Public Schools, 330 F.Supp. The reason for this omission is clear enough, since the case did not involve any voluntary means adopted by a school district. of Ed. The 2007 Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. Research J., No. It is convinced that the happiness, the progress and the welfare of these children is best promoted in segregated schools); Brief for Appellees on Reargument in Davis v. County School Board, O.T. 1953, No. 149 through 154 (Dec. 8, 2003). It is difficult to believe that the Court that held unconstitutional a referendum that would have interfered with the implementation of this plan thought that the integration plan it sought to preserve was itself an unconstitutional plan. Consequently, the Courts decision today slows down and sets back the work of local school boards to bring about racially diverse schools. 5455 (What is the great national and federal policy on this matter? of Ed., 72 F.Supp. See McDaniel, supra, at 41. This leads it to advance propositions that, in my view, are both erroneous and in fundamental conflict with basic equal protection principles. 05908, p.227a; Reply Brief in No. 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. The Current Plan, 1999 to the Present. No. Second, as Grutter specified, [c]ontext matters when reviewing race-based governmental action under the Equal Protection Clause. 539 U. S., at 327 (citing Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339, 343344 (1960)). Fourth, the pluralitys approach risks serious harm to the law and for the Nation. In respect to elementary schools, the plan first drew a neighborhood line around each elementary school, and it then drew a second line around groups of elementary schools (called clusters). Hundreds of state and federal statutes and regulations use racial classifications for educational or other purposes. Thus, in respect to race-conscious desegregation measures that the Constitution permitted, but did not require (measures similar to those at issue here), this Court unanimously stated: School authorities are traditionally charged with broad power to formulate and implement educational policy and might well conclude, for example, that in order to prepare students to live in a pluralistic society each school should have a prescribed ratio of Negro to white students reflecting the proportion for the district as a whole. The Ninth Circuit initially reversed based on its interpretation of the Washington Civil Rights Act, 285 F.3d 1236, 1253 (2002) (Parents Involved II), and enjoined the districts use of the integration tiebreaker, id., at 1257. The complaint alleged that the Seattle School Board had created or perpetuated unlawful racial segregation through, e.g., certain school-transfer criteria, a construction program that needlessly built new schools in white areas, district line-drawing criteria, the maintenance of inferior facilities at black schools, the use of explicit racial criteria in the assignment of teachers and other staff, and a general pattern of delay in respect to the implementation of promised desegregation efforts. Cf. In over one-third of the assignments affected by the racial tiebreaker, then, the use of race in the end made no difference, and the district could identify only 52 students who were ultimately affected adversely by the racial tiebreaker in that it resulted in assignment to a school they had not listed as a preference and to which they would not otherwise have been assigned. 05908, at 303a. The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. He adds that this confusion illustrates that Louisvilles assignment plan (or its explanation of it to this Court) is insufficiently precise in respect to who makes the decisions, oversight, the precise circumstances in which an assignment decision will be made; and which of two similarly situated children will be subjected to a given race-based decision. Ante, at 4. The suggestion that our decision today is somehow inconsistent with our disposition of that appeal is belied by the fact that neither the lower courts, the respondent school districts, nor any of their 51 amici saw fit even to cite the case. . The dissents reliance on this interest is, therefore, inconsistent with Wygant. 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. Today, they are not. See Brief Amicus Curiae of the Black Womens Lawyers Association of Greater Chicago, Inc. in Support of Respondents at 16. It gave fourth preference to students who received child care in the neighborhood. Each respondent has failed to provide the necessary support for the proposition that there is no other way than individual racial classifications to avoid racial isolation in their school districts. Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U. S. 81, 100 (1943) ([R]acial discriminations are in most circumstances irrelevant and therefore prohibited). Doubtless, hundreds of letters like this went out from both school boards every year these race-based assignment plans were in operation. of Oral Arg. Contrary to what the dissent would have predicted, see post, at 3839, the children in Seattles African American Academy have shown gains when placed in a highly segregated environment. See Parents Involved VII, 426 F.3d 1162, 11691170 (CA9 2005) (en banc). The following notice, published in a Louisville newspaper in 1976, gives a sense of how the districts race-based busing plan operated in practice: Louisville Courier Journal, June 18, 1976 (reproduced in J. Wilkinson, From Brown to Bakke: The Supreme Court and School Integration 19541978, p. 176 (1979)). The Court made clear that [s]trict scrutiny does not trea[t] dissimilar race-based decisions as though they were equally objectionable. Ibid. Five Supreme Court justices rejected voluntary desegregation plans in Seattle and . Others have been more circumspect. See Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 244, 301 (2003) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting); Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peńa, 515 U. S. 200, 243 (1995) (Stevens, J., dissenting). 