377 F.3d at 959. In Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle (2007), the United States Supreme Court found that the school district was using race in an unconstitutional manner in its assignment plan. One commentator, reviewing dozens of studies of the educational benefits of desegregated schooling, found that the studies have provided remarkably consistent results, showing that: (1) black students educational achievement is improved in integrated schools as compared to racially isolated schools, (2) black students educational achievement is improved in integrated classes, and (3) the earlier that black students are removed from racial isolation, the better their educational outcomes. Whether a school districts decision to admit a student to a desegregated high school based on that students race, in an effort to achieve a racial balance within the school and therefore foster diversity in the educational setting, violates that students Equal Protection rights given by the Fourteenth Amendment. See Part II, supra, at 2137. See Seattle School District, Ethnic Count 2005-2006, at 8. See also ante, at 15 (opinion of Kennedy, J.). If that is so, then all of Seattles earlier (even more race-conscious) plans must also have been unconstitutional. There is a cruel irony in The Chief Justices reliance on our decision in Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U. S. 294 (1955). Nineteen of the districts forty-six elementary schools were between 80% and 100% black. First, it contends that the schools were already diverse; in particular it notes that the non-white population was made up of students from varying backgrounds such as Asian, Hispanic, and African-American, making them diverse even when there was not a significant white population. When the government classifies an individual by race, it must first define what it means to be of a race. Where there has been de jure segregation, there is a cognizable legal wrong, and the courts and legislatures have broad power to remedy it. This school was 10 miles from home, and Meredith sought to transfer Joshua to a school in a different cluster, Bloom Elementary, whichlike his resides schoolwas only a mile from home. 2841. Cf. 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. See, e.g., J. Wilkinson, From Brown to Bakke 11 (1979) (Everyone understands that Brown v. Board of Education helped deliver the Negro from over three centuries of legal bondage); Black, The Lawfulness of the Segregation Decisions, 69 Yale L.J. 1, 551 U.S. 701 (2007) Plaintiff- Parents Involved in Community Schools (non-profit organization led by Kathleen Get started for FREE Continue Schools frequently group students by academic ability as an aid to efficient instruction, but such groupings often result in classrooms with high concentrations of one race or another. One schoolGarfieldis more or less in the center of Seattle. Experience in Seattle and Louisville is consistent with experience elsewhere. By 1991, the board had concluded that assigning elementary school students to two or more schools during their elementary school years had proved educationally unsound and, if continued, would undermine Kentuckys newly adopted Education Reform Act. This the Constitution forbids. Ibid. But segregation policies did not simply tell schoolchildren where they could and could not go to school based on the color of their skin, ante, at 40 (plurality opinion); they perpetuated a caste system rooted in the institutions of slavery and 80 years of legalized subordination. The student could then choose among those schools, indicating a first choice, and other choices the student found acceptable. This is confirmed by the fact that Seattle has been able to achieve a desirable degree of diversity without the greater emphasis on race that drawing fine lines among minority groups would require. A court finding of de jure segregation cannot be the crucial variable. Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist. After discussing the democratic element, the dissent repeats its assertion that the social science evidence supporting that interest is sufficiently strong to permit a school board to determine that this interest is compelling. Post, at 40. See McDaniel, supra, at 41. Friends of the Earth v. Laidlaw, 528 U.S. 167, 189 (2000). With the racial tiebreaker in 20002001, total enrollment was 36.8 percent Asian-American, 32.2 percent African-American, 5.2 percent Latino, 25.1 percent Caucasian, and 0.7 percent Native-American. 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. 1. As I have explained elsewhere, the remedies this Court authorized lower courts to compel in early desegregation cases like Green and Swann were exceptional. And it is for them to decide, to quote the pluralitys slogan, whether the best way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. Ante, at 4041. See, e.g., Brief for Appellees on Reargument in Briggs v. Elliott, O.T. 1953, No. Not even the dissenters thought the race-conscious remedial program posed a constitutional problem. The broad interest in racial diversity in education generally could potentially filter through all facets of the school, and even into elementary education. At the same time, it is urged that these laws are valid as a matter of constitutionally permissible social experimentation by the States. of Ed., supra, at 232. 