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. Rather, the Court has insisted upon some showing of prior discrimination by the governmental unit involved before allowing limited use of racial classifications in order to remedy such discrimination. The Courts decision in Croson, supra, reinforced the difference between the remedies available to redress de facto and de jure discrimination: To accept [a] claim that past societal discrimination alone can serve as the basis for rigid racial preferences would be to open the door to competing claims for remedial relief for every disadvantaged group. 17, 48 (1978). These include the facially race-neutral means set forth above or, if necessary, a more nuanced, individual evaluation of school needs and student characteristics that might include race as a component. What Led to Desegregation Busingand Did It Work? - HISTORY Brief for Respondent at 3334. In these respects, the broad ranges are less like a quota and more like the kinds of useful starting points that this Court has consistently found permissible, even when they set boundaries upon voluntary transfers, and even when they are based upon a communitys general population. Section 3. And some have concluded that there are no demonstrable educational benefits. Third, there is a democratic element: an interest in producing an educational environment that reflects the pluralistic society in which our children will live. While I join Justice Breyers eloquent and unanswerable dissent in its entirety, it is appropriate to add these words. See, e.g., Eisenberg v. Montgomery Cty. in No. Instead of strict scrutiny, Judge Kozinski would have analyzed the plans under robust and realistic rational basis review. Id., at 1194. Whenever the board finds that racial imbalance exists in a public school, it shall give written notice to the appropriate school committee, which shall prepare a plan to eliminate imbalance and file a copy with the board. Compare Green v. School Bd. 1 etal. Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 A mixture? What has happened to stare decisis? 05908, pp. Id. [Footnote 8]. 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. To Crawford? That case involves the original Seattle Plan, a more heavily race-conscious predecessor of the very plan now before us. 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. Student Choice, 1988 to 1998. See 39 Ill. 2d, at 599600, 237 N.E. 2d, at 502 (Too, the United States Supreme Court on January 15, 1968, dismissed an appeal in School Committee of Boston v. Board of Education, (Mass. Public schools may not use race as the sole determining factor for assigning students to schools. Section 2. Three years after that decision was handed down, the Governor of Arkansas ordered state militia to block the doors of a white schoolhouse so that black children could not enter. 1, 551 U.S. 701 (2007) Opinions Syllabus Opinion (Roberts) Concurrence (Thomas) Concurrence (Kennedy) Dissent (Breyer) Dissent (Stevens) Justia Opinion Summary and Annotations Annotation Primary Holding Notwithstanding these concerns, allocation of benefits and burdens through individual racial classifications was found sometimes permissible in the context of remedies for de jure wrong. 5, p.27 (Respondents ask this Court to upset a long established and well settled principle recognized by numerous state Legislatures, and Courts, both state and federal, over a long period of years); Tr. Applying these precedents to K-12 education, the Circuit Court found that the tiebreaker scheme was not narrowly tailored. The histories I have set forth describe the extensive and ongoing efforts of two school districts to bring about greater racial integration of their public schools. Likewise, a district may consider it a compelling interest to achieve a diverse student population. IV); 34 CFR 280.2, 280.4 (2006) (implementing regulations). It was the promise of true racial equalitynot as a matter of fine words on paper, but as a matter of everyday life in the Nations cities and schools. In upholding the admissions plan in Grutter, though, this Court relied upon considerations unique to institutions of higher education, noting that in light of the expansive freedoms of speech and thought associated with the university environment, universities occupy a special niche in our constitutional tradition. 539 U. S., at 329. Statement in School Comm. . To the contrary, there is every reason to believe that it represented part of an effort to implement the 1978 desegregation order. 1 and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education ( PICS ). This fundamental principle goes back, in this context, to Brown itself. PDF U.S. Department of Justice U.S. Department of Education In support of the argument that reducing racial isolation is a compelling interest, the District points to the U.S. Department of Educations Magnet School Assistance Program (MSAP). Compton, California, on the other hand, became over 99 percent black in the 1980s, while Buffalo, New York had a virtual 5050 split between white and minority students prior to its 1977 plan. 3, p.8 ([W]e take the unqualified position that the Fourteenth Amendment has totally stripped the state of power to make race and color the basis for governmental action); Tr. 2528. The specific interest found compelling in Grutter was student body diversity in the context of higher education. Ibid. Eight of those States condition approval of transfers to another school or district on whether the transfer will produce increased racial integration. Ibid. The Seattle case, Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. siso/reports/anrep/altern/938.pdf. 05908, at 299a301a; Affidavit of Kathleen Brose Pursuant to this Courts Rule 32.3 (Lodging of Petitioner Parents Involved), and the complaint sought declaratory and injunctive relief on behalf of Parents Involved members whose elementary and middle school children may be denied admission to the high schools of their choice when they apply for those schools in the future, App. History should teach greater humility. 3 Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist., No. Justice Breyer nonetheless relies on the good intentions and motives of the school districts, stating that he has found no case that repudiated this constitutional asymmetry between that which seeks to exclude and that which seeks to include members of minority races. Post, at 29 (emphasis in original). Moreover, Louisvilles history makes clear that a community under a court order to desegregate might submit a race-conscious remedial plan before the court dissolved the order, but with every intention of following that plan even after dissolution. 