(If petitioners purpose is to assure within its student body some specified percentage of a particular group merely because of its race or ethnic origin, such a preferential purpose must be rejected as facially invalid). Justia Annotations is a forum for attorneys to summarize, comment on, and analyze case law published on our site. v. Swann, 402 U. S. 43, 4546 (1971). 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. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion of the court as to Parts I, II, III-A and III-C. Part I recounted the background of the plans of the two school boards. Accessed 12 Feb. 2023. And it is for them to decide, to quote the pluralitys slogan, whether the best way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. Ante, at 4041. Overall these efforts brought about considerable racial integration. No. In the Seattle case, the school district has gone further in describing the methods and criteria used to determine assignment decisions based on individual racial classifications, but it has nevertheless failed to explain why, in a district composed of a diversity of races, with only a minority of the students classified as white, it has employed the crude racial categories of white and non-white as the basis for its assignment decisions. No. Second, there is an educational element: an interest in overcoming the adverse educational effects produced by and associated with highly segregated schools. Justice Thomas recoils at the suggestion that black students can only learn if they are sitting next to white students. See ante, at 1112, 3132, n.16, 3435 (citing Adarand, supra, at 227; Johnson v. California, 543 U. S. 499, 505 (2005); Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 306, 326 (2003)). Again, though, the school boards have no say in deciding whether an interest is compelling. [I]ntegration, we are told, has three essential elements. Ibid. [Footnote 3]. App. 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. k12. Like the University of Michigan undergraduate plan struck down in Gratz, 539 U. S., at 275, the plans here do not provide for a meaningful individualized review of applicants but instead rely on racial classifications in a nonindividualized, mechanical way. 05908, at 308a. Establishing a strong basis in evidence requires proper findings regarding the extent of the government units past racial discrimination. In particular, they emphasize that the children on whose high school admissions the case was originally based have since graduated high school, while the children of the other involved parents are not yet at the high school age. 3 Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist., No. 1. there are two compelling interests: 1. remedying the effect of past intentional discrimination 2. interest of student body diversity in higher education 1. 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. Furthermore, it was only used in a limited number of schoolsthose that were both over subscribed and relatively unintegrated. Id. 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. See 539 U. S., at 326. Racial imbalance is the failure of a school districts individual schools to match or approximate the demographic makeup of the student population at large. The fact that state and local governments had been discriminating on the basis of race for a long time was irrelevant to the Brown Court. In doing so, it sought to deemphasize the use of racial criteria and to increase the likelihood that a student would receive an assignment at his first or second choice high school. In neither city did these prior attempts prove sufficient to achieve the citys integration goals. at 12. Far from being narrowly tailored to its purposes, this system threatens to defeat its own ends, and the school district has provided no convincing explanation for its design. There is no guarantee, however, that students of different races in the same school will actually spend time with one another. The plurality would decline their modest request. Kennedy's opinion also emphasized the risks posed by allowing for the proliferation of mechanically imposed individual race classifications of its citizens. See Grutter, 539 U.S. at 328. Upon enrolling their child with the district, parents are required to identify their child as a member of a particular racial group. 05908, at 284a. [Footnote 10]. 1 etal. This is incorrect. Part IB, supra. In Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle (2007), the United States Supreme Courtfound that the school district was using race in an unconstitutional manner in its assignment plan. This argument is unavailing. Nineteen of the districts forty-six elementary schools were between 80% and 100% black. The plurality pays inadequate attention to this law, to past opinions rationales, their language, and the contexts in which they arise. of Boston in 1968. The District asserts that it helped these schools by allowing students from the schools to attend other schools, furthering the goals of ending racial isolation and promoting equal access. (2007) (a)Because racial classifications are simply too pernicious to permit any but the most exact connection between justification and classification, Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U. S. 448, 537 (Stevens, J., dissenting), governmental distributions of burdens or benefits based on individual racial classifications are reviewed under strict scrutiny, e.g., Johnson v. California, 543 U. S. 499, 505506. Id. Since Grutter explicitly stated that seeking to maintain a specific percentage of minority students in the student body was patently unconstitutional, PICS contends that the Districts plan is also ipso facto unconstitutional. No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. 78 Stat. This is a decision that the Court and the Nation will come to regret. of Oral Arg. 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. Yet, as explained, each has failed to provide the support necessary for that proposition. Well, we want to have the schools that make up the percentage of students of the population). In 19761977, the plan involved the busing of about 500 middle school students (300 black students and 200 white students). And they are not uniquely relevant to schools or uniquely teachable in a formal educational setting. Id., at 347. 05-908, was filed by a group of parents who had formed a nonprofit corporation to. First, there is a historical and remedial element: an interest in setting right the consequences of prior conditions of segregation. See, e.g., Henderson, Greenberg, Schneider, Uribe, & Verdugo, High Quality Schooling for African American Students, in Beyond Desegregation 166 (M. Shujaa ed. The plans here are not tailored to achieving a degree of diversity necessary to realize the asserted educational benefits; instead the plans are tailored, in the words of Seattles Manager of Enrollment Planning, Technical Support, and Demographics, to the goal established by the school board of attain-ing a level of diversity within the schools that approximates the districts overall demographics. App. To McDaniel? 