Similarly, the citation of Crawford v. Board of Ed.
{{meta.fullTitle}} IV); 34 CFR 280.2, 280.4 (2006) (implementing regulations). But the examples the dissent mentionsfor example, a provision of the No Child Left Behind Act that requires States to set measurable objectives to track the achievement of students from major racial and ethnic groups, 20 U. S.C. 6311(b)(2)(C)(v)have nothing to do with the pertinent issues in these cases. This distinction is critically important in the context of education. See generally N. Thompson & C. Marr, Building for Learning: Seattle Public Schools Histories, 18622000 (2002). summary.aspx?schoolId=1104&reportLevel=School&orgLinkId=1104&yrs=; The second government interest we have recognized as compelling for purposes of strict scrutiny is the interest in diversity in higher education upheld in Grutter, 539 U. S., at 328. Assertions of general societal discrimination are plainly insufficient. This Court recognized as much in its opinion, which stated that the school board had an affirmative duty to disestablish the dual school system. McDaniel, supra, at 41. The districts also quote with approval an in-chambers opinion in which then-Justice Rehnquist made a suggestion to the same effect. Asian, Hispanic, White, etc. Sixteen years into the plan, 14 of 19 middle and high schools remained almost totally white or almost totally black. Swann did not hide its understanding of the law in a corner of an obscure opinion or in a footnote, unread but by experts. The plurality cannot avoid this simple fact. The two children were denied their first, second, and third choice schools, and consequently assigned to Ingraham High School. 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. The Court deferred to local authorities in making its determination, noting that in inquiring into reasonableness there must necessarily be a large discretion on the part of the legislature. Ibid. In part for those reasons, the Court has never permitted outright racial balancing solely for the purpose of achieving a particular racial balance. The plan then drew new geographical school assignment zones designed to satisfy these guidelines; the district could reassign students if particular schools failed to meet the guidelines and was required to do so if a school repeatedly missed these targets. Again, neither school board asserts that its race-based actions were taken to remedy prior discrimination. A non-profit group, Parents Involved in Community Schools (Parents), sued the District, arguing that the racial tiebreaker violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Washington state law. v. Brinkman, 433 U. S. 406, 413 (1977); Dayton Bd. See Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339, 343344 (1960) (admonishing that, in dealing with claims under broad provisions of the Constitution, which derive content by an interpretive process of inclusion and exclusion, it is imperative that generalizations, based on and qualified by the concrete situations that gave rise to them, must not be applied out of context in disregard of variant controlling facts). This will be weighed against the consequences of using race as an isolated factor in classifying students. Regardless of what Justice Breyers goals might be, this Court does not sit to create a society that includes all Americans or to solve the problems of troubled inner city schooling. Ibid. Accepting racial balancing as a compelling state interest would justify imposing racial proportionality throughout American society, contrary to the Courts repeated admonitions that this is unconstitutional. 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. 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. And what has happened to Swann? The statute establishing MSAP permits granting federal grants to magnet programs that seek to decrease minority group isolation. 20 U.S.C. It also cited to Justice Powells opinion in Bakke, approving of the limited use of race-conscious criteria in a university-admissions affirmative action case. This Court has previously done just the opposite, permitting a race-conscious remedy without any kind of court decree. of Ed. 2, p. 79 (But be that doctrine what it may, somewhere, sometime to every principle comes a moment of repose when it has been so often announced, so confidently relied upon, so long continued, that it passes the limits of judicial discretion and disturbance. 252, 42 U. S.C. 2000d. Id., at 328 (Our holding today is in keeping with our tradition of giving a degree of deference to a universitys academic decisions). 05915, p. 48, but we are nonetheless obliged to ensure that it exists, Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp., 546 U. S. 500, 514 (2006). Approximately 34 percent of the districts 97,000 students are black; most of the remaining 66 percent are white. Lacking a cognizable interest in remediation, neither of these plans can survive strict scrutiny because neither plan serves a genuinely compelling state interest. See also C. Sumner, Equality Before the Law: Unconstitutionality of Separate Colored Schools in Massachusetts, in 2 The Works of Charles Sumner 327, 371 (1849) (The law contemplates not only that all be taught, but that all shall be taught together). Opposition to Writ of Certiorari at 20; Brief for Respondent at 16. Eleven other States require local boards to deny transfers that are See 448 U. S., at 539. Compare ante, at 29, with supra, at 69. But in its search for a compelling interest, the dissent casually accepts even the most tenuous interests asserted on behalf of the plans, grouping them all under the term integration. See post, at 37. PICS cites previous Court cases holding that when a means used does not actually address all the harm it purports to address, it cannot be a compelling interest. In both Seattle and Louisville, the local school districts began with schools that were highly segregated in fact. Arkansas, for example, provides by statute that [n]o student may transfer to a nonresident district where the percentage of enrollment for the students race exceeds that percentage in the students resident district. Ark. In 2001, after the decree had been dissolved, Jefferson County adopted the voluntary student assignment plan at issue in this case. This fundamental principle goes back, in this context, to Brown itself. Any other approach would freeze the status quo that is the very target of all desegregation processes.). 