What emerges is a version of strict scrutiny that combines hollow assurances of harmlessness with reflexive acceptance of conventional wisdom. See also Adarand, supra, at 226 ([I]t may not always be clear that a so-called preference is in fact benign (quoting Bakke, supra, at 298 (opinion of Powell, J.))). Id. The dissent asserts that racially balanced schools improve educational outcomes for black children. For the reasons discussed above, however, I disagree with Justice Kennedy that Seattle and Louisville have not done enough to demonstrate that their present plans are necessary to continue upon the path set by Brown. These include the types of activities or programs offered, the teachers, and the schools location. Likewise, a district may consider it a compelling interest to achieve a diverse student population. ; see also App. Roberts concludes that racial balancing cannot be a compelling state interest. Given the significant differences among these contexts, it would be surprising if the law required an identically strict legal test for evaluating the constitutionality of race-based criteria as to each of them. 458 U. S., at 472, n.15. This Court recognized as much in its opinion, which stated that the school board had an affirmative duty to disestablish the dual school system. McDaniel, supra, at 41. Public Schools, 330 F.Supp. See Brief for Petitioner at 45. Furthermore, it was only used in a limited number of schoolsthose that were both over subscribed and relatively unintegrated. And the combination of the three unsubstantiated elements does not produce an interest any more compelling than that represented by each element independently. Thus, racial balancing will have to take place on an indefinite basisa continuous process with no identifiable culpable party and no discernable end point. The histories also indicate the complexity of the tasks and the practical difficulties that local school boards face when they seek to achieve greater racial integration. D (collecting citations of state and federal cases [w]hich [e]nunciate the [p]rinciple that [s]tate [l]aws [p]roviding for [r]acial [s]egregation in the [p]ublic [s]chools do not [c]onflict with the Fourteenth Amendment). The dissents appeal to stare decisis, post, at 65, is particularly ironic in light of its apparent willingness to depart from these precedents, post, at 3637. . This past June, a 5-4 majority of the U.S. Supreme Court declared integration plans in Louisville and Seattle unconstitutional because of their focus on race as one factor in assigning students to schools. The dissents characterization of Swann as recognizing that the Equal Protection Clause permits local school boards to use race-conscious criteria to achieve positive race-related goals isat besta dubious inference. Id., at 25. I have counted well over 100 state statutes that similarly employ racial classifications. It is possible that schools will be able to extend these race-conscious programs to school sports teams, club memberships, classroom assignments, and so on. 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. How could such a plan be lawful the day before dissolution but then become unlawful the very next day? Thus, the democratic interest, limitless in scope and timeless in [its] ability to affect the future, id., at 276 (plurality opinion), cannot justify government race-based decisionmaking. . 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. The Court split 414 on key aspects of the case, with Justice Kennedy writing the swing vote opinion and agreeing with four Justices (Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito) that the programs used by Seattle and Louisville did not pass constitutional muster (because the districts failed to demonstrate that their plans were sufficiently narrowly tailored), but Kennedy also found, along with four Justices (Breyer, Stevens, Souter, and Ginsburg), that compelling interests exist in avoiding racial isolation and promoting diversity. The Seattle School District allowed students to apply to any high school in the District. Although we examine the plans under the same legal framework, the specifics of the two plans, and the circumstances Accord, post, at 22 ([T]he Court set forth in Swann a basic principle of constitutional lawa principle of law that has found wide acceptance in the legal culture (citations and internal quotation marks omitted)); post, at 25 (Lower state and federal courts had considered the matter settled and uncontroversial even before this Court decided Swann); post, at 26 (Numerous state and federal courts explicitly relied upon Swanns guidance for decades to follow); post, at 27 (stating how lower courts understood and followed Swanns enunciation of the relevant legal principle); post, at 30 (The constitutional principle enunciated in Swann, reiterated in subsequent cases, and relied upon over many years, provides, and has widely been thought to provide, authoritative legal guidance); post, at 61 ([T]odays opinion will require setting aside the laws of several States and many local communities); post, at 66 (And what has happened to Swann? The districts have also failed to show they considered methods other than explicit racial classifications to achieve their stated goals. I add that one cannot find a relevant distinction in the fact that these school districts did not examine the merits of applications individual[ly]. See ante, at 1315. 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 plan provided for open high school enrollment. Indeed, the very school districts that once spurned integration now strive for it. 