courts, both state and federal, over a long period of years); Tr. See also Grutter, supra, at 326 ([G]overnmental action based on racea group classification long recognized as in most circumstances irrelevant and therefore prohibitedshould be subjected to detailed judicial inquiry (internal quotation marks and emphasis omitted)). In this plurality opinion, Roberts wrote that the schools at issue contend that a racially diverse environment is beneficial for education and they submit this as the reason why they consider race alone in their school assignments. Similarly, Jefferson Countys use of racial classifications has only a minimal effect on the assignment of students. in Briggs v. Elliott, O.T. 1953, No. The Chief Justice rejects the conclusion that the racial classifications at issue here should be viewed differently than others, because they do not impose burdens on one race alone and do not stigmatize or exclude. Elementary schools in central Seattle were between 60% and 80% black; Garfield, the central district high school, was more than 50% minority; schools outside the central and southeastern sections of Seattle were virtually all white. Eighty-four students were assigned to schools that they did not list as a choice, but 29 of those students would have been assigned to their respective school without the racial tiebreaker, and 3 were able to attend one of the oversubscribed schools due to waitlist and capacity adjustments. 44, p.6 (200304 Jefferson County Public Schools Elementary Student Assignment Application, Section B) (Assignment is made to a school for Primary 1 (Kindergarten) through Grade Five as long as racial guidelines are maintained. See Part I, supra, at 221. The Ninth Circuit granted rehearing en banc, 395 F.3d 1168 (2005), and overruled the panel decision, affirming the District Courts determination that Seattles plan was narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest, Parents Involved VII, 426 F.3d, at 11921193. How could such a plan be lawful the day before dissolution but then become unlawful the very next day? The measures required by those cases often included race-conscious practices, such as mandatory busing and race-based restrictions on voluntary transfers. 539 U. S., at 328. Upon realizing that the litigation would not be resolved in time for assignment decisions for the 20022003 school year, the Ninth Circuit withdrew its opinion, 294 F.3d 1084 (2002) (Parents Involved III), vacated the injunction, and, pursuant to Wash. Rev. 149 through 154 (Dec. 8, 2003). of Ed., 476 U. S. 267, 274 (1986), the plurality noted: This Court never has held that societal discrimination alone is sufficient to justify a racial classification. In reality, it is far from apparent that coerced racial mixing has any educational benefits, much less that integration is necessary to black achievement. . v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265, 312314 (1978) (opinion of Powell, J.). Given our case law and the paucity of evidence supporting the dissents belief that these plans improve race relations, no democratic element can support the integration interest.
August 6, 2007 - Connecticut General Assembly The opinion of the Court and Justice Breyers dissenting opinion (hereinafter dissent) describe in detail the history of integration efforts in Louisville and Seattle. The dissent does not explain how its recognition of an interest in teaching racial understanding and cooperation here is consistent with the Courts rejection of a similar interest in Wygant. Section 1. In support of the third benefit, the District cites findings that minority students in fully integrated schools often perform better academically and are more likely to find work in an integrated workplace. in No. Consequently, in 1996, the board modified Project Renaissance, thereby creating the present plan.