1011. Louisville began its integration efforts in earnest when a federal court in 1975 entered a school desegregation order. Most worked at unskilled jobs. in No. Grutter itself reiterated that outright racial balancing is patently unconstitutional. 539 U. S., at 330. See post, at 3745. See, e.g., Springfield School Comm. One commentator, reviewing dozens of studies of the educational benefits of desegregated schooling, found that the studies have provided remarkably consistent results, showing that: (1) black students educational achievement is improved in integrated schools as compared to racially isolated schools, (2) black students educational achievement is improved in integrated classes, and (3) the earlier that black students are removed from racial isolation, the better their educational outcomes. However closely related race-based assignments may be to achieving racial balance, that itself cannot be the goal, whether labeled racial diversity or anything else. The dissent points to data that indicate that black and white students in desegregated schools are less racially prejudiced than those in segregated schools. Post, at 40 (internal quotation marks omitted). 10226a. Wygant, 476 U. S., at 283. Finally, the outcome of this case will give some perspective into how the new composition of the Supreme Court views the still controversial issue of affirmative action. The suggestion that our decision today is somehow inconsistent with our disposition of that appeal is belied by the fact that neither the lower courts, the respondent school districts, nor any of their 51 amici saw fit even to cite the case. [1][2] Chief Justice Roberts wrote in his plurality opinion that The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.[1] Some have credited this decision as contributing to schools resegregating in the United States, and it's been noted that American schools are more racially segregated now than in the late 1960s.[3]. 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. See, e.g., Columbus Bd. From almost the beginning, the Supreme Court contended that under this article it was unconstitutional for federal courts to issue mere advisory opinions; rather, the federal courts jurisdiction is restricted to deciding actual cases and controversies. See Brief for Respondents in No. The dream of a Nation of equal citizens in a society where race is irrelevant to personal opportunity and achievement would be lost in a mosaic of shifting preferences based on inherently unmeasurable claims of past wrongs. Id., at 505506. Pp. With this factual background in mind, I turn to the legal question: Does the United States Constitution prohibit these school boards from using race-conscious criteria in the limited ways at issue here? before adopting (or permitting the parties to agree on) a remedy . 05915, p. 10; see also App. 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. See App. In fact, six of the Seattle high schools involved in this case were built by the 1920s; the other four were open by the early 1960s. 05908, p. 42. See Wygant v. Jackson Bd. But the district vigorously defends the constitutionality of its race-based program, and nowhere suggests that if this litigation is resolved in its favor it will not resume using race to assign students. Because the referendum would have prohibited the adoption of a school-integration plan that involved mandatory busing, and because it would have imposed a special burden on school integration plans (plans that sought to integrate previously segregated schools), the Court found it unconstitutional. The tenth high school, West Seattle, is located west of downtown. See, e.g., Hallinan 745; Quillian & Campbell, Beyond Black and White: The Present and Future of Multiracial Friendship Segregation, 68 Am. 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. However, the dissenters argued that the Constitution permits such desegregation even though it does not require it. By way of contrast, I do not claim to know how best to stop harmful discrimination; how best to create a society that includes all Americans; how best to overcome our serious problems of increasing de facto segregation, troubled inner city schooling, and poverty correlated with race. Post, at 43. See also Adarand, 515 U. S., at 261262 (1995) (Stevens, J., dissenting) (This program, then, if in part a remedy for past discrimination, is most importantly a forward-looking response to practical problems faced by minority subcontractors). The highest white student population would have been 64 percent, which PICS contends still contains a significant portion of minority students. 05908, pp. For the dissents purposes, the relevant hard-won gains are the present racial compositions in the individual schools in Seattle and Louisville. [Footnote 18]. More broadly, however, allowing racial diversity or balance as a compelling state interest, even if confined to secondary education, calls into question the Equal. 4 Id., at 1516; Memorandum from Stephen W. Daeschner, Superintendent, to the Board of Education, Jefferson Cty. Nevertheless, Justice Kennedy suggests that school boards: may pursue the goal of bringing together students of diverse backgrounds and races through other means, including strategic site selection of new schools; drawing attendance zones with general recognition of the demographics of neighborhoods; allocating resources for special programs; recruiting students and faculty in a targeted fashion; and tracking enrollments, performance, and other statistics by race. Ante, at 8. Grutter, supra, at 326; see also Part IIA, infra. 