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. Because of its importance, I shall repeat what this Court said about the matter in Swann. 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. However, the question as to whether the constitution requires a local school board, or a State, to act to undo de facto school segregation is simply not here concerned. To Seattle School Dist. Project Renaissance again revised the boards racial guidelines. The latter approach would be informed by Grutter, though of course the criteria relevant to student placement would differ based on the age of the students, the needs of the parents, and the role of the schools. The enduring hope is that race should not matter; the reality is that too often it does. Under our Constitution the individual, child or adult, can find his own identity, can define her own persona, without state intervention that classifies on the basis of his race or the color of her skin. Primary and secondary schools are where the education of this Nations children begins, where each of us begins to absorb those values we carry with us to the end of our days. After all, this Court has in many cases explicitly permitted districts to use target ratios based upon the districts underlying population. Accepting Justice Breyers approach would do no more than move us from separate but equal to unequal but benign. Metro Broadcasting, supra, at 638 (Kennedy, J., dissenting). (b)Despite the districts assertion that they employed individual racial classifications in a way necessary to achieve their stated ends, the minimal effect these classifications have on student assignments suggests that other means would be effective. The constitutional problems with government race-based decisionmaking are not diminished in the slightest by the presence or absence of an intent to oppress any race or by the real or asserted well-meaning motives for the race-based decisionmaking. of Ed., 369 F.2d 55, 61 (CA6 1966), cert. [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. 2 1996 Memorandum 47, and Attachment 2; Hampton I, supra, at 768. . The Seattle school district runs ten public high schools. When asked for a range of percentage that would be diverse, however, Seattles expert said it was important to have sufficient numbers so as to avoid students feeling any kind of specter of exceptionality. App. Id. The history of the plans before us, their educational importance, their highly limited use of raceall these and moremake clear that the compelling interest here is stronger than in Grutter. Certainly if the constitutionality of the stark use of race in these cases were as established as the dissent would have it, there would have been no need for the extensive analysis undertaken in Grutter. No. 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. See North Carolina Bd. . "[26] An interest "linked to nothing other than proportional representation of various races . See also Bakke, 438 U. S., at 289291 (opinion of Powell, J.) The Constitution does not permit race-based government decisionmaking simply because a school district claims a remedial purpose and proceeds in good faith with arguably pure motives. 1, 458 U. S. 457); see generally Siqueland 2324. App. It also determined that the actual case or controversy requirement was met despite the School Districts discontinuation of the use of race in high school admissions. 05908, at 303a. This argument is unavailing; the groups members have children in all levels of the districts schools, and the complaint sought declaratory and injunctive relief on behalf of members whose elementary and middle school children may be denied admission to the high schools of their choice in the future. Hence it is important to consider the potential consequences of the pluralitys approach, as measured against the Constitutions objectives. 547 U. S. __ (2006). ", Roberts cites to: "539 U.S., at 329, 334, 123 S. Ct. 2325, 156 L. Ed. The District also contends that the racial tiebreaker was necessary because other race-neutral activities were inadequate to achieve their compelling interests. 1806, 20 U. S.C. 7231 et seq. App. See also Bakke, 438 U.S., at 312, 313, 98 S. Ct. 2733, 57 L. E. 2d 750 (opinion of Powell, J.).". 2d 304 (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted). The validity of our concern that racial balancing has no logical stopping point, Croson, supra, at 498 (quoting Wygant, supra, at 275 (plurality opinion); internal quotation marks omitted); see also Grutter, supra, at 343, is demonstrated here by the degree to which the districts tie their racial guidelines to their demographics. If a parent identifies more than one race on the form, [t]he application will not be accepted and, if necessary, the enrollment service person taking the application will indicate one box. App. Nathan Hales 20052006 enrollment was 17.3 percent Asian-American, 10.7 percent African-American, 8 percent Latino, 61.5 percent Caucasian, and 2.5 percent Native-American. And during the same time, hundreds of local school districts have adopted student assignment plans that use race-conscious criteria. 3, p.4647 (If this case were to be decided solely on the basis of precedent, this brief could have been much more limited. And if Seattle School Dist. . See Tr. See Parts IA and IB, supra, at 618. Narrow tailoring requires serious, good faith consideration of workable race-neutral alternatives, Grutter, supra, 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. . Id., at 39a. The dissents approach confers on judges the power to say what sorts of discrimination are benign and which are invidious. 