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). of New Kent Cty., 391 U. S. 430, 441442 (1968). To adopt the dissents deferential approach would be to abdicate our constitutional responsibilities. In the administration of public schools by the state and local authorities it is permissible to consider the racial makeup of schools and to adopt general policies to encourage a diverse student body, one aspect of which is its racial composition. The Seattle case, Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 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). 2d 834, 839840, and n. 6 (WD Ky. 2004) (McFarland I). Roberts wrote: "The fact that it is possible that children of group members will not be denied admission to a school based on their racebecause they choose an undersubscribed school or an oversubscribed school in which their race is an advantagedoes not eliminate the injury claimed. To use race in this way is not to set a forbidden quota. See id., at 335 (Properly understood, a quota is a program in which a certain fixed number or proportion of opportunities are reserved exclusively for certain minority groups (quoting Croson, 488 U. S., at 496)). 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. 2, p. 59 ([I]t would be difficult indeed to find a case so favored by precedent as is the case for South Carolina here). Scholars have differing opinions as to whether educational benefits arise from racial balancing. [Footnote 10] There are good reasons not to apply a lesser standard to these cases. It predicts that todays decision threaten[s] the validity of [h]undreds of state and federal statutes and regulations. Post, at 61; see also post, at 2728. "[27], Part III C[14] addressed the school districts' claim that "the way in which they have employed individual racial classifications is necessary to achieve their stated ends." The distinction ought not to be altogether disregarded, however, when we come to that most sensitive of all racial issues, an attempt by the government to treat whole classes of persons differently based on the governments systematic classification of each individual by race. ), appeal dismd for want of a substantial federal question, 484 U. S. 804 (1987). 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. I use the words may need here deliberately. 1 et al. The remedy, though, was limited in time and limited to the wrong. Today, they are not. [28] He contrasted this circumstance to Grutter, where "the consideration of race was viewed as indispensable" in more than tripling minority representation at the law schoolfrom 4 to 14.5 percent. Today, the Court holds that state entities may not experiment with race-based means to achieve ends they deem socially desirable. The segregationists also relied upon the likely practical consequences of ending the state-imposed system of racial separation. surrounding their adoption, are in some respects quite different. Race may be one component of that diversity, but other demographic factors, plus special talents and needs, should also be considered. At the other extreme, Santa Clara, California had a relatively even racial distribution prior to its 1979 desegregation plan. 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). In doing so, it consulted widely with parents and other members of the local community, using public presentations, public meetings, and various other methods to obtain the publics input. Though Brown decisively rejected those arguments, todays dissent replicates them to a distressing extent. Nor does any precedent indicate, as the plurality suggests with respect to Louisville, ante, at 29, that remedial interests vanish the day after a federal court declares that a district is unitary. Of course, Louisville adopted those portions of the plan at issue here before a court declared Louisville unitary. Moreover, in Freeman, this Court pointed out that in one sense of the term, vestiges of past segregation by state decree do remain in our society and in our schools. See Part I, supra, at 221. v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265 (1978); Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79 (1986); Richmond v. J. 2841. of Ed., supra, at 232. 1, supra, at 461; Complaint and Motion to Dismiss or Affirm in Seattle School Dist. As these programs demonstrate, every time the government uses racial criteria to bring the races together, post, at 29, someone gets excluded, and the person excluded suffers an injury solely because of his or her race. For the reasons explained above, the records in these cases do not demonstrate that either school boards plan is supported by an interest in remedying past discrimination. To McDaniel? In the immediate aftermath of Brown the Court addressed other instances where laws and practices enforced de jure segregation. Students could also apply to attend magnet elementary schools or programs. Although the matter was the subject of disagreement on the Court, see id., at 346347 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); id., at 382383 (Rehnquist, C.J., dissenting); id., at 388392 (Kennedy, J., dissenting), the majority concluded that the law school did not count back from its applicant pool to arrive at the meaningful number it regarded as necessary to diversify its student body. Id. 05915, at 81. The Seattle School District has begun providing transportation to students who live more than 2.5 miles from their assigned high school. Id., at 328 (Our holding today is in keeping with our tradition of giving a degree of deference to a universitys academic decisions). Compare Croson, 488 U. S., at 519 (Kennedy, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (racial classifications permitted only as a last resort). . And my view was the rallying cry for the lawyers who litigated Brown. Yesterday, the plans under review were lawful. In both Seattle and Louisville, the local school districts began with schools that were highly segregated in fact. Brief for Petitioner at 79. The minimal effect these classifications