Here, the context is one in which school districts seek to advance or to maintain racial integration in primary and secondary schools. Our Nation from the inception has sought to preserve and expand the promise of liberty and equality on which it was founded. 05908, at 128a, 129a. aspx? See post, at 2829. That is what is at issue here. [Footnote 16]. The district, nevertheless, has failed to make an adequate showing in at least one respect. When determining where to place a child or where to transfer a child both school districts use race as the qualifying factor on where to send the child. yrs= (showing that reading scores went up, not down, when Seattles race-based assignment program ended at Sealth High School, Ingraham High School, and Franklin High Schoolsome of the schools most affected by the plan). This, in turn, could encourage policy-makers to be more accountable to families and implement policy that is innovative and responsive to local needs. If the plans survive this strict review, they would survive less exacting review a fortiori. Section 5. Light, New Evidence on School Desegregation v (1987) (hereinafter Welch) (prepared for the Commission on Civil Rights) (reviewing a sample of 125 school districts, constituting 20% of national public school enrollment, that had experimented with nearly 300 different plans over 18 years). Richmond v. J. Section 7. Here, race becomes a factor only in a fraction of students non-merit-based assignmentsnot in large numbers of students merit-based applications. See Swann, supra, at 2526; Missouri v. Jenkins, 515 U. S. 70, 116 (1995) (Thomas, J., concurring). 2006). 6. 05915, at 410. 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. A majority of these desegregation techniques explicitly considered a students race. 89. If the Court defers to the district, this will reaffirm local autonomy and give districts broad discretion to develop educational policy. Under that approach, the school districts have not carried their burden of showing that the ends they seek justify the particular extreme means they have chosenclassifying individual students on the basis of their race and discriminating among them on that basis. See, e.g., Armor & Rossell, Desegregation and Resegregation in the Public Schools, in Beyond the Color Line: New Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity in America 239, 251 (A. Thernstrom & S. Thernstrom eds. Respondent school districts voluntarily adopted student assignment plans that rely on race to determine which schools certain children may attend. The Supreme Court will now review that determination in light of its Equal Protection decisions in Grutter and Gratz and is asked to decide whether racial diversity in high schools is a compelling state interest. Such deference is fundamentally at odds with our equal protection jurisprudence. 254, 256, 261 (1956) (40 of Kentuckys 180 school districts began desegre- Primary Documents: (Slip Opinion) December 4, 2006, Argued June 28, 2007, * Decided SYLLABUS: Respondent school districts voluntarily adopted student assignment plans that rely on race to determine which schools certain children may attend. Public School Dist., 34 (Apr. As the Court recently reaffirmed, racial classifications are simply too pernicious to permit any but the most exact connection between justification and classification. Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 244, 270 (2003) (quoting Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U. S. 448, 537 (1980) (Stevens, J., dissenting); brackets omitted). Seattle Public Schools Transportation Service Standards. In respect to high schools, for example, a student was given a list of a subset of schools, carefully selected by the board to balance racial distribution in the district by including neighborhood schools and schools in racially different neighborhoods elsewhere in the city. The Grutter Court expressly limited 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 the sort of classifications at issue here. Even today, two of our wisest federal judges have rejected such a wooden reading of the Equal Protection Clause in the context of school integration. At issue were efforts for voluntary school desegregation and integration in Seattle, Washington, and Louisville, Kentucky. This context is not a context that involves the use of race to decide who will receive goods or services that are normally distributed on the basis of merit and which are in short supply. And the present context requires a court to examine carefully the race-conscious program at issue. See post, at 6972. of Los Angeles City Unified School Dist., 610 F.2d 661, 662664 (1979), the Ninth Circuit rejected a federal constitutional challenge to a school districts use of mandatory faculty transfers to ensure that each schools faculty makeup would fall within 10% of the districtwide racial composition. (a)As part of its burden of proving that racial classifications are narrowly tailored to further compelling interests, the government must establish, in detail, how decisions based on an individual students race are made in a challenged program. The Seattle case, Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. of Boston, the Illinois Supreme Court had issued an unpublished opinion holding unconstitutional a similar statute aimed at eliminating racial imbalance in public schools. Contacting Justia or any attorney through this site, via web form, email, or otherwise, does not create an attorney-client relationship. 