Between 1968 and 1980, the number of black children attending a school where minority children constituted more than half of the school fell from 77% to 63% in the Nation (from 81% to 57% in the South) but then reversed direction by the year 2000, rising from 63% to 72% in the Nation (from 57% to 69% in the South). To Harris? 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. Swann addresses only a possible state objective; it says nothing of the permissible meansrace conscious or otherwisethat a school district might employ to achieve that objective. Pp. 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. 1, 458 U. S. 457, is directly on point. 539 U.S. at 316. gation without court orders); Branton, Little Rock Justia Annotations is a forum for attorneys to summarize, comment on, and analyze case law published on our site. The upshot is that myriad school districts operating in myriad circumstances have devised myriad plans, often with race-conscious elements, all for the sake of eradicating earlier school segregation, bringing about integration, or preventing retrogression. Compare ante, at 39 (It was not the inequality of the facilities but the fact of legally separating children on the basis of race on which the Court relied to find a constitutional violation in 1954), with Juris. Public Schools, 330 F.Supp. The measures required by those cases often included race-conscious practices, such as mandatory busing and race-based restrictions on voluntary transfers. 2d 876, 881882, 382 P.2d 878, 881882 (1963) (in bank). 10 on Reargument in Brown I, O.T. 1953, p.15 (Summary of Argument). (2007) In the context of public schooling, segregation is the deliberate operation of a school system to carry out a governmental policy to separate pupils in schools solely on the basis of race. Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. of Ed. MacFarland v. Jefferson County Public Schoolsand Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. Id. See 426 F. 3d 1162, 11931196 (CA9 2005) (Kozinski, J., concurring); Comfort v. Lynn School Comm., 418 F.3d 1, 2729 (CA1 2005) (Boudin, C.J., concurring). I shall not accept the school boards assurances on faith, cf. See, e.g., Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303 (1880); Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356 (1886); Brown, 347 U. S. 483; Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1 (1967); Regents of Univ. Parents Involved VII, 426 F.3d, at 1192. See, e.g., Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1 (1967) (marriage); New Orleans City Park Improvement Assn. See Seattle School District, Ethnic Count 2005-2006, at 8. Individual schools will fall in and out of balance in the natural course, and the appropriate balance itself will shift with a school districts changing demographics. . Cf. 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). 2001) (describing President Nixons lobbying for affirmative action plans, e.g., the Philadelphia Plan); White, Affirmative Actions Alamo: Gerald Ford Returns to Fight Once More for Michigan, Time, Aug. 23, 1999, p. 48 (reporting on President Fords support for affirmative action); Schuck, Affirmative Action: Past, Present, and Future, 20 Yale L. & Poly Rev. The Seattle school district runs ten public high schools. Conversely, to take another example, evidence from a district in Norfolk, Virginia, shows that resegregated schools led to a decline in the achievement test scores of children of all races. A 1987 Civil Rights Commission Study of 125 school districts in the Nation demonstrated the breadth and variety of desegregation plans: The [study] documents almost 300 desegregation plans that were implemented between 1961 and 1985. the Chief Justice, joined by Justice Scalia, Justice Thomas, and Justice Alito, concluded for additional reasons in Parts IIIB and IV that the plans at issue are unconstitutional under this Courts precedents. 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. Statements after the decision And during the same time, hundreds of local school districts have adopted student assignment plans that use race-conscious criteria. Consequently, regardless of the perceived negative effects of racial imbalance, I will not defer to legislative majorities where the Constitution forbids it. See also Bakke, 438 U. S., at 289291 (opinion of Powell, J.) A non-profit group, Parents Involved in Community Schools, 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. McFarland v. Jefferson Cty. While I join Justice Breyers eloquent and unanswerable dissent in its entirety, it is appropriate to add these words. All of those plans represent local efforts to bring about the kind of racially integrated education that Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954), long ago promisedefforts that this Court has repeatedly required, permitted, and encouraged local authorities to undertake. In dozens of subsequent cases, this Court told school districts previously segregated by law what they must do at a minimum to comply with Browns constitutional holding. 