have on student assignments, however, suggests that other means would be effective. So it was, as the dissent observes, see post, at 1314, that Louisville classified children by race in its school assignment and busing plan in the 1970s. Preliminary Challenges, 1956 to 1969. This the Constitution forbids. Ibid. However, Roberts considers that this interest is not compelling and that the use of race for this goal is not narrowly tailored, it is instead used for racial balancing, which is unconstitutional. The districts have also failed to show that they considered methods other than explicit racial classifications to achieve their stated goals. And the combination of the three unsubstantiated elements does not produce an interest any more compelling than that represented by each element independently. The plans under reviewwhich are less burdensome, more egalitarian, and more effective than prior planscontinue in that tradition. For schools that never segregated on the basis of race, such as Seattle, or that have removed the vestiges of past segregation, such as Jefferson County, the way to achieve a system of determining admission to the public schools on a nonracial basis, Brown II, 349 U. S., at 300301, is to stop assigning students on a racial basis. Andy was accepted into this selective program but, because of the racial tiebreaker, was denied assignment to Ballard High School. in No. Nor could it. In my view, this contextual approach to scrutiny is altogether fitting. Primary Documents: (Slip Opinion) December 4, 2006, Argued June 28, 2007, * Decided SYLLABUS: Respondent school districts voluntarily adopted student assignment plans that rely on race to determine which schools certain children may attend. In 1977, the NAACP filed another legal complaint, this time with the federal Department of Health, Education, and Welfares Office for Civil Rights (OCR). No. Stripped of the baseless and novel interests the dissent asserts on their behalf, the school boards cannot plausibly maintain that their plans further a compelling interest. I also join Parts IIIA and IIIC for reasons provided below. In Wygant, a school district justified its race-based teacher-layoff program in part on the theory that minority teachers provided role models for minority students and that a racially diverse faculty would improve the education of all students. Grutter, supra, at 352 (opinion of Thomas, J.) Without any detailed discussion of the operation of the plans, the students who are affected, or the districts failure to consider race-neutral alternatives, the dissent concludes that the districts have shown that these racial classifications are necessary to achieve the districts stated goals. of City School Dist. 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. 1995). Third, there is a democratic element: an interest in producing an educational environment that reflects the pluralistic society in which our children will live. 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. And, as an aspiration, Justice Harlans axiom must command our assent. In the present cases, by contrast, race is not considered as part of a broader effort to achieve exposure to widely diverse people, cultures, ideas, and viewpoints, ibid. Because of its importance, I shall repeat what this Court said about the matter in Swann. Section 5. In sum, the districts race-conscious plans satisfy strict scrutiny and are therefore lawful. If there were doubts before Swann was decided, they did not survive this Courts decision. Tex. In Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483, the Court held that segregation deprived black children of equal educational opportunities regardless of whether school facilities and other tangible factors were equal, because the classification and separation themselves denoted inferiority. Justice Breyer, with whom Justice Stevens, Justice Souter, and Justice Ginsburg join, dissenting. 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. In many such instances, the contentious force of legal challenges to these classifications, meritorious or not, would displace earlier calm. 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). In June 2007 the United States Supreme Court issued a narrow five to four ruling invalidating racial integration plans in Seattle, Washington and Louisville, Kentucky. 36, 7172 (1873)). See McDaniel, supra, at 41. 458 U. S., at 535, n.11. 1, p.38 (Spring 2002); Mickelson, Subverting Swann: First- and Second-Generation Segregation in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, 38 Am. 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. Petitioner Parents Involved in Community Schools (Parents Involved) is a nonprofit corporation comprising the parents of children who have been or may be denied assignment to their chosen high school in the district because of their race. 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. 1 (2007) Term 1 / 8 What are the core facts of the case? 539 U. S., at 328. Gratz involved a system where race was not the entire classification. By contrast, Croson notes that racial classifications are permitted only "as a last resort".[30]. Therefore, as a general rule, all race-based government decisionmakingregardless of contextis unconstitutional. 1, 50 (2002) (describing President Carters support for affirmation action). Id. Both the District Court and the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit rejected Merediths challenge and held the unmodified aspects of the plan constitutional. 