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. of Boston. There is no rule that the same level of scrutiny should apply to all racial classifications, especially when some classifications exclude people from participation, while others are designed to include them. 1, supra. 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 Boston in 1968. Accordingly, the school boards cannot satisfy strict scrutiny. R. Kluger, Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black Americas Struggle for Equality, p. x (1975) (arguing that perhaps no other Supreme Court case has affected more directly the minds, hearts, and daily lives of so many Americans); Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education xxvii (2001) (identifying Brown as the most eagerly awaited and dramatic judicial decision of modern times). The district retained a racial tiebreaker for oversubscribed schools, which takes effect only if the schools minority or majority enrollment falls outside of a 30% range centered on the minority/majority population ratio within the district. Justice Anthony Kennedy did not join parts of the opinion of Chief Justice Roberts. of Ed., 72 F.Supp. 1*, How are the Equal Protection rights of public high school students affected by the jurisprudence of. In support, the dissent unquestioningly cites certain social science research to support propositions that are hotly disputed among social scientists. It first appeared in Plessy, where the Court asked whether a state law providing for segregated railway cars was a reasonable regulation. 163 U. S., at 550. 5 Memorandum Opinion and Order, Haycraft v. Board of Ed. A. Croson Co., 488 U. S. 469, 504 (1989). That is what is at issue here. We take the Grutter Court at its word. It was not the inequality of the facilities but the fact of legally separating children based on race on which the Court relied to find a constitutional violation in that case. Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School - CaseBriefs For the 20002001 school year, five of these schools were oversubscribedBallard, Nathan Hale, Roosevelt, Garfield, and Franklinso much so that 82 percent of incoming ninth graders ranked one of these schools as their first choice. of Boston v. Board of Education, 389 U. S. 572 (1968) (per curiam). 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). 05908, at 137a139a. The Ninth Circuit affirmed. 05908, This is because "'racial classifications are simply too pernicious to permit any but the most exact connection between justification and classification.'" 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. 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). This refers back to a time when public schools were highly segregated, often as a result of legal or administrative policies that facilitated racial segregation in public schools. In this case, the Ninth Circuit held that the School District had a compelling state interest in achieving racial and ethnic diversity in its individual schools. If we are to insist upon unanimity in the social science literature before finding a compelling interest, we might never find one. For the next decade, annual program transfers remained at approximately this level. Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U. S. 81, 100 (1943) ([R]acial discriminations are in most circumstances irrelevant and therefore prohibited). 1. According to the schools most recent annual report, [a]cademic excellence is its primary goal. See African American Academy 2006 Annual Report, p.2, online at http://www.seattleschools.org/area/ School districts that had engaged in de jure segregation had an affirmative constitutional duty to desegregate; those that were de facto segregated did not. University of Texas v. Camenisch, 451 U. S. 390, 393 (1981). Any classification based strictly on race, as the majority notes, still must be predicated on a demonstration that it is necessary. See Swann, 402 U. S., at 31. It must be conceded its primary function in school cases was to delimit the powers of the Judiciary in the fashioning of remedies. Although black students made up about 3% of the total Seattle population in the mid-1950s, nearly all black children attended schools where a majority of the population was minority. See, e.g., Columbus Bd. [Footnote 14] 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 beings race will never be achieved. Croson, supra, at 495 (plurality opinion of OConnor, J.) Justice Breyer questioned the utility "of looking simply to whether earlier school segregation was de jure or de facto in order to draw firm lines separating the constitutionally permissible from the constitutionally forbidden use of 'race-conscious' criteria. Id. See Brief for Petitioner at 2526. Moreover, these cases are not governed by Grutter v. [Footnote 30] See, e.g., Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. PICS cites Supreme Court jurisprudence for the proposition that there is no compelling government interest in adjusting general societal discrimination. Race-based government measures during the 1860s and 1870s to remedy state-enforced slavery were therefore not inconsistent with the color-blind Constitution. Id. 1, pp. Finally, it lists several race-neutral alternatives that were considered (such as a lottery system, the use of poverty as a proxy for race, and regional assignments) and argues that they would not have been as effective as the plan that is the subject of this litigation. Elementary schools in central Seattle were between 60% and 80% black; Garfield, the central district high school, was more than 50% minority; schools outside the central and southeastern sections of Seattle were virtually all white. Here, in contrast, the schools worked backward to achieve a particular type of racial balance, rather than working forward from some demonstration of the level of diversity that provides the purported benefits. Once those vestiges were eliminated, Jefferson County was on the same footing as any other school district, and its use of race must be justified on other grounds. v. Barksdale, 348 F.2d 261, 266 (CA1 1965). Unless we believe that the Constitution enforces one legal standard for the South and another for the North, this Court should grant Seattle the permission it granted Clarke County, Georgia. The Court reasoned that the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause prohibited schools from voluntarily using racial classifications to achieve integration. The Seattle school board itself must believe that racial mixing is not necessary to black achievement. 