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. And it ordered the board not to control access to those scarce programs through the use of racial targets. VII, 1, ch. Perhaps for this reason, the dissent conflates the concepts of segregation and racial imbalance: If racial imbalance equates to segregation, then it must also be constitutionally acceptable to use racial balancing to remedy racial imbalance. This assertion is inexplicable. In fact, all the cases Justice Breyers dissent cites as evidence of the prevailing legal assumption, see post, at 2527, were decided before this Court definitively determined that all racial classifications must be analyzed by a reviewing court under strict scrutiny. Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peńa, 515 U. S. 200, 227 (1995). 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). But in Seattle the plans are defended as necessary to address the consequences of racially identifiable housing patterns. See, e.g., Brief for Appellees on Reargument in Briggs v. Elliott, O.T. 1953, No. 2d 158. Swann, 402 U. S., 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. 05908. That is particularly true given that, when Swann was decided, this Court had not yet confirmed that strict scrutiny applies to racial classifications like those before us. The Ninth Circuit held that the burden had not been met since counsel for the School District admitted it was likely that the policy would be reinstated. Will Louisville and all similar school districts have to return to systems like Louisvilles initial 1956 plan, which did not consider race at all? Observers claim that the Supreme Court's decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. The Seattle School District has begun providing transportation to students who live more than 2.5 miles from their assigned high school. there are two compelling interests: 1. remedying the effect of past intentional discrimination 2. interest of student body diversity in higher education 1. 1, 50 (2002) (describing President Carters support for affirmation action). The judgments of the Courts of Appeals for the Sixth and Ninth Circuits are reversed, and the cases are Lacking a cognizable interest in remediation, neither of these plans can survive strict scrutiny because neither plan serves a genuinely compelling state interest. Neither school district has made any such specific findings. Opposition to Writ of Certiorari at 20; Brief for Respondent at 16. Andy suffered from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and dyslexia, but had made good progress with hands-on instruction, and his mother and middle school teachers thought that the smaller biotechnology program held the most promise for his continued success. 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? Just as the school districts lack an interest in preventing resegregation, they also have no present interest in remedying past segregation. summary. Just as diversity in higher education was deemed compelling in Grutter, diversity in public primary and secondary schoolswhere there is even more to gainmust be, a fortiori, a compelling state interest. 1", Learn how and when to remove this template message, Guidance on the Voluntary Use of Race to Achieve Diversity and Avoid Racial Isolation in Elementary and Secondary Schools, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, McFarland v. Jefferson County Public Schools, Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, "PARENTS INVOLVED IN COMMUNITY SCHOOLS V. SEATTLE: THE END OF RACE BASED SCHOOL POPULATIONS", "Schools Are More Segregated Today Than During the Late 1960s", "PARENTS INVOLVED IN COMMUNITY SCHOOLS v.SEATTLE SCHOOL DIST. At issue were efforts for voluntary school desegregation and integration in Seattle, Washington, and Louisville, Kentucky. in No. The upshot is that these plans specific features(1) their limited and historically-diminishing use of race, (2) their strong reliance upon other non-race-conscious elements, (3) their history and the manner in which the districts developed and modified their approach, (4) the comparison with prior plans, and (5) the lack of reasonably evident alternativestogether show that the districts plans are narrowly tailored to achieve their compelling goals. In Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No.1 (2007), the Supreme Court ruled that O public school policies that assigned students to a school on the basis of race were constitutional. Thus, the programs are subject to the general rule that government race-based decisionmaking is unconstitutional. 1 of King Cty., Washington, and the OCR (June 9, 1978) (filed with the Court as Exh. of Boston v. Board of Education, 352 Mass. The Seattle Plan: Mandatory Busing, 1978 to 1988. 57; 426 F.3d 1162, 11691170 (CA9 2005) (en banc) (Parents Involved VII). Governmental classifications that command people to march in different directions based on racial typologies can cause a new divisiveness. However, racial imbalance without intentional state action to separate the races does not amount to segregation. Two of the plaintiffs in this case had children who were entering high school in the fall of 2000. 