5 (Jan. 2003), online at http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research/reseg03/AreWeLosingtheDream.pdf (Frankenberg, Lee, & Orfield) (using U. S. Dept. The plurality cites in support those who argued in Brown against segregation, and Justice Thomas likens the approach that I have taken to that of segregations defenders. See Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U. S. 1 (1958). [Footnote 30] See, e.g., Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. The district did not attempt to defend the proposition that anything outside its range posed the specter of exceptionality. Nor did it demonstrate in any way how the educational and social benefits of racial diversity or avoidance of racial isolation are more likely to be achieved at a school that is 50 percent white and 50 percent Asian-American, which would qualify as diverse under Seattles plan, than at a school that is 30 percent Asian-American, 25 percent African-American, 25 percent Latino, and 20 percent white, which under Seattles definition would be racially concentrated. 17 (1981) (hereinafter Hanawalt); Taylor, The Civil Rights Movement in the American West: Black Protest in Seattle, 19601970, 80 J. Negro Hist. Rev. Contrary to the dissents rhetoric, neither of these school districts is threatened with resegregation, and neither is constitutionally compelled or permitted to undertake race-based remediation. The districts also vary in their racial compositions and levels of segregation. 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. Petitioners, an organization of Seattle parents (Parents Involved) and the mother of a Jefferson County student (Joshua), whose children were or could be assigned under the foregoing plans, filed these suits contending, inter alia, that allocating children to different public schools based solely on their race violates the Fourteenth Amendments equal protection guarantee. Swann did not hide its understanding of the law in a corner of an obscure opinion or in a footnote, unread but by experts. 1? In 19761977, the plan involved the busing of about 500 middle school students (300 black students and 200 white students). Given this tenuous relationship between forced racial mixing and improved educational results for black children, the dissent cannot plausibly maintain that an educational element supports the integration interest, let alone makes it compelling. of Oral Arg. A. Croson Co., 488 U. S. 469, 504 (1989). [Footnote 19] See ibid. 05915, at 82. aspx? Siqueland 116117. See Brief of the Asian American Legal Foundation as Amicus Curiae in Support of Petitioners at 5. This, in turn, could encourage policy-makers to be more accountable to families and implement policy that is innovative and responsive to local needs. Seattles circumstances are not meaningfully different from those in, say, McDaniel, where this Court approved race-conscious remedies. 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. Unlike the dissenters, I am unwilling to delegate my constitutional responsibilities to local school boards and allow them to experiment with race-based decisionmaking on the assumption that their intentions will forever remain as good as Justice Breyers. 2, p. 50 ([T]he state is deprived of any power to make any racial classifications in any governmental field). The amicus briefs in the cases before us mirror this divergence of opinion. 2 1996 Memorandum 47, and Attachment 2; Hampton I, supra, at 768. The cases here were argued upon the assumption, and come to us on the premise, that the discrimination in question did not result from de jure actions. SCHOOLS, PETITIONER, on writ of certiorari to the united states court of Middle and high school students are designated a single resides school and assigned to that school unless it is at the extremes of the racial guidelines. As McDaniel and Harris show, that is historically untrue. See also ante, at 15 (opinion of Kennedy, J.). Race may be one component of that diversity, but other demographic factors, plus special talents and needs, should also be considered. 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. 2d 834 (WD Ky. 2004); McFarland v. Jefferson Cty. . These decisions illustrate well how lower courts understood and followed Swanns enunciation of the relevant legal principle. [4], The Parents Involved decision was a "split decision." 76 76. And if Seattle School Dist. The findings should define the scope of any injury [and] the necessary remedy, id., at 505, and must be more than inherently unmeasurable claims of past wrongs, id., at 506. Supporting the school boards, one amicus has assured us that both early desegregation research and recent statistical and econometric analyses indicate that there are positive effects on minority student achievement scores arising from diverse school settings. Brief for American Educational Research Association as Amicus Curiae 10. 1, 458 U. S. 457, 472, n.15 (1982), post, at 5657, but there this Court expressly noted that it was not passing on the propriety of race-conscious student assignments in the absence of a finding of de jure segregation. 1011. Brief for Petitioner at 3637. 05908, at 224a225a, 253a259a, 307a. App. 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. Section 2. They constitute but one part of plans that depend primarily upon other, nonracial elements. Student Choice and Project Renaissance, 1991 to 1996. 10 important Supreme Court cases about education The new policy added an explicitly racial criterion: If a place exists in a school, then, irrespective of other transfer criteria, a white student may transfer to a predominantly black school, and a black student may transfer to a predominantly white school. See Grutter, 539 U.S. at 329; Gratz, 539 U.S. at 26869. And in each city, the school boards plans have evolved over time in ways that progressively diminish the plans use of explicit race-conscious criteria. When determining where to place a child or where to transfer a child both school districts use race as the qualifying factor on where to send the child. The segregationists in Brown argued that their racial classifications were benign, not invidious. For instance, a Texas appeals court in 1986 rejected a Fourteenth Amendment challenge to a voluntary integration plan by explaining: [T]he absence of a court order to desegregate does not mean that a school board cannot exceed minimum requirements in order to promote school integration. The student population of the school district is approximately 40% white, 60% non-white. appeals for the sixth circuit. It reported that most districts92 of them, in factadopted desegregation policies that combined two or more highly race-conscious strategies, for example, rezoning or pairing. Louisville began its integration efforts in earnest when a federal court in 1975 entered a school desegregation order. And, in Seattle, the disadvantaged student loses at most one year at the high school of his choice. 