1, a consolidated 2007 ruling that resolved both cases, the Court ultimately struck down the school plans at issue, holding that they violated the . A non-profit group, Parents Involved in Community Schools, 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 plurality pays inadequate attention to this law, to past opinions rationales, their language, and the contexts in which they arise. It is well established that when a governmental policy is subjected to strict scrutiny, the government has the burden of proving that racial classifications are narrowly tailored measures that further compelling governmental interests. Johnson, supra, at 505 (quoting Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peńa, 515 U. S. 200, 227 (1995)). The idea that government racial classifications must be subjected to strict scrutiny did not originate in Adarand. Id., at 483487. Even in the context of mandatory desegregation, we have stressed that racial proportionality is not required, see Milliken, 433 U. S., at 280, n. 14 ([A desegregation] order contemplating the substantive constitutional right [to a] particular degree of racial balance or mixing is infirm as a matter of law (internal quotation marks omitted)); Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. School Dist. When questioned about the close timing, Gordon stated that all the District had to do was "push a button" to change things over to a plan compliant with the Court's ruling. The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. In Grutter, the consideration of race was viewed as indispensable in more than tripling minority representation at the law schoolfrom 4 to 14.5 percent. 250, 251 (1983) (similar in Arkansas); Bullock to achieve its own ends; and thus it fails to pass strict scrutiny. The plan also established Parent Assistance Centers to help parents and students navigate the school selection and assignment process. [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. Adarand, 515 U. S., at 227; Grutter, 539 U. S., at 326; Johnson v. California, 543 U. S. 499, 505 (2005) (We have insisted on strict scrutiny in every context, even for so-called benign racial classifications). In addition, a decision in the Districts favor will allow public schools to implement a wide range of programs designed to further the interest of racial diversity. in No. 420, 433434 (1988). Brief for Petitioner at 3536. He contended that whatever trends toward classroom racial imbalance have obtained, they were not the result of state-sanctioned segregation as in the pre-Brown era. 4, pp. See post, at 29. See post, at 37. Thus, the school districts must demonstrate that their use of such classifications is narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling government interest. The dissent emphasizes local control, see post, at 4849, the unique history of school desegregation, see post, at 2, and the fact that these plans make less use of race than prior plans, see post, at 57, but these factors seem more rhetorical than integral to the analytical structure of the opinion. Justice Breyers dissent takes a different approach to these cases, one that fails to ground the result it would reach in law. PDF Affirmative Action and Diversity in Public Education: Legal Developments Id. But the solutions mandated by these school districts must themselves be lawful. Compare Green v. School Bd. of Ed., 395 U. S. 225, 232 (1969) (approving a lower court desegregation order that provided that the [school] board must move toward a goal under which in each school the ratio of white to Negro faculty members is substantially the same as it is throughout the system, and immediately requiring [t]he ratio of Negro to white teachers in each school to be equal to the ratio of Negro to white teachers in the system as a whole). To McDaniel? Second, "the interest in diversity in higher education", as upheld in, This page was last edited on 5 February 2023, at 17:43. on writ of certiorari to the united states court of This means that the government must identify a compelling interest and show that it has used a narrowly tailored means to further it. No. However, the dissenters argued that the Constitution permits such desegregation even though it does not require it. By contrast, Croson notes that racial classifications are permitted only "as a last resort".[30]. The districts here invoke the ultimate goal of those who filed Brown and subsequent cases to support their argument, but the argument of the plaintiff in Brown was that the Equal Protection Clause prevents states from according differential treatment to American children on the basis of their color or race, and that view prevailedthis Court ruled in its remedial opinion that Brown required school districts to achieve a system of determining admission to the public schools on a nonracial basis. Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U. S. 294, 300301 (emphasis added). The board responded to the lawsuit by introducing a plan that required race-based transfers and mandatory busing. The Seattle Board Statement Reaffirming Diversity Rationale speaks of the inherent educational value in [p]roviding students the opportunity to attend schools with diverse student enrollment, App. That case involves the original Seattle Plan, a more heavily race-conscious predecessor of the very plan now before us. 3. In most cases, there either will or will not have been a state constitutional amendment, state statute, local ordinance, or local administrative policy explicitly requiring separation of the races. not in compliance with the local school boards desegre- Yet, like so many other legal categories that can overlap in some instances, the constitutional distinction between de jure and de facto segregation has been thought to be an important one. 05-908, at 38a-39a, 45a. It was consequently necessary to decide with some care which students would attend the new mixed grade. See also Kennedy Report. The dissents reliance on this Courts precedents to justify the explicit, sweeping, classwide racial classifications at issue here is a misreading of our authorities that, it appears to me, tends to undermine well-accepted principles needed to guard our freedom. Another brief claims that school desegregation has a modest positive impact on the achievement of African-American students. App. Brief for Respondent at 1617. They were further persuaded that these plans differed from other race-based programs this Court has considered because they are certainly more benign than laws that favor or disfavor one race, segregate by race, or create quotas for or against a racial group, Comfort, 418 F.3d, at 28 (Boudin, C.J., concurring), and they are far from the original evils at which the Fourteenth Amendment was addressed, id., at 29; 426 F.3d, at 1195 (Kozinski, J., concurring). The transfer might have had an adverse effect on the effort to approach district-wide racial proportionality at Young, but it had nothing to do with preventing either the black or other group from becoming small or isolated at Young. And it is for them to debate how best to educate the Nations children and how best to administer Americas schools to achieve that aim. The petitioner in the Louisville case received a letter from the school board informing her that her kindergartener would not be allowed to attend the school of petitioners choosing because of the childs race. After ninth grade, students can decide voluntarily to transfer to a preferred district high school (without any consideration of race-conscious criteria). The pluralitys position, I fear, would break that promise. If the need for the racial classifications embraced by the school districts is unclear, even on the districts own terms, the costs are undeniable. Does it insist upon especially strong evidence supporting inclusion of multiple minority groups in an otherwise lawful government minority-assistance program? See Brief for Petitioner at 2526. In 1977, the NAACP filed another legal complaint, this time with the federal Department of Health, Education, and Welfares Office for Civil Rights (OCR). wa. [32], Plurality opinion by Chief Justice Roberts. Assessed in any objective manner, there is no comparison between the two. "[25] Allowing racial balancing as a compelling end in itself would "effectively assur[e] that race will always be relevant in American life, and that the 'ultimate goal' of 'eliminating entirely from governmental decisionmaking such irrelevant factors as a human being's race' will never be achieved. The district concedes it denied his request under the guidelines, which is to say, on the basis of Joshuas race. On the other hand race-conscious measures that do not rely on differential treatment based on individual classifications present these problems to a lesser degree. The reason is obvious: In Seattle, where the overall student population is 41% white, permitting 85% white enrollment at a single school would make it much more likely that other schools would have very few white students, whereas in Jefferson County, with a 60% white enrollment, one school with 85% white students would be less likely to skew enrollments elsewhere. Since the Court granted writ over these objections, it seems likely that it will find jurisdiction exists. Does that make a difference? Second, broad-range limits on voluntary school choice plans are less burdensome, and hence more narrowly tailored, see Grutter, supra, at 341, than other race-conscious restrictions this Court has previously approved. But Louisville should be able to answer the relevant questions on remand. 