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. And in light of those challenges, they have asked us not to take from their hands the instruments they have used to rid their schools of racial segregation, instruments that they believe are needed to overcome the problems of cities divided by race and poverty. See also Statement of Appellees Opposing Jurisdiction and Motion to Dismiss or Affirm in Davis v. County School Board, O.T. 1952, No. See Reply Brief at 3. The degree of heterogeneity within these districts is immediately apparent. 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. Rather, such powers should have been temporary and used only to overcome the widespread resistance to the dictates of the Constitution. 515 U. S., at 125 (Thomas, J., concurring). Compare ante, at 39 (history will be heard), with Brewer v. Quarterman, 550 U. S. ___, ___ (2007) (slip op., at 11) (Roberts, C.J., dissenting) (It is a familiar adage that history is written by the victors). See also Bakke, 438 U.S., at 312, 313, 98 S. Ct. 2733, 57 L. E. 2d 750 (opinion of Powell, J.).". Id., at 43. Another amicus surveys several social science studies and concludes that a fair and comprehensive analysis of the research shows that there is no clear and consistent evidence of [educational] benefits. Brief for David J. Armor etal. 1, 458 U. S. 457, 472, n. 15 (1982). See Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U. S. 1 (1958). If the Court defers to the district, this will reaffirm local autonomy and give districts broad discretion to develop educational policy. Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 2d 834, 839840, and n. 6 (WD Ky. 2004) (McFarland I). See id., at 494 (The impact [of segregation] is greater when it has the sanction of the law). The complaint alleged that the Seattle School Board had created or perpetuated unlawful racial segregation through, e.g., certain school-transfer criteria, a construction program that needlessly built new schools in white areas, district line-drawing criteria, the maintenance of inferior facilities at black schools, the use of explicit racial criteria in the assignment of teachers and other staff, and a general pattern of delay in respect to the implementation of promised desegregation efforts. Without attempting in these cases to set forth all the interests a school district might assert, it suffices to note that our prior cases, in evaluating the use of racial classifications in the school context, have recognized two interests that qualify as compelling. That, too, strongly supports the lawfulness of their methods. 1617. See also Ho v. San Francisco Unified School Dist., 147 F.3d 854, 865 (CA9 1998). Instead, it selectively relies on inapplicable precedent and even dicta while dismissing contrary holdings, alters and misapplies our well-established legal framework for assessing equal protection challenges to express racial classifications, and greatly exaggerates the consequences of todays decision. To Harris? As to recruiting faculty on the basis of race, both cities have tried, but only as one part of a broader program. L. 95561, Tit. In this Courts paradigmatic segregation cases, there was a local ordinance, state statute, or state constitutional provision requiring racial separation. And what of the long history and moral vision that the Fourteenth Amendment itself embodies? Court-Imposed Guidelines and Busing, 1972 to 1991. 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? See ibid. Similarly, the fact that Joshua has been granted a transfer does not eliminate the Courts jurisdiction; Jefferson Countys racial guidelines apply at all grade levels and he may again be subject to race-based assignment in middle school. 458 U. S., at 472, n. 15. Justice Kennedy sets forth two additional concerns related to narrow tailoring. In respect to Louisville, he says first that officials stated (1) that kindergarten assignments are not subject to the race-conscious guidelines, and (2) that the child at issue here was denied permission to attend the kindergarten he wanted because of those guidelines. The basic problem with the pluralitys technical dicta-based response lies in its overly theoretical approach to case law, an approach that emphasizes rigid distinctions between holdings and dicta in a way that serves to mask the radical nature of todays decision. appeals for the sixth circuit. 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. The petitioner in the Louisville case received a letter from the school board informing her that her kindergartener would not be allowed to attend the school of petitioners choosing because of the childs race. And even if the determination is difficult, it is one the dissent acknowledges must be made to determine what remedies school districts are required to adopt. No. dave chappelle: the closer vinyl. No. Evidence from the Segregated Schooling of African American Children, in Beyond Desegregation 209226 (M. Shujaa ed. (Fourteenth Amendment creates rights guaranteed to the individual. Student Choice and Project Renaissance, 1991 to 1996. 