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)). They are based upon numerous sources, which for ease of exposition I have cataloged, along with their corresponding citations, at Appendix B, infra. It provided that each elementary school would have a black student population of between 15% and 50%; each middle and high school would have a black population and a white population that fell within a range, the boundaries of which were set at 15% above and 15% below the general student population percentages in the county at that grade level. The distinction between segregation by state action and racial imbalance caused by other factors has been central to our jurisprudence in this area for generations. Establishing a strong basis in evidence requires proper findings regarding the extent of the government units past racial discrimination. As I explained in Grutter, only those measures the State must take to provide a bulwark against anarchy or to prevent violence and a governments effort to remedy past discrimination for which it is responsible constitute compelling interests. The first consists of the District Court determination in the Louisville case when it dissolved its desegregation order that there was overwhelming evidence of the Boards good faith compliance with the desegregation Decree and its underlying purposes, indeed that the Board had treated the ideal of an integrated system as much more than a legal obligationthey consider it a positive, desirable policy and an essential element of any well-rounded public school education. Hampton II, 102 F.Supp. Indeed, in its brief Seattle simply assumes that the educational benefits track the racial breakdown of the district. 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. In Louisville, a federal court entered a remedial decree. It contends that these values which the Court recognized as important to the Michigan Law School are even more important at the high school level because not all students will go to college, meaning high school is the last chance for the educational system to instill in them these civic virtues. See ante, at 9 (Executive and legislative branches, which for generations now have considered these types of policies and procedures, should be permitted to employ them with candor and with confidence that a constitutional violation does not occur whenever a decisionmaker considers the impact a given approach might have on students of different races). Opposition to Writ of Certiorari at 20; Brief for Respondent at 16. Grutter emphasized that admitting minority students for the purpose of achieving racial balance, i.e., using a quota for this purpose, is unlawful. 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. See Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 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). After ninth grade, students can decide voluntarily to transfer to a preferred district high school (without any consideration of race-conscious criteria). The plans before us base school assignment decisions on students race. In order to satisfy this searching standard of review, the school districts must demonstrate that the use of individual racial classifications in the assignment plans here under review is narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling government interest. 1 etal. As for the Seattle case, the school district has gone further in describing the methods and criteria used to determine assignment decisions on the basis of individual racial classifications. 137 F.Supp. Moreover, this Court from Swann to Grutter has treated these civic effects as an important virtue of racially diverse education. of Oral Arg. No. As becomes clearer when the districts plan is further considered, Jefferson County has explained how and when it employs these classifications only in terms so broad and imprecise that they cannot withstand strict scrutiny. CRYSTAL D. MEREDITH, custodial parent and next friend of JOSHUA RYAN M c DONALD, PETITIONER. I shall apply the version of strict scrutiny that those cases embody. ; see also ante, at 22, n.15 (plurality opinion). Pp. Sch. See Plessy, 163 U. S., at 559 (Harlan, J., dissenting) (The white race deems itself to be the dominant race in this country. . More broadly, however, allowing racial diversity or balance as a compelling state interest, even if confined to secondary education, calls into question the Equal. As well, the District points out that it is no longer using the admission system that serves as the basis of this suit, and has not for several years, further demonstrating that any future injury is far from imminent. Pitts, 503 U. S. 467 , that interest is not involved here because the Seattle schools were never segregated by law nor subject to court-ordered desegregation, and the desegregation decree to which the Jefferson County schools were previously subject has been dissolved. v. Swann, 402 U. S. 43, 45 (1971), this Court, citing Swann, restated the point. This, in turn, has consequences of its own. 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). In the districts public schools approximately 41 percent of enrolled students are white; the remaining 59 percent, comprising all other racial groups, are classified by Seattle for assignment purposes as nonwhite. 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. This brings us to the dissents reliance on the Courts opinions in Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 244 (2003), and Grutter, 539 U. S. 306. 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.
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