05908, at 36 (For Seattle, racial balance is clearly not an end in itself but rather a measure of the extent to which the educational goals the plan was designed to foster are likely to be achieved). See, e.g., post, at 21, 4849, 66. The opinion of the Court and Justice Breyers dissenting opinion (hereinafter dissent) describe in detail the history of integration efforts in Louisville and Seattle. Probs. However, the District applied for a rehearing before the full court of 12 judges. At the same time, transport from house to school involved extensive busing, with about half of all students attending a school other than the one closest to their home. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit originally reversed, 285 F. 3d 1236 (9th Cir. And I have explained how the plans before us are more narrowly tailored than those in Grutter. 05915, pp. PICS cites Supreme Court jurisprudence for the proposition that there is no compelling government interest in adjusting general societal discrimination. Rather, race-based government decisionmaking is categorically prohibited unless narrowly tailored to serve a compelling interest. Both cases present the same underlying legal questionwhether a public school that had not operated legally segregated schools or has been found to be unitary may choose to classify students by race and rely upon that classification in making school assignments. No. Hist. Both cities once tried to achieve more integrated schools by relying solely upon measures such as redrawn district boundaries, new school building construction, and unrestricted voluntary transfers. 1 etal. . Brief for Petitioner at 3943. This case was brought by a non-profit organization, Parents Involved in Community Schools (PICS), representing parents of students in the Seattle School District (District) who objected to the school districts use of race as a tiebreaker for admission to schools as violating the Equal Protection Clause. In place of the color-blind Constitution, the dissent would permit measures to keep the races together and proscribe measures to keep the races apart. 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. In Brown, this Court declared that segregation was unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The school district met its percentage goals by assigning to the new mixed school an appropriate number of black housing blocks and white housing blocks. The wide variety of different integration plans that school districts use throughout the Nation suggests that the problem of racial segregation in schools, including de facto segregation, is difficult to solve. A non-profit group, Parents Involved in Community Schools, 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. v. Seattle Sch. Fourth, the pluralitys approach risks serious harm to the law and for the Nation. The Court emphasized that education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. 347 U. S., at 493. See also Letter from Robert F. Kennedy, See Bustop, Inc. v. Los Angeles Bd. See Grutter, 539 U.S. at 334; Gratz, 539 U.S. at 27071. The passage Justice Stevens quotes proves our point; all the quoted language says is that the school committee shall prepare a plan to eliminate the imbalance. Id., at 695, 227 N.E. 2d, at 731; see post, at 4, n. 5. 394, 401403 (1994) (hereinafter Dawkins & Braddock); Wells & Crain, Perpetuation Theory and the Long-Term Effects of School Desegregation, 64 Rev. of Education and National Center for Education Statistics Common Core data). Both districts faced problems that reflected initial periods of severe racial segregation, followed by such remedial efforts as busing, followed by evidence of resegregation, followed by a need to end busing and encourage the return of, e.g., suburban students through increased student choice. Meredith brought suit in the Western District of Kentucky, alleging violations of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The District tried to give students their first choice, but when a school had more students applying for it than spots available, it used a series of tiebreakers to determine who received the spots. Even if these measures were appropriate as remedies in the face of widespread resistance to Browns mandate, they are not forever insulated from constitutional scrutiny. Reply Brief for Petitioner in No. 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. Nonetheless, in light of Grutter and other precedents, see, e.g., Bakke, 438 U. S., at 290 (opinion of Powell, J. And my view was the rallying cry for the lawyers who litigated Brown. As to recruiting faculty on the basis of race, both cities have tried, but only as one part of a broader program. there are two compelling interests: 1. remedying the effect of past intentional discrimination 2. interest of student body diversity in higher education 1. In fact, it contends that the District never seriously considered other race-neutral alternatives. The 2007 Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 2. of Oral Arg. See id., at 1032 (discussing other successful black schools); Walker, Can Institutions Care? Parents Involved in Community Schools, a non-profit organization, argues that the Districts policy amounts to unconstitutional racial balancing under the Supreme Courts 2003 decisions in Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003) and Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244 (2003). of Boston. 