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. Other problems are evident in Seattles system, but there is no need to address them now. App. The plan provided for open high school enrollment. App. See, e.g., Brief for Kansas on Reargument in Brown v. Board of Education, O.T. 1953, No. It is even more difficult to accept the pluralitys contrary view, namely that the underlying plan was unconstitutional. With respect to avoiding racial isolation, Kennedy wrote, "A compelling interest exists in avoiding racial isolation, an interest that a school district, in its discretion and expertise, may choose to pursue. The wide variety of different integration plans that school districts use throughout the Nation suggests that the problem of racial segregation in schools, including de facto segregation, is difficult to solve. See Brief for Respondents in No. Outside the school context, this Courts cases reflect the fact that racial mixing does not always lead to harmony and understanding. In over one-third of the assignments affected by the racial tiebreaker, then, the use of race in the end made no difference, and the district could identify only 52 students who were ultimately affected adversely by the racial tiebreaker in that it resulted in assignment to a school they had not listed as a preference and to which they would not otherwise have been assigned. in Davis v. County School Board, O.T. 1952, No. Like the dissent, the segregationists repeatedly cautioned the Court to consider practicalities and not to embrace too theoretical a view of the Fourteenth Amendment. [29] The districts have also failed to show that they considered methods other than explicit racial classifications to achieve their stated goals. Pp. Statements after the decision 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.). 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. See App. It defines the democratic element as an interest in producing an educational environment that reflects the pluralistic society in which our children will live. Post, at 39. Today, the Court holds that state entities may not experiment with race-based means to achieve ends they deem socially desirable. (citing Armor & Rossell, Desegregation and Resegregation in the Public Schools, in Beyond the Color Line 239 (A. Thernstrom & S. Thernstrom eds. It is my firm conviction that no Member of the Court that I joined in 1975 would have agreed with today's decision. 2, p. 83 (It [South Carolina] is confident of its good faith and intention to produce equality for all of its children of whatever race or color. The Court made clear that [s]trict scrutiny does not trea[t] dissimilar race-based decisions as though they were equally objectionable. Ibid. Gratz, supra, at 301 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting); Adarand, supra, at 243 (Stevens, J., dissenting); Carter, When Victims Happen To Be Black, 97 Yale L.J. The districts here invoke the ultimate goal of those who filed Brown and subsequent cases to support their argument, but the argument of the plaintiff in Brown was that the Equal Protection Clause prevents states from according differential treatment to American children on the basis of their color or race, and that view prevailedthis Court ruled in its remedial opinion that Brown required school districts to achieve a system of determining admission to the public schools on a nonracial basis. Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U. S. 294, 300301 (emphasis added). It is not simply one factor weighed with others in reaching a decision, as in Grutter; it is the factor. He concluded by saying that the current Court has greatly changed and that previously: "[I]t wasmore faithful to Brown and more respectful of our precedent than it is today. Brief for Respondents in No. [Footnote 13]. At a minimum, the pluralitys views would threaten a surge of race-based litigation. 1 of King Cty., Washington, and the OCR (June 9, 1978) (filed with the Court as Exh. Remediation of past de jure segregation is a one-time process involving the redress of a discrete legal injury inflicted by an identified entity. Furthermore, it is unclear whether increased interracial contact improves racial attitudes and relations. They constitute but one part of plans that depend primarily upon other, nonracial elements. See Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. Parents of school children sued the Seattle School Districts after their children were assigned to particular schools based on racial classifications to achieve integration in the school system. And federal courts would rightly hesitate to find unitary status if the consequences of the ruling were so dramatically disruptive. 44, p.6 (200304 Jefferson County Public Schools Elementary Student Assignment Application, Section B) (Assignment is made to a school for Primary 1 (Kindergarten) through Grade Five as long as racial guidelines are maintained. 05908. A similar reasoning could be applied in this case. See Brief for Respondent at 13. Id., at 240 (Thomas, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (As far as the Constitution is concerned, it is irrelevant whether a governments racial classifications are drawn by those who wish to oppress a race or by those who have a sincere desire to help those thought to be disadvantaged). Roberts provides the following string citation: Parents Involved in Cmty. And it adjusted its alphabet-based system for grouping and busing students. Both districts faced problems that reflected initial periods of severe racial segregation, followed by such remedial efforts as busing, followed by evidence of resegregation, followed by a need to end busing and encourage the return of, e.g., suburban students through increased student choice. Attorney General, to John F. Kennedy, President (Jan. 24, 1963) (hereinafter Kennedy Report), available at http://www.gilderlehrman.org/search/collection_pdfs/05/63/0/05630.pdf (all Internet materials as visited June 26, 2007, and available in Clerk of Courts case file) (reporting successful efforts by the Government to induce voluntary desegregation). As the foregoing demonstrates, racial balancing is sometimes a constitutionally permissible remedy for the discrete legal wrong of de jure segregation, and when directed to that end, racial balancing is an exception to the general rule that government race-based decisionmaking is unconstitutional. . The highest white student population would have been 64 percent, which PICS contends still contains a significant portion of minority students. 2d 304. See also, e.g., Crawford v. Board of Ed. The Seattle school district classifies children as white or nonwhite; the Jefferson County school district as black or other. In Seattle, this racial classification is used to allocate slots in oversubscribed high schools. Parents IV at 1169. See also Grutter, supra, at 326 ([G]overnmental action based on racea group classification long recognized as in most circumstances irrelevant and therefore prohibitedshould be subjected to detailed judicial inquiry (internal quotation marks and emphasis omitted)). In the real world, it is regrettable to say, it cannot be a universal constitutional principle. in No. How could such a plan be lawful the day before dissolution but then become unlawful the very next day? The orders requirements reflected a (newly enlarged) school district student population of about 135,000, approximately 20% of whom were black.
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