2, p. 76 ([A] State has power to establish a school system which is capable of efficient administration, taking into account local problems and conditions). Indeed, if there is no such plan, or if such plans are purely imagined, it is understandable why, as the plurality notes, ante, at 27, Seattle school officials concentrated on diminishing the racial component of their districts plan, but did not pursue eliminating that element entirely. "[6] Justice Breyer noted, "No one here disputes that Louisville's segregation was de jure" and cites a 1956 memo where the Seattle School Board admitted its schools were de jure segregated as well. Nothing in the extensive history of desegregation efforts over the past 50 years gives the districts, or this Court, any reason to believe that another method is possible to accomplish these goals. Does it insist upon especially strong evidence supporting inclusion of multiple minority groups in an otherwise lawful government minority-assistance program? See 539 U. S., at 326. at 12. The dissent claims that the law requires application here of a standard of review that is not strict in the traditional sense of that word. Post, at 36. The Seattle School Board challenged the constitutionality of the initiative. 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 way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. In my view, to defer to ones preferred result is not to defer at all. Here, Roberts provides the following string citation: Here Roberts cites: "See 539 U.S., at 320, 123 S. Ct. 2325, 156 L. Ed. The Fourteenth Amendment does not enact the dissents newly minted understanding of liberty. in No. 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. Well, we want to have the schools that make up the percentage of students of the population). Brief for Respondents in No. Parents Involved in Community Schools, a non-profit organization, argues that the Districts policy amounts to unconstitutional racial balancing under the Supreme Courts 2003 decisions in Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003) and Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244 (2003). Can we really be sure that the racial theories that motivated Dred Scott and Plessy are a relic of the past or that future theories will be nothing but beneficent and progressive? The Constitution is not that malleable. The Current Lawsuit, 2003 to the Present. Parents Involved commenced this suit in the Western District of Washington, alleging that Seattles use of race in assignments violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,[Footnote 4] Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,[Footnote 5] and the Washington Civil Rights Act. Interpreting that States Constitution, the Connecticut Supreme Court has held legally inadequate the reliance by a local school district solely upon some of the techniques Justice Kennedy today recommends (e.g., reallocating resources, etc.). . See McDaniel, 402 U. S., at 41 ([S]teps will almost invariably require that students be assigned differently because of their race. . http://reportcard. See id., at 380 (The very analysis for dissolving desegregation decrees supports continued maintenance of a desegregated system as a compelling state interest). This argument that different rules should govern racial classifications designed to include rather than exclude is not new; it has been repeatedly pressed in the past, see, e.g., Gratz, 539 U. S., at 282 (Breyer, J., concurring in judgment); id., at 301 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting); Adarand, supra, at 243 (Stevens, J., dissenting); Wygant, 476 U. S., at 316317 (Stevens, J., dissenting), and has been repeatedly rejected. One amicus reports that [i]n study after study, racial composition of a student body, when isolated, proves to be an insignificant determinant of student achievement. Brief for Dr. John Murphy etal. The present cases, unlike Fullilove but like our decision in Wygant, 476 U. S. 267, require us to ask whether the Board[s] actions[s] advanc[e] the public interest in educating children for the future, id., at 313 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (emphasis added). A longstanding and unbroken line of legal authority tells us that the Equal Protection Clause permits local school boards to use race-conscious criteria to achieve positive race-related goals, even when the Constitution does not compel it. 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. Eight of those States condition approval of transfers to another school or district on whether the transfer will produce increased racial integration. 2d 358, 359, 363, 370, 377 (WD Ky. 2000) (Hampton II). Indeed, it is a cruel distortion of history to compare Topeka, Kansas, in the 1950s to Louisville and Seattle in the modern dayto equate the plight of Linda Brown (who was ordered to attend a Jim Crow school) to the circumstances of Joshua McDonald (whose request to transfer to a school closer to home was initially declined). What other numbers are the boards to use as a starting point? seattleschools.org/schools/aaa/history.htm (all Internet materials as visited June 26, 2007, and available in Clerk of Courts case file). 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.