377 F.3d 949, 969 (9th Cir. I cannot endorse that conclusion. More broadly, however, allowing racial diversity or balance as a compelling state interest, even if confined to secondary education, calls into question the Equal. It argues that it should not be force to walk the tightrope between violating the constitution by failing to integrate schools and violating the constitution by integrating schools. At a particular school either whites or non-whites could be favored for admission depending on which race would bring the racial balance closer to the goal. Applying a test from Grutter, the Circuit Court also ruled that the tiebreaker plan was narrowly tailored, because 1) the District did not employ quotas, 2) the District had considered race-neutral alternatives, 3) the plan caused no undue harm to races, and 4) the plan had an ending point. Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. To make race matter now so that it might not matter later may entrench the very prejudices we seek to overcome. Even supposing it mattered to the constitutional analysis, the race-based student assignment programs before us are not as benign as the dissent believes. Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U. S. 81, 100 (1943) ([R]acial discriminations are in most circumstances irrelevant and therefore prohibited). After agreeing to hear an appeal (Parents Involved, 2006) in Parents Involved In Community Schools v. Seattle School District Number 1 (2007), a highly divided Supreme Court f 6 struck down plans from Seattle and Louisville that classified students by race in making school assignments. Louisville asserts several similar forward-looking interests, Brief for Respondents in No. Const., Amdt. Approximately 34 percent of the districts 97,000 students are black; most of the remaining 66 percent are white. Id. See ante, at 3941 (plurality opinion) (comparing Jim Crow segregation to Seattle and Louisvilles integration polices); ante, at 2832 (Thomas, J., concurring). Multiple studies also indicate that black alumni of integrated schools are more likely to move into occupations traditionally closed to African-Americans, and to earn more money in those fields. Second, since this Courts decision in Brown, the law has consistently and unequivocally approved of both voluntary and compulsory race-conscious measures to combat segregated schools. . See, e.g., App. If the need for the racial classifications embraced by the school districts is unclear, even on the districts own terms, the costs are undeniable. To School Committee of Boston? 1996) (Perhaps desegregation does not have a single effect, positive or negative, on the academic achievement of African American students, but rather some strategies help, some hurt, and still others make no difference whatsoever. Public Schools, 330 F.Supp. 6, 39 Ill. 2d 593, 597598, 237 N.E. 2d 498, 501 (1968) (citations omitted) (citing decisions from the high courts of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey, California, New York, and Connecticut, and from the Courts of Appeals for the First, Second, Fourth, and Sixth Circuits). gation plans. Even if current social theories favor classroom racial engineering as necessary to solve the problems at hand, post, at 21, the Constitution enshrines principles independent of social theories. in Briggs v. Elliott, O.T. 1953, No. See Appendix A, infra. v. Penick, 443 U. S. 449, 455, n.3 (1979); Davis v. Board of School Commrs of Mobile Cty., 402 U. S. 33, 3738 (1971); Green v. School Bd. . In briefing and argument before this Court, Seattle contends that its use of race helps to reduce racial concentration in schools and to ensure that racially concentrated housing patterns do not prevent nonwhite students from having access to the most desirable schools. Finally, what of the hope and promise of Brown? They asked the court to dissolve the desegregation order and to hold the use of magnet school racial guidelines unconstitutional. [28] He contrasted this circumstance to Grutter, where "the consideration of race was viewed as indispensable" in more than tripling minority representation at the law schoolfrom 4 to 14.5 percent. 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. v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265, 312314 (1978) (opinion of Powell, J.). However, while this is an important potential consequence, it is also important to note that its relevance is dependent upon the Courts reasons for deeming racial diversity a compelling state interest, should it choose to do so. The second most important tiebreaker was a racial factor intended to maintain racial diversity. 662. Seattle argues that Parents Involved lacks standing because none of its current members can claim an imminent injury. The Equal Protection Clause, ratified following the Civil War, has always distinguished in practice between state action that excludes and thereby subordinates racial minorities and state action that seeks to bring together people of all races. Justice Breyer makes much of the fact that in 1978 Seattle settled an NAACP complaint alleging illegal segregation with the federal Office for Civil Rights (OCR). App. . says nothing about the ultimate validity of any particular law. Id., at 229230 (internal quotation marks omitted). Indeed, in its more recent opinions, the Court recognized that the fundamental purpose of strict scrutiny review is to take relevant differences between fundamentally different situations . Which of the following statements offers the most accurate comparison between this case and the decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954)? 