First, in an open choice district like that in Seattle, using race as an isolated factor for admission may deny some students the opportunity to attend the school of their choice, thereby burdening those families affected. Our ruling on the merits simply stated that the appeal was dismissed for want of a substantial federal question. School Comm. in Davis v. County School Board, O.T. 1953, No. 1 operates 10 regular public high schools. The districts offer no evidence that the level of racial diversity necessary to achieve the asserted educational benefits happens to coincide with the racial demographics of the respective school districtsor rather the white/nonwhite or black/other balance of the districts, since that is the only diversity addressed by the plans. So, the argument proceeds, if race is the problem, then perhaps race is the solution. We granted certiorari. 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. But it explicitly cited Swanns statement that the Constitution permitted a local district to adopt such a plan. Data for the Seattle schools in the several years since this litigation was commenced further demonstrate the minimal role that the racial tiebreaker in fact played. I write separately to address several of the contentions in Justice Breyers dissent (hereinafter the dissent). in Brown I, p. 7 (Robert L. Carter, Dec. 9, 1952). Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. Now localities will have to cope with the difficult problems they face (including resegregation) deprived of one means they may find necessary. Indeed, the very school districts that once spurned integration now strive for it. PDF The Interdependence of Housing and School Segregation See post, at 62. See, e.g., Brief for Appellees on Reargument in Briggs v. Elliott, O.T. 1953, No. The argument ignores the dangers presented by individual classifications, dangers that are not as pressing when the same ends are achieved by more indirect means. The NAACPs Second Legal Challenge, 1977. Post, at 38. v. Brinkman, 443 U. S. 526, 531, n.5 (1979) (Racial imbalance is not per se a constitutional violation); Freeman v. Pitts, 503 U. S. 467, 494 (1992); see also Swann, supra, at 3132; cf. 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. Thus about 2,000 students out of a total district population of about 60,000 students were involved in one or the other transfer program. Further research has shown that the desegregation of schools can help bring adult communities together by reducing segregated housing. The Constitution is not that malleable. The dissents assertion that these plans are necessary for the school districts to maintain their hard-won gains reveals its conflation of segregation and racial imbalance. This Court then held that the initiativewhich would have prevented the Seattle Plan from taking effectviolated the Fourteenth Amendment. Given that state law had previously required the school board to maintain a dual school system, the county was obligated to take measures to remedy its prior de jure segregation. No. In answering this question, the court must first consider a jurisdictional challenge raised by the District and then, if it finds jurisdiction, consider the merits of this question. The student assignment plan of Seattle Public Schools and Jefferson County Public Schools does not meet the narrowly tailored and compelling interest requirements for a race-based assignment plan because it is used only to achieve "racial balance." 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. School Dist. It is not one in which race-conscious limits stigmatize or exclude; the limits at issue do not pit the races against each other or otherwise significantly exacerbate racial tensions. The pluralitys claim that Seattle was never segregated by law is simply not accurate. 5 Memorandum Opinion and Order, Haycraft v. Board of Ed. 1725. in No. 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. See, e.g., Brief for Appellants in Brown v. Board of Education, O.T. 1953, Nos. Id., at 462. Simply putting students together under the same roof does not necessarily mean that the students will learn together or even interact. But, as to strategic site selection, Seattle has built one new high school in the last 44 years (and that specialized school serves only 300 students). 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. Croson, supra, at 505; Wygant, supra, at 279, n.5 (plurality opinion). The districts have also failed to show they considered methods other than explicit racial classifications to achieve their stated goals. Was it de facto? See Hallinan, Diversity Effects on Student Outcomes: Social Science Evidence, 59 Ohio St. L.J. See Brief for Petitioner at 35. 05908, p. 38a. The board estimated that its new plan would lead to annual reassignment (with busing) of about 8,500 black students and about 8,000 white students. As the panel majority in Parents Involved VI concluded: [T]he tiebreakers annual effect is thus merely to shuffle a few handfuls of different minority students between a few schoolsabout a dozen additional Latinos into Ballard, a dozen black students into Nathan Hale, perhaps two dozen Asians into Roosevelt, and so on. are abandoning the policy of segregation whenever local conditions and local attitudes make it feasible), Brief for Appellees on Reargument in Davis v. County School Board, O.T. 1953, No. 2002). To show that the school assignment plans here meet the requirements of the Constitution, I have written at exceptional length. The student population of the school district is approximately 40% white, 60% non-white. In 1969 the NAACP filed a federal lawsuit against the school board, claiming that the board had unlawfully and unconstitutionally establish[ed] and maintain[ed] a system of racially segregated public schools. The complaint said that 77% of black public elementary school students in Seattle attended 9 of the citys 86 elementary schools and that 23 of the remaining schools had no black students at all. of Ed., 402 U. S. 1, 6 (1971); see also Monroe v. Board of Commrs of Jackson, 391 U. S. 450, 452 (1968). No. See Church of the Lukumi v. Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520, 54647 (1993); Florida Star v. B.J.F. See, e.g., post, at 1920. And contexts differ dramatically one from the other. 2841. 1986) (upholding rezoning plan under rational-basis review). 1819 (The truth of the matter is that this is an attempt to place local mores and customs above the high equalitarian principles of our Government as set forth in our Constitution and particularly the Fourteenth Amendment. See also Hanawalt 31; Pub. While I join Justice Breyers eloquent and unanswerable dissent in its entirety, it is appropriate to add these words. University of Texas v. Camenisch, 451 U. S. 390, 393 (1981). Without the racial tiebreaker, the class would have been 39.6 percent Asian-American, 30.2 percent African-American, 8.3 percent Latino, 1.1 percent Native-American, and 20.8 percent Caucasian. ); internal quotation marks omitted). 529, 532 (SC 1951))); Brief for Appellees in Briggs v. Elliott, O.T. 1952, No. Justices Limit the Use of Race in School Plans for Integration seattleschools.org/schools/aaa/history.htm (all Internet materials as visited June 26, 2007, and available in Clerk of Courts case file). 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. Times, June 11, 2006 (quoting David Armor as commenting [w]e did find the [racial] achievement gap changing significantly and acknowledging that he did find a modest association for math but not reading in terms of racial composition and achievement, but theres a big state variation (emphasis added)). 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. 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. Aside from constitutionally compelled remediation in schools, this Court has permitted government units to remedy prior racial discrimination only in narrow circumstances. And what has happened to Swann? Statements after the decision The plan required that each elementary school in the district maintain 20% to 40% enrollment of African-American students, corresponding to the racial composition of the district. Governmental use of race-based criteria can arise in the context of, for example, census forms, research expenditures for diseases, assignments of police officers patrolling predominantly minority-race neighborhoods, efforts to desegregate racially segregated schools, policies that favor minorities when distributing goods or services in short supply, actions that create majority-minority electoral districts, peremptory strikes that remove potential jurors on the basis of race, and others. of Boston v. Board of Education, 389 U. S. 572 (1968) (per curiam). See Juris. See Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. Id. Third, the plans before us, subjected to rigorous judicial review, are supported by compelling state interests and are narrowly tailored to accomplish those goals. Miller v. Johnson, 515 U. S. 900, 920 (1995), and I shall subject the tailoring of their plans to rigorous judicial review. Grutter, 539 U. S., at 388 (Kennedy, J., dissenting). 214a, 225a, 257a. of Ed., 402 U. S. 1, 16 (1971), by then-Justice Rehnquist in chambers in Bustop, Inc. v. Los Angeles Bd. In a searing dissent to the sharply divided 5-4 decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. See post, at 1824. Elementary school students are assigned to their first- or second-choice school 95 percent of the time, and transfers, which account for roughly 5 percent of assignments, are only denied 35 percent of the timeand presumably an even smaller percentage are denied on the basis of the racial guidelines, given that other factors may lead to a denial. Transfers may be requested for any number of reasons, and may be denied because of lack of available space or on the basis of the racial guidelines. 10226e3(b) (1999). in Briggs v. Elliott, O.T. 1953, No. Narrow tailoring requires serious, good faith consideration of workable race-neutral alternatives, id., at 339, and yet in Seattle several alternative assignment plansmany of which would not have used express racial classificationswere rejected with little or no consideration. Further, for all the lower court cases Justice Breyer cites as evidence of the prevailing legal assumption embodied by Swann, very few are pertinent. B. Explain the similarity in the facts between Brown V. Board of 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. The opinion of the Court and Justice Breyers dissenting opinion (hereinafter dissent) describe in detail the history of integration efforts in Louisville and Seattle. And [p]referring members of any one group for no reason other than race or ethnic origin is discrimination for its own sake. Bakke, 438 U. S., at 307 (opinion of Powell, J.). Specifically, Kennedy finds that the districts could have achieved the same goal through less racially charged means. Justice Breyers dissenting opinion, on the other hand, rests on what in my respectful submission is a misuse and mistaken interpretation of our precedents. 