2d 358, 376377 (WD Ky. 2000), that decree was dissolved in 2000, id., at 360. At the same time it adopted an open transfer policy under which approximately 3,000 of Louisvilles 46,000 students applied for transfer. Although the Supreme Court must find jurisdiction in order to give an opinion on the equal protection claims, it is uncertain whether the Court will address this question in much detail. Today, they do not. The first sentence in the concluding paragraph of his opinion states: Before Brown, schoolchildren were told where they could and could not go to school based on the color of their skin. Ante, at 40. The Constitution abhors classifications based on race, not only because those classifications can harm favored races or are based on illegitimate motives, but also because every time the government places citizens on racial registers and makes race relevant to the provision of burdens or benefits, it demeans us all. Grutter, supra, at 353 (opinion of Thomas, J.). . [6] All of the dissenting Justices acknowledged that "the Constitution does not impose a duty to desegregate upon districts" if they have not practiced racial discrimination. In making an assignment to a particular high school, the district would give first preference to a student with a sibling already at the school. See, e.g., Adarand, supra; Gratz, supra; Grutter, supra. Initial plans were implemented in Mobile, Alabama and Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, and in a number of other southern districts in the face of total racial segregation. To Harris? The schools base their numbers in demographics, therefore making this goal a means to achieve a numerical quota to achieve racial balancing. The orders requirements reflected a (newly enlarged) school district student population of about 135,000, approximately 20% of whom were black. Reg. To McDaniel? [I]ntegration, we are told, has three essential elements. Ibid. 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 358, 359, 363, 370, 377 (WD Ky. 2000) (Hampton II). in No. 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. in No. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law). After decades of vibrant life, they would all, under the pluralitys logic, be written out of the law. 250, 251 (1983) (similar in Arkansas); Bullock 2d 358, at 360 (WD Ky. 2000). The sweep of the mandate claimed by the district is contrary to our rulings that remedying past societal discrimination does not justify race-conscious government action. in No. Observers claim that the Supreme Court's decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. School authorities have the primary responsibility for elucidating, assessing, and solving these problems; courts will have to consider whether the action of school authorities constitutes good faith implementation of the governing constitutional principles). in No. 3, p.4647 (If this case were to be decided solely on the basis of precedent, this brief could have been much more limited. These cases consider the longstanding efforts of two local school boards to integrate their public schools. 1 of King County, Washington, and the Office for Civil Rights, United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare 2 (June 9, 1978); see also 45 CFR 80.7(c) (2006). 2, 2001). By finding the School Districts plan unconstitutional, districts will be limited in their ability to provide such benefits. to achieve its own ends; and thus it fails to pass strict scrutiny. Numerous state and federal courts explicitly relied upon Swanns guidance for decades to follow. It is clear to us that focusing simply on demographic issues detracts from focusing on improving schools). 1 C. Schmid & W. McVey, Growth and Distribution of Minority Races in Seattle, Washington, 3, 79 (1964); F. Hanawalt & R. Williams, The History of Desegregation in Seattle Public Schools, 19541981, pp. In my view the state-mandated racial classifications at issue, official labels proclaiming the race of all persons in a broad class of citizenselementary school students in one case, high school students in anotherare unconstitutional as the cases now come to us. Id., at 690, 72 P.3d, at 167. [Footnote 2] Although presently observed racial imbalance might result from past de jure segregation, racial imbalance can also result from any number of innocent private decisions, including voluntary housing choices. This is incorrect. Ed. Thomas, J., filed a concurring opinion. See, e.g., post, at 1920. In particular, they use race-conscious criteria only to mark the outer bounds of broad population-related ranges. For the dissent, in contrast, individualized scrutiny is simply beside the point. Post, at 55. See Washington State Report United States v. Montgomery County Bd. See id., at 1032 (discussing other successful black schools); Walker, Can Institutions Care? No. The 2007 Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. in No. The Court need not resolve the parties dispute over whether racial diversity in schools has a marked impact on test scores and other objective yardsticks or achieves intangible socialization benefits because it is clear that the racial classifications at issue are not narrowly tailored to the asserted goal. The pluralitys position, I fear, would break that promise. How do the remedial interests here differ in kind from those at issue in the voluntary desegregation efforts that Attorney General Kennedy many years ago described in his letter to the President? People Who Care v. Rockford Bd. 2. See generally N. Thompson & C. Marr, Building for Learning: Seattle Public Schools Histories, 18622000 (2002). 663, 664 (1962) (same); W. Vaughn, Schools for All: The Blacks and Public Education in the South, 18651877, pp. The five Justices who signed on to the plurality opinion and Justice Scalia's concurrence are the same five who struck down Seattle's voluntary desegregative busing plan in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. yrs= (showing that reading scores went up, not down, when Seattles race-based assignment program ended at Sealth High School, Ingraham High School, and Franklin High Schoolsome of the schools most affected by the plan). See Parents Involved VII, 426 F.3d 1162, 11691170 (CA9 2005) (en banc).
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