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. See, e.g., Freeman, supra, at 494. Id., at 8391. [Footnote 6] But without a history of state-enforced racial separation, a school district has no affirmative legal obligation to take race-based remedial measures to eliminate segregation and its vestiges. Yet the plurality would deprive them of at least one tool that some districts now consider vitalthe limited use of broad race-conscious student population ranges. "But the district vigorously defends the constitutionality of its race-based program, and nowhere suggests that if this litigation is resolved in its favor it will not resume using race to assign students. To the extent the objective is sufficient diversity so that students see fellow students as individuals rather than solely as members of a racial group, using means that treat students solely as members of a racial group is fundamentally at cross-purposes with that end. in No. There is a cruel irony in The Chief Justices reliance on our decision in Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U. S. 294 (1955). 5 (Jan. 2003), online at http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research/reseg03/AreWeLosingtheDream.pdf (Frankenberg, Lee, & Orfield) (using U. S. Dept. (rejecting argument that strict scrutiny should be applied only to classifications that disadvantage minorities, stating [r]acial and ethnic distinctions of any sort are inherently suspect and thus call for the most exacting judicial examination). 05908, p. 511. Pp. I do not understand why this Courts cases, which rest the significance of a unitary finding in part upon the wisdom and desirability of returning schools to local control, should deprive those local officials of legal permission to use means they once found necessary to combat persisting injustices. This sometimes leads to a disparity in resources and academic achievement between school districts. The 2007 Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. ", 488 U.S., at 519, 109 S. Ct. 706, 102 L. Ed. The Court rejected the interests asserted to justify the layoff program as insufficiently compelling. No. See Education Commission of the States, Open Enrollment: 50-State Report (2007), online at http://mb2.ecs.org/reports/Report.aspx?id=268. See, e.g., Columbus Bd. In Grutter, in contrast, the consideration of race was viewed as indispensable in more than tripling minority representation at the law school there at issue. Apr 4, 2018 27 Dislike Share Save Ronaq Sahni 8 subscribers A Brief Video explaining the case of Parents Involved In Community Schools v. Seattle School District. The tenth high school, West Seattle, is located west of downtown. 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. Third, a more important response is the pluralitys claim that later casesin particular Johnson, Adarand, and Gruttersupplanted Swann. The districts argue that other factors, such as student preferences, affect assignment decisions under their plans, but under each plan when race comes into play, it is decisive by itself. What do the racial classifications do in these cases, if not determine admission to a public school on a racial basis? 618206(f)(1), as amended 2007 Ark. 1 (PICS): Resources On U.S. Supreme Court Voluntary School Desegregation Rulings The Civil Rights Project at UCLA", http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=05-908, "Justices Limit the Use of Race in School Plans for Integration", "Not Hearing History: A Critique of Chief Justice Roberts's Reinterpretation of, Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. But if the plan was lawful when it was first adopted and if it was lawful the day before the District Court dissolved its order, how can the plurality now suggest that it became unlawful the following day? Student Choice, 1988 to 1998. At the same time it relies on inapplicable desegregation cases, misstatements of admitted dicta, and other noncontrolling pronouncements, Justice Breyers dissent candidly dismisses the significance of this Courts repeated holdings that all racial classifications must be reviewed under strict scrutiny, see post, at 3133, 3536, arguing that a different standard of review should be applied because the districts use race for beneficent rather than malicious purposes, see post, at 3136. of Ed., 402 U. S., at 46; Montgomery County Bd. By finding the School Districts plan unconstitutional, districts will be limited in their ability to provide such benefits. Each locality is free to tailor local programs to local needs. Of course, if the Seattle school board were truly committed to the notion that diversity leads directly to educational benefits, operating a school with such a high nonwhite enrollment would be a shocking dereliction of its duty to educate the students enrolled in that school. 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. Diversity, depending on its meaning and definition, is a compelling educational goal a school district may pursue. 733 (1998). And what of laws concern to diminish and peacefully settle conflict among the Nations people? 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. The history of each school system reveals highly segregated schools, followed by remedial plans that involved forced busing, followed by efforts to attract or retain students through the use of plans that abandoned busing and replaced it with greater student choice. Simply because the school districts may seek a worthy goal does not mean they are free to discriminate on the basis of race to achieve it, or that their racial classifications should be subject to less exacting scrutiny. See Seattle School District, Middle School and High School 2006-2007 Enrollment Guide for Parents, at 40. 