05915, at 4, and it fails to explain the discrepancy. As the Court explains, a school with 50 percent Asian-American students and 50 percent white students but no African-American, Native-American, or Latino students would qualify as balanced, while a school with 30 percent Asian-American, 25 percent African-American, 25 percent Latino, and 20 percent white students would not. Ante, at 1516; see also Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae in No. 1, 458 U. S., at 472473. In so doing, the Illinois Supreme Court acted in explicit reliance on our decision in School Comm. 2. In 1996, the school board adopted the present plan, which began in 1999. 2, App. 1961) (If men were angels, no government would be necessary). 1, 426 F.3d 1162 (9th Cir. The school boards widespread consultation, their experimentation with numerous other plans, indeed, the 40-year history that Part I sets forth, make clear that plans that are less explicitly race-based are unlikely to achieve the boards compelling objectives. . at 12. Indeed, the very school districts that once spurned integration now strive for it. 10226a. They asked the court to dissolve the desegregation order and to hold the use of magnet school racial guidelines unconstitutional. The District then petitioned for an en banc ruling by a panel of 11 Ninth Circuit judges. ", Justice Stephen G. Breyer, in the principal dissenting opinion, dismissed Justice Kennedy's proposed alternatives to the labeling and sorting of individual students by race and, in a surprisingly emotional 20 minute speech from the bench, denounced the plurality opinion. Nor can I explain my disagreement with the Courts holding and the pluralitys opinion, without offering a detailed account of the arguments they propound and the consequences they risk. Thus, Congress has enacted numerous race-conscious statutes that illustrate that principle or rely upon its validity. Identify the clause of the Fourteenth Amendment that is most relevant It also argues that these plans can be justified as part of the school boards attempts to eradicat[e] earlier school segregation. See, e.g., post, at 4. 2738, 168 L.Ed.2d 508 (2007), United States Supreme Court, case facts, key issues, and holdings and reasonings online today. . Laws arise from a culture and vice versa. The racial makeup of the school population amounted to 43% white, 24% black, and 23% Asian or Pacific Islander, with Hispanics and Native Americans making up the rest. (a)Because racial classifications are simply too pernicious to permit any but the most exact connection between justification and classification, Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U. S. 448, 537 (Stevens, J., dissenting), governmental distributions of burdens or benefits based on individual racial classifications are reviewed under strict scrutiny, e.g., Johnson v. California, 543 U. S. 499, 505506. 294 F.3d 1084 (9th Cir. 1 McFarland v. Jefferson Cty. in No. Even when it comes to race, the plans here employ only a limited notion of diversity, viewing race exclusively in white/nonwhite terms in Seattle and black/other terms in Jefferson County. In 2000, for example, Roosevelt was the most popular first choice high school in Seattle; in 2001, Ballard was the most popular; in 2000, West Seattle was one of the least popular; by 2003, it was one of the more popular. Click the card to flip Definition 1 / 8 Seattle School District instituted a "tiebreaker" plan which placed determined student placements on the consideration of a predetermined racial balance Here the racial balance the districts seek is a defined range set solely by reference to the demographics of the respective school districts. The second government interest we have recognized as compelling for purposes of strict scrutiny is the interest in diversity in higher education upheld in Grutter, 539 U. S., at 328. of Ed., 72 F.Supp. The history of the plans before us, their educational importance, their highly limited use of raceall these and moremake clear that the compelling interest here is stronger than in Grutter. Even if the district maintains the current plan and reinstitutes the racial tiebreaker, Seattle argues, Parents Involved members will only be affected if their children seek to enroll in a Seattle public high school and choose an oversubscribed school that is integration positivetoo speculative a harm to maintain standing. Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. And we have understood that the Constitution permits local communities to adopt desegregation plans even where it does not require them to do so.