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. Ibid. And, in Seattle, the disadvantaged student loses at most one year at the high school of his choice. As the districts demographics shift, so too will their definition of racial diversity. of Ed., 402 U. S. 1, 16 (1971) (emphasis added). The Washington Supreme Court ruled that the Seattle School Districts use of race was valid under the state constitution. Regardless of what Justice Breyers goals might be, this Court does not sit to create a society that includes all Americans or to solve the problems of troubled inner city schooling. Ibid. The group also asserted an interest in not being forced to compete in a race-based system that might prejudice its members children, an actionable form of injury under the Equal Protection Clause, see, e.g., Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peńa, 515 U. S. 200, 211. When it comes to government race-based decisionmaking, the Constitution demands more. 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. Most worked at unskilled jobs. However, the District applied for a rehearing before the full court of 12 judges. . (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. ); brackets and internal quotation marks omitted). Race-conscious objectives to achieve diverse school environment may be acceptable. Without attempting in these cases to set forth all the interests a school district might assert, it suffices to note that our prior cases, in evaluating the use of racial classifications in the school context, have recognized two interests that qualify as compelling. A 2007 Supreme Court ruling in Parents Involved in Community Schools vs. Seattle School District #1, limited the. 1 App. Jefferson County estimates that the racial guidelines account for only 3 percent of assignments. But its conclusion is short: The plans before us satisfy the requirements of the Equal Protection Clause. In 1977, the NAACP filed another legal complaint, this time with the federal Department of Health, Education, and Welfares Office for Civil Rights (OCR). Section 3. 05915, p. 77. The measures required by those cases often included race-conscious practices, such as mandatory busing and race-based restrictions on voluntary transfers. But in its search for a compelling interest, the dissent casually accepts even the most tenuous interests asserted on behalf of the plans, grouping them all under the term integration. See post, at 37. Croson, 488 U. S., at 501 (The history of racial classifications in this country suggests that blind judicial deference to legislative or executive pronouncements of necessity has no place in equal protection analysis). At the elementary school level, based on his or her address, each student is designated a resides school to which students within a specific geographic area are assigned; elementary resides schools are grouped into clusters in order to facilitate integration. App. 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. PARENTS INVOLVED IN COMMUNITY Justice Breyers position comes down to a familiar claim: The end justifies the means. Accord, post, at 48 ([L]ocal school boards better understand their own communities and have a better knowledge of what in practice will best meet the educational needs of their pupils); post, at 66 ([W]hat of respect for democratic local decisionmaking by States and school boards?); ibid. No. [citation needed], The 414 split makes PICS somewhat similar to the 1978 Bakke case, which held that affirmative action was unconstitutional in the case directly before the Court. See 426 F.3d 1162, 11691171 (CA9 2005) (en banc) (Parents Involved VII). That decision not only expressed our appraisal of the merits of the appeal, but it constitutes a precedent that the Court overrules today. See Parents Involved VII, 426 F.3d, at 1166; McFarland II, 416 F.3d, at 514; Comfort v. Lynn School Comm., 418 F.3d 1, 13 (CA1 2005). Justice Kennedy agreed that the Court has jurisdiction to decide these cases and that respondents student assignment plans are not narrowly tailored to achieve the compelling goal of diversity properly defined, but concluded that some parts of the plurality opinion imply an unyielding insistence that race cannot be a factor in instances when it may be taken into account. See 426 F. 3d 1162, 11931196 (CA9 2005) (Kozinski, J., concurring); Comfort v. Lynn School Comm., 418 F.3d 1, 2729 (CA1 2005) (Boudin, C.J., concurring). Other studies reach different conclusions. 57; 426 F.3d 1162, 11691170 (CA9 2005) (en banc) (Parents Involved VII). Sustained resistance to Brown prompted the Court to authorize extraordinary race-conscious remedial measures (like compelled racial mixing) to turn the Constitutions dictate to desegregate into reality. In fact, six of the Seattle high schools involved in this case were built by the 1920s; the other four were open by the early 1960s. University of Texas v. Camenisch, 451 U. S. 390, 393 (1981). 45 (Dec. 19, 1991) (1991 Memorandum). See F. Welch & A. By limiting the School Districts use of race, it will be more difficult for it to cure these defects. 2002). Get Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist. Kennedy, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. 