10 on Reargument in Brown I, O.T. 1953, p.15 (Summary of Argument). . [Footnote 10]. . De jure? Dawkins & Braddock 403. of Boston v. Board of Education, 352 Mass. See, e.g., Federal Maritime Commn v. South Carolina Ports Authority, 535 U. S. 743, 770 (2002) (Stevens, J., dissenting). United States v. Montgomery County Bd. But what about Seattles? Kennedy's opinion also emphasized the risks posed by allowing for the proliferation of mechanically imposed individual race classifications of its citizens. Percentage of White Students in Schools Attended by the Average Black Student, 19682000. We are not social engineers. Strict scrutiny applies to any government classification based on race. Grutter, 539 U. S., at 348 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). These interests combine remedial, educational, and democratic objectives. The legal showdown came in a landmark decision called Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. Moreover, the school boards have no interest in remedying the sundry consequences of prior segregation unrelated to schooling, such as housing patterns, employment practices, economic conditions, and social attitudes. Post, at 38. In the Jefferson County case, the District Court found that the school district had asserted a compelling interest in maintaining racially diverse schools, and that its plan was, in all relevant respects, narrowly tailored to serve that interest. See Brief for Respondent at 13. Brief for Respondent at 3334. 2429, and at oral argument, counsel for Louisville disavowed any claim that Louisvilles argument depend[ed] in any way on the prior de jure segregation, Tr. Justice Kennedys second concern is directly related to the merits of Seattles plan: Why does Seattles plan group Asian-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Native-Americans, and African-Americans together, treating all as similar minorities? 3, p.5 ([I]t would be difficult to find from any field of law a legal principle more repeatedly and conclusively decided than the one sought to be raised by appellants); Brief for Appellees in Davis v. County School Board, O.T. 1953, No. So long as the plan is narrowly tailored, meaning that it uses the least restrictive means to obtain the benefits that flow from diversity and implements a plan that does not result in an impermissible quota, school districts can have some say in the racial make-up of their student body. Memorandum of Agreement between Seattle School District No. of Los Angeles, 458 U. S. 527 (1982), post, at 24, in which a state referendum prohibiting a race-based assignment plan was challenged, is inappositein Crawford the Court again expressly reserved the question presented by these cases. ents in No. That seemingly odd turnaround is merely a result of the fact that the remediation of de jure segregation is a jealously guarded exception to the Equal Protection Clauses general rule against government race-based decisionmaking. Grutter, supra, at 326. Seattle operates a K8 African-American Academy, which has a nonwhite enrollment of 99%. friend of JOSHUA RYAN McDONALD, PETITIONER. 2002). Unless we believe that the Constitution enforces one legal standard for the South and another for the North, this Court should grant Seattle the permission it granted Clarke County, Georgia. The Courts emphasis on benign racial classifications suggests confidence in its ability to distinguish good from harmful governmental uses of racial criteria. 1? See Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, 75 (1905) (Holmes, J., dissenting) (The Fourteenth Amendment does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencers Social Statics). The citations do not carry the significance the districts would ascribe to them. 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)). 05908, at 38a39a, 45a. The fact that state and local governments had been discriminating on the basis of race for a long time was irrelevant to the Brown Court. The Court was exceedingly careful in describing the interest furthered in Grutter as not an interest in simple ethnic diversity but rather a far broader array of qualifications and characteristics in which race was but a single element. The debate is not one we need to resolve, however, because it is clear that the racial classifications employed by the districts are not narrowly tailored to the goal of achieving the educational and social benefits asserted to flow from racial diversity. See Grutter 539 U.S. at 330. of Oral Arg. The Washington Supreme Court issued its decision on the same day the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger, the seminal cases which addressed the constitutionality of using race in college and law school admissions at the University of Michigan. I have no quarrel with the proposition that the Fourteenth Amendment sought to bring former slaves into American society as full members. Brief for Respondents in No. 05908, at 30a. Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. Statement in School Comm. in No. Id., at 498. It also cited to Justice Powells opinion in Bakke, approving of the limited use of race-conscious criteria in a university-admissions affirmative action case. More recently, the school district sent a delegation of high school students to a White Privilege Conference. See Equity and Race Relations White Privilege Conference, https://www.seattleschools. The dissent claims that the law requires application here of a standard of review that is not strict in the traditional sense of that word. Post, at 36. Nevertheless, Kennedy found the school districts did not narrowly tailor the use of race to achieve the compelling interests in the case. Jefferson County estimates that the racial guidelines account for only 3 percent of assignments. Swann did not hide its understanding of the law in a corner of an obscure opinion or in a footnote, unread but by experts. Synopsis of Rule of Law. I wholly concur in The Chief Justices opinion. See Milliken, 418 U. S., at 74142 (No single tradition in public education is more deeply rooted than local control over the operation of schools; local autonomy has long been thought essential both to the maintenance of community concern and support for public schools and to quality of the educational process).