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. The Courts emphasis on benign racial classifications suggests confidence in its ability to distinguish good from harmful governmental uses of racial criteria. Lacking a cognizable interest in remediation, neither of these plans can survive strict scrutiny because neither plan serves a genuinely compelling state interest. For this reason, among others, I do not join Parts IIIB and IV. After assignment, students at all grade levels are permitted to apply to transfer between nonmagnet schools in the district. of Education and National Center for Education Statistics Common Core data). Yet neither of those briefs contains specific details like the magnitude of the claimed positive effects or the precise demographic mix at which those positive effects begin to be realized. The measures required by those cases often included race-conscious practices, such as mandatory busing and race-based restrictions on voluntary transfers. Bd. Contrary to the dissents arguments, resegregation is not occurring in Seattle or Louisville; these school boards have no present interest in remedying past segregation; and these race-based student-assignment programs do not serve any compelling state interest. Chief Justice Burger, on behalf of a unanimous Court in a case of exceptional importance, wrote: 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 point of the narrow tailoring analysis in which the Grutter Court engaged was to ensure that the use of racial classifications was indeed part of a broader assessment of diversity, and not simply an effort to achieve racial balance, which the Court explained would be patently unconstitutional. Id., at 330. We granted certiorari. in No. Is Seattle free on remand to say that its schools were de jure segregated, just as in 1956 a memo for the School Board admitted? Ante, at 67. 1, 458 U. S. 457, 460 (1982). 2d, at 842, based on the objective of achieving at all schools an African-American enrollment equivalent to the average district-wide African-American enrollment of 34 percent. 1, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Parents_Involved_in_Community_Schools_v._Seattle_School_District_No._1&oldid=1137632337. 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. In the Seattle case, the District Court granted the school district summary judgment, finding, inter alia, that its plan survived strict scrutiny on the federal constitutional claim because it was narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest. Our ruling on the merits simply stated that the appeal was dismissed for want of a substantial federal question. School Comm. 1 and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education ( PICS ). In Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954) (Brown I), we held that segregation deprived black children of equal educational opportunities regardless of whether school facilities and other tangible factors were equal, because government classification and separation on grounds of race themselves denoted inferiority. 2, pp. Similarly, between 1968 and 1980, the number of black children attending schools that were more than 90% minority fell from 64% to 33% in the Nation (from 78% to 23% in the South), but that too reversed direction, rising by the year 2000 from 33% to 37% in the Nation (from 23% to 31% in the South). It is hard to understand how a plan that could allow these results can be viewed as being concerned with achieving enrollment that is broadly diverse, Grutter, supra, at 329. 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.). The Ninth Circuit below stated that it share[d] in the hope expressed in Grutter that in 25 years racial preferences would no longer be necessary to further the interest identified in that case. The dissent acknowledges that the two-sentence discussion in Swann was pure dicta, post, at 22, but nonetheless asserts that it demonstrates a basic principle of constitutional law that provides authoritative legal guidance. Post, at 22, 30. Pp. 05-908, was filed by a group of parents who had formed a nonprofit corporation to. of Ed., 402 U. S. 1, 16 (1971) (emphasis added). Id. You can explore additional available newsletters here. Pluralism also affords some opportunity for experimentation, innovation, and a healthy competition for educational excellence); Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U. S. 97, 104 (1968) (Judicial interposition in the operation of the public school system of the Nation raises problems requiring care and restraint. See also id., at 89 (It has been urged that [these state laws and policies] derive validity as a consequence of a long duration supported and made possible by a long line of judicial decisions, including expressions in some of the decisions of this Court. Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. See, e.g., Brief for Appellants in Brown v. Board of Education, O.T. 1953, Nos. And the Court, using the very phrase that Justice Marshall had used to describe strict scrutinys application to any exclusionary use of racial criteria, sought to dispel the notion that strict scrutiny is as likely to condemn inclusive uses of race-conscious criteria as it is to invalidate exclusionary uses. v. Brinkman, 433 U. S. 406, 413 (1977); Dayton Bd. Cf. 2d 1267 (1996). The majority suggests that Seattles classification system could permit a school to be labeled diverse with a 50% Asian-American and 50% white student body, and no African-American students, Hispanic students, or students of other ethnicity. Are courts really to treat as merely de facto segregated those school districts that avoided a federal order by voluntarily complying with Browns requirements? 