16, 18. I do not know of any opinion which buoyed Marshall more in his pre-Brown days ). 1, 127 S. Ct. 2738 (U.S. 2007) Brief Fact Summary. When it comes to using race to assign children to schools, history will be heard. 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. 7231. The plan that was the source of this litigation allowed students entering the ninth grade to rank the schools they wanted to attend. Louisville's population is about 58% White; 38% Black, 2% Asian, 1.3% Hispanic. The statute establishing MSAP permits granting federal grants to magnet programs that seek to decrease minority group isolation. 20 U.S.C. The dissent finds that the school districts have identified a compelling interest in increasing diversity, including for the purpose of avoiding racial isolation. Also, the racial tiebreaker has not been employed in Seattle school district since 2002, first due to injunctions and subsequently by the choice of the school district. 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. I have explained why I do not believe the Constitution could possibly find compelling the provision of a racially diverse education for a 23-year-old law student but not for a 13-year-old high school pupil. 1, p. 7 (We have one fundamental contention which we will seek to develop in the course of this argument, and that contention is that no State has any authority under the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to use race as a factor in affording educational opportunities among its citizens); Tr. See 426 F.3d, at 1208 (Bea, J., dissenting). The schools base their numbers in demographics, therefore making this goal a means to achieve a numerical quota to achieve racial balancing. Public School Dist., p.2 (Aug. 6, 1996) (1996 Memorandum). Public Schools, 330 F.Supp. Roberts replied that these classifications were clearly not necessary, since they had a "minimal effect" on student assignments. See supra, at 4648. This Court has recently reiterated, however, that all racial classifications [imposed by government] must be analyzed by a reviewing court under strict scrutiny. Johnson, 543 U. S., at 505 (quoting Adarand, 515 U. S., at 227; emphasis added by Johnson Court). Purportedly benign race-based decisionmaking suffers the same constitutional infirmity as invidious race-based decisionmaking. 05908, at 224a225a, 253a259a, 307a. See also Freeman, supra, at 495496; Dowell, 498 U. S., at 248; Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U. S. 717, 746 (1974). See also Kennedy Report. in No. No. Id., at 143a146a, 152a160a. Indeed, the plans before us are more narrowly tailored than the race-conscious admission plans that this Court approved in Grutter. schools in the last year the racial balancing program operated to the results in the 2004-to-2005 school year (in which student assignments Classifying and assigning schoolchildren according to a binary conception of race is an extreme approach in light of our precedents and our Nations history of using race in public schools, and requires more than such an amorphous end to justify it. See, e.g., Brief for Appellants in Brown v. Board of Education, O.T. 1953, Nos. The district has identified its purposes as follows: (1) to promote the educational benefits of diverse school enrollments; (2) to reduce the potentially harmful effects of racial isolation by allowing students the opportunity to opt out of racially isolated schools; and (3) to make sure that racially segregated housing patterns did not prevent non-white students from having equitable access to the most popular over-subscribed schools. Id., at 19. It has failed to explain why, in a district composed of a diversity of races, with fewer than half of the students classified as white, it has employed the crude racial categories of white and non-white as the basis for its assignment decisions. As a result, it reverses course and reaches the wrong conclusion. In Seattle, the district seeks white enrollment of between 31 and 51 percent (within 10 percent of the district white average of 41 percent), and nonwhite enrollment of between 49 and 69 percent (within 10 percent of the district minority average of 59 percent). 05915, at 38. 1617. JCPS is the 26th largest school district in the United States. Racial balancing is not transformed from patently unconstitutional to a compelling state interest simply by relabeling it racial diversity. While the school districts use various verbal formulations to describe the interest they seek to promoteracial diversity, avoidance of racial isolation, racial integrationthey offer no definition of the interest that suggests it differs from racial balance. Copy_of_SCOTUS_COMPARISON_QUESTION_TEST_v3_ - SCOTUS - Course Hero Brief in Opposition in No. 05915, p.97. See Hallinan, Diversity Effects on Student Outcomes: Social Science Evidence, 59 Ohio St. L.J. First, it seeks to distinguish Swann and other similar cases on the ground that those cases involved remedial plans in response to judicial findings of de jure segregation. 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. Id., at 38a, 103a. Evidence that race is a good proxy for other factors that might be correlated with educational benefits does not support a compelling interest in the use of race to achieve academic results. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion of the court as to Parts I, II, III-A and III-C. Part I recounted the background of the plans of the two school boards. surrounding their adoption, are in some respects quite different. Instead of accommodating different good-faith visions of our country and our Constitution, todays holding upsets settled expectations, creates legal uncertainty, and threatens to produce considerable further litigation, aggravating race-related conflict. The School District relies on Grutter in describing the educational benefits of a diverse student body as (1) instilling the civic virtue of cross-racial understanding; (2) creating better-informed citizens by exposing students to a wide range of viewpoints; and (3) enabling students to achieve more success. at 958. As part of that burden it must establish, in detail, how decisions based on an individual students race are made in a challenged governmental program. Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist. The dream of a Nation of equal citizens in a society where race is irrelevant to personal opportunity and achievement would be lost in a mosaic of shifting preferences based on inherently unmeasurable claims of past wrongs. Id., at 505506. This will surely, however, restrict school districts efforts to achieve diversity and the benefits that arguably come with it. Again, this approach to racial classifications is fundamentally at odds with our precedent, which makes clear that the Equal Protection Clause protect[s] persons, not groups, Adarand, 515 U. S., at 227 (emphasis in original). Id., at 3839, 82. App. Jefferson County has failed to present any evidence that it considered alternatives, even though the district already claims that its goals are achieved primarily through means other than the racial classifications. PARENTS INVOLVED IN COMMUNITY SCHOOLS v.SEATTLE SCHOOL DIST. NO. 1 The Court did not say in Adarand or in Johnson or in Grutter that it was overturning Swann or its central constitutional principle. 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. 2d, at 370. Having looked at dozens of amicus briefs, public reports, news stories, and the records in many of this Courts prior cases, which together span 50 years of desegregation history in school districts across the Nation, I have discovered many examples of districts that sought integration through explicitly race-conscious methods, including mandatory busing. Due to a variety of factorssome influenced by government, some notneighborhoods in our communities do not reflect the diversity of our Nation as a whole. Some studies have even found that a deterioration in racial attitudes seems to result from racial mixing in schools. Indeed, if our history has taught us anything, it has taught us to beware of elites bearing racial theories. Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. (Enrollment Guide). The district assigns students to nonmagnet schools in one of two ways: Parents of kindergartners, first-graders, and students new to the district may submit an application indicating a first and second choice among the schools within their cluster; students who do not submit such an application are assigned within the cluster by the district. 11246, 30 Fed. Although some parents or children prefer some schools over others, school popularity has varied significantly over the years. [citation needed]. From a legal perspective, this case will test the limits of the Equal Protection Clause and demonstrate its application to secondary education, as compared to its application to higher education as was explained in Grutter and Gratz. The panel determined that while achieving racial diversity and avoiding racial isolation are compelling government interests, id., at 964, Seattles use of the racial tiebreaker was not narrowly tailored to achieve these interests, id., at 980. I agree with The Chief Justice that we have jurisdiction to decide the cases before us and join Parts I and II of the Courts opinion. And the board continued to describe 26 of its 112 schools as segregated.. Section 2. 1. But the Seattle schools had never been segregated by law; and the Kentucky schools, though previously segregated by law, had their desegregation decree dissolved by a District Court in 2000 on the finding the school district had "eliminated the vestiges associated with the former policy of segregation and its pernicious effects". United States v. Fordice, 505 U. S. 717, 745 (1992) (Thomas, J., concurring). Changes in the Percentage of White Students in Schools Attended by the Average Black Student by State, 19702003 (includes States with 5% or greater enrollment of black students in 1970 and 1980), % White Students in School Indeed, the race-conscious ranges at issue in these cases often have no effect, either because the particular school is not oversubscribed in the year in question, or because the racial makeup of the school falls within the broad range, or because the student is a transfer applicant or has a sibling at the school. Brief for Respondent at 33, 43. 26401 (1948). 1117. Hundreds of state and federal statutes and regulations use racial classifications for educational or other purposes. Because equal protection on the basis of race is at issue, the applicable standard of review to be applied in this case is strict scrutiny, as both parties agree, and as is well established in the Courts prior case law. [31], The opinion came less than two months before the start of the regular school year in King County and less than three weeks before the start of year-round school in the District. of Boston v. Board of Education, O.T. 1967, No. There is every reason to think that, if the dissents rationale were accepted, Congress, assuming an otherwise proper exercise of its spending authority or commerce power, could mandate either the Seattle or the Jefferson County plans nationwide.
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