1117, 2528. But the Court set forth in Swann a basic principle of constitutional lawa principle of law that has found wide acceptance in the legal culture. Dickerson v. United States, 530 U. S. 428, 443 (2000) (internal quotation marks omitted); Mitchell v. United States, 526 U. S. 314, 330 (1999); id., at 331, 332 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (citing wide acceptance in the legal culture as adequate reason not to overrule prior cases). in No. Post, at 22. What emerges is a version of strict scrutiny that combines hollow assurances of harmlessness with reflexive acceptance of conventional wisdom. local tax dollars will be spent. Court-Imposed Guidelines and Busing, 1972 to 1991. 1 and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education ( PICS ). gation plans. App. The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting. Wash. Rev. 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. 1.9 In Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. Roberts cites to: Grutter, supra, at 327, 328, 334, 123 S. Ct. 2325, 156 L. Ed. 394, 401403 (1994) (hereinafter Dawkins & Braddock); Wells & Crain, Perpetuation Theory and the Long-Term Effects of School Desegregation, 64 Rev. Similarly, of the 1,461 black students enrolled in the 12 senior high schools in Seattle, 1,151 (or 78.8%) attended 3 senior high schools, and 900 (61.6%) attended a single school, Garfield. Finally, it argues that race-neutral techniques, such as a lottery or taking into account many forms of diversity in a holistic approach, would be as effective as the racial tiebreaker. The two children were denied their first, second, and third choice schools, and consequently assigned to Ingraham High School. 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. Similarly, Jefferson Countys expert referred to the importance of having at least 20 percent minority group representation for the group to be visible enough to make a difference, and noted that small isolated minority groups in a school are not likely to have a strong effect on the overall school. App. It gave second preference to a student whose race differed from a race that was over-represented at the school (i.e., a race that accounted for a higher percentage of the school population than of the total district population). 3, p.8283 (Our many hours of research and investigation have led only to confirmation of our view that segregation by race in Virginias public schools at this time not only does not offend the Constitution of the United States but serves to provide a better education for living for the children of both races); Tr. The discrepancy identified is not some simple and straightforward error that touches only upon the peripheries of the districts use of individual racial classifications. There must be at least 15 percent nonwhite students under Jefferson Countys plan; in Seattle, more than three times that figure. The Fourteenth Amendment does not enact the dissents newly minted understanding of liberty. Yet our tradition is to go beyond present achievements, however significant, and to recognize and confront the flaws and injustices that remain. 1996). 539 U. S., at 324325 (internal quotation marks omitted). We granted certiorari, and now reverse. 3, p. 57 ([T]he historical background that exists, certainly in this Virginia situation, with all the strife and the history that we have shown in this record, shows a basis, a real basis, for the classification that has been made); id., at 69 (describing the potential abolition of segregation as contrary to the customs, the traditions and the mores of what we might claim to be a great people, established through generations, who themselves are fiercely and irrevocably dedicated to the preservation of the white and colored races). But eventually a state court found that the mandatory busing was lawful. But our precedent has recognized that de jure discrimination can be present even in the absence of racially explicit laws. Today we enjoy a society that is remarkable in its openness and opportunity. If the need for the racial classifications embraced by the school districts is unclear, even on the districts own terms, the costs are undeniable. [D]istinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality. Adarand, 515 U. S., at 214 (internal quotation marks omitted). McFarland I, supra, at 837. 294 F.3d 1085 (9th Cir. 733, 741742 (1998) (hereinafter Hallinan). Cf. Overall these efforts brought about considerable racial integration. Our cases recognized a fundamental difference between those school districts that had engaged in de jure segregation and those whose segregation was the result of other factors. That the school districts consider these plans to be necessary should remind us our highest aspirations are yet unfulfilled. [Footnote 8]. If the dissent were to say that college cases are simply not applicable to public school systems in kindergarten through high school, this would seem to me wrong, but at least an arguable distinction. After he had enrolled and after the academic year had begun, he then applied to transfer to his preferred school after the kindergarten assignment deadline had passed, id., at 21, possibly causing school officials to treat his late request as an application to transfer to the first grade, in respect to which the guidelines apply. Id., at 338, 123 S. Ct. 2325, 156 L. Ed. The Supreme Court will be forced to closely examine the social and education benefits that, as the District argues, come from racial and ethnic diversity in secondary education. ents in No. To this day, misconceptions abound about whether voluntary school desegregation is constitutionally permitted in the United States. (PDF) Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District
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