05915, at 81; McFarland I, supra, at 842. This cannot be justified in the name of the Equal Protection Clause. But what about Seattles? The statement by Justice Harlan that [o]ur Constitution is color-blind was most certainly justified in the context of his dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537, 559 (1896). in No. Compare ante, at 29, with supra, at 69. The board began to implement the Seattle Plan in 1978. Most white families live north of the downtown area where four high schools Ballard, Ingraham, Nathan Hale, and Roosevelt are located. ante, at 1718 (opinion of Kennedy, J.). According to the dissent, integration involves an interest in setting right the consequences of prior conditions of segregation. Post, at 37. [14], Neither school could plead this compelling interest, because "[w]e have emphasized that the harm being remedied by mandatory desegregation plans is the harm that is traceable to segregation, and that 'the Constitution is not violated by racial imbalance in the schools, without more. of Boston v. Board of Education, 389 U. S. 572 (1968) (per curiam) (dismissing for want of a federal question a challenge to a voluntary statewide integration plan using express racial criteria). Moreover, the democratic interest has no durational limit, contrary to Grutters command. Ultimately, the dissents entire analysis is corrupted by the considerations that lead it initially to question whether strict scrutiny should apply at all. Cf. Ostate-imposed desegregation could only be brought about by busing children across school districts. are classified as "Other". . 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. all the civil rights that the superior race enjoy). 1, supra. In 1996, the school board adopted the present plan, which began in 1999. Synopsis of Rule of Law. Thus, in North Carolina Bd. Cf. It initially assigned each student to his or her neighborhood school, but it permitted each student freely to transfer between elementary schools within each cluster provided that the transferring student (a) was black if transferring from a predominantly black school to a predominantly white school, or (b) was white if transferring from a predominantly white school to a predominantly black school. 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. to achieve its own ends; and thus it fails to pass strict scrutiny. 1996); see also T. Sowell, Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study 141165 (2004). 539 U.S. at 316. 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. Id., at 493494. 1.9 In Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. In both cities, the school boards adopted plans designed to achieve integration by bringing about more racially diverse schools. Nothing in the opinion approves use of racial classifications as the means to address the imbalance. The Jefferson County Board of Education fails to meet this threshold mandate. 67759, at 9 (Unlike the Massachusetts Court, the Illinois Supreme Court has recently held its law to eliminate racial imbalance unconstitutional on the ground that it violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment); ibid., n.1. 2005), online at http://www.seattleschools.org/area/facilties&nbhyph;plan/Choice/05&nbhyph; At that time one high school, Garfield, was about two-thirds minority; eight high schools were virtually all white. For example, where does the dissents principle stop? See id., at 12, 2930. 1, 23 (1995); A. Siqueland, Without A Court Order: The Desegregation of Seattles Schools 10 (1981) (hereinafter Siqueland); D. Pieroth, Desegregating the Public Schools, Seattle, Washington, 19541968, p.6 (Dissertation Draft 1979) (hereinafter Pieroth). Wygant, 476 U. S., at 275276 (plurality opinion); id., at 295 (White, J., concurring in judgment). 1117. of Ed., 402 U. S. 1, 6 (1971); see also Monroe v. Board of Commrs of Jackson, 391 U. S. 450, 452 (1968). in No. As McDaniel and Harris show, that is historically untrue. ", 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. For one thing, consider the effect of the pluralitys views on the parties before us and on similar school districts throughout the Nation. The plan paired (or triaded) imbalanced black schools with imbalanced white schools. [29] The districts have also failed to show that they considered methods other than explicit racial classifications to achieve their stated goals. We have found many. Opponents brought a lawsuit. Protection jurisprudence of this Court and the notion of a color-blind Constitution that this country has aspired for. For the 2006-2007 school year, the school district has suspended the tiebreaker pending litigation. Petitioner Parents Involved in Community Schools objected to Seattles most recent plan under the State and Federal Constitutions. First, the school districts plans serve compelling interests and are narrowly tailored on any reasonable definition of those terms. Politics 987, 991 (1976) (similar in Georgia); McDaniel v. Barresi, 402 U. S. 39, 40, n. 1 (1971) (Clarke County, Georgia). Finally, the plan created two new magnet schools, one each at the elementary and middle school levels. Before the Lawsuit, 1954 to 1972. And if Seattle School Dist. The OCR and the school board entered into a formal settlement agreement. The NAACPs Second Legal Challenge, 1977. Brief for Petitioner at 3637. 69. The plurality's decision should not be read so broadly that it prevents the government from engaging in any race-conscious action. 1, 551 U.S. 701 (2007), also known as the PICS case, is a United States Supreme Court case which found it unconstitutional for a school district to use race as a factor in assigning students to schools in order to bring its racial composition in line with the composition of the district as a whole, unless it was remedying a prior history of de jure segregation. It is no answer to say that these cases can be distinguished from Brown because Brown involved invidious racial classifications whereas the racial classifications here are benign. would support indefinite use of racial classifications, employed first to obtain the appropriate mixture of racial views and then to ensure that the [program] continues to reflect that mixture. (2000 ed., Supp. Importantly, it considered that issue only under rational-basis review, 39 Ill. 2d, at 600, 237 N.E. 2d, at 502 (The test of any legislative classification essentially is one of reasonableness), which even the dissent grudgingly recognizes is an improper standard for evaluating express racial classifications.
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