05915, at 46. It is not simply one factor weighed with others in reaching a decision, as in Grutter; it is the factor. While extensive jurisprudence has developed over what is an actual case or controversy, in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife the Court specified three elements that must be satisfied: (1) a party must be facing an actual or imminent injury rather than a hypothetical injury (injury in fact); (2) the complained of conduct must have caused the alleged injury (causal connection); and (3) it must still be possible to provide some remedy to that injury by a favorable court decision. 11-345 In the Supreme Court of the United States ABIGAIL NOEL FISHER, PETITIONER . . And it was Brown, after all, focusing upon primary and secondary schools, not Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U. S. 629 (1950), focusing on law schools, or McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Ed., 339 U. S. 637 (1950), focusing on graduate schools, that affected so deeply not only Americans but the world. A to Kiner Affidavit in Seattle School Dist. Jefferson County accordingly does not rely upon an interest in remedying the effects of past intentional discrimination in defending its present use of race in assigning students. Siqueland 116117. While we do not suggest that greater use of race would be preferable, the minimal impact of the districts racial classifications on school enrollment casts doubt on the necessity of using racial classifications. Eight of those States condition approval of transfers to another school or district on whether the transfer will produce increased racial integration. It then placed some grades (say, third and fourth grades) at one school building and other grades (say, fifth and sixth grades) at the other school building. 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. As the Court explains, a school with 50 percent Asian-American students and 50 percent white students but no African-American, Native-American, or Latino students would qualify as balanced, while a school with 30 percent Asian-American, 25 percent African-American, 25 percent Latino, and 20 percent white students would not. Ante, at 1516; see also Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae in No. 420, 433434 (1988). students in Primary 1); see also Stipulation of Facts in No. 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. Id., at 73. Code Ann. 1996); see also T. Sowell, Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study 141165 (2004). . If the plans survive this strict review, they would survive less exacting review a fortiori. (Enrollment Guide). in Briggs v. Elliott, O.T. 1952, No. By 1984, after several schools had fallen out of compliance with the orders racial percentages due to shifting demographics in the community, the school board revised its desegregation plan. Kennedy argued that the government had an interest in ensuring racial equality: "The plurality opinion is too dismissive of the legitimate interest government has in ensuring all people have equal opportunity regardless of their race.". of Boston v. Board of Ed., 352 Mass. See Washington State Report Yesterday, the plans under review were lawful. 2d 358, 360 (2000). ; race, for some students, is determinative standing alone. Is it not of all the activities of government the one which most nearly approaches the hearts and minds of people, the question of the education of their young? Bustop, addressing in the context of an emergency injunction application a busing plan imposed by the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, is similarly unavailing.
'Parents Involved,' A Decade Later - The American Prospect 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. in No. Independent School Dist., 719 S.W. 2d 350, 352-353 (Ct. App. 05908, p.9, n. 9. 1, 458 U. S. 457, is directly on point. What other numbers are the boards to use as a starting point? 14, 1.
394, 401403 (1994) (hereinafter Dawkins & Braddock); Wells & Crain, Perpetuation Theory and the Long-Term Effects of School Desegregation, 64 Rev. "[11] in No. But I am quite comfortable in the company I keep. The Seattle district, which has never operated legally segregated schools or been subject to court-ordered desegregation, classified children as white or nonwhite, and used the racial classifications as a tiebreaker to allocate slots in particular high schools. He contended that whatever trends toward classroom racial imbalance have obtained, they were not the result of state-sanctioned segregation as in the pre-Brown era. It also argues that these plans can be justified as part of the school boards attempts to eradicat[e] earlier school segregation. See, e.g., post, at 4. [Footnote 27] Whatever else the Courts rejection of the segregationists arguments in Brown might have established, it certainly made clear that state and local governments cannot take from the Constitution a right to make decisions on the basis of race by adverse possession. The subsequent statements by the unanimous Court in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. 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. of Ed., 402 U. S. 1, 16 (1971). See Education Commission of the States, Open Enrollment: 50-State Report (2007), online at http://mb2.ecs.org/reports/Report.aspx?id=268. For the reasons discussed above, however, I disagree with Justice Kennedy that Seattle and Louisville have not done enough to demonstrate that their present plans are necessary to continue upon the path set by Brown. 2, p.7 (Local self-government in local affairs is essential to the peace and happiness of each locality and to the strength and stability of our whole federal system. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae Brief for Petitioners at 27. See Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U. S. 294, 300 (1955) (Brown II) (At stake is the personal interest of the plaintiffs in admission to public schools on a nondiscriminatory basis (emphasis added)). Id., at 498. See, e.g., Regents of Univ. Both cities once tried to achieve more integrated schools by relying solely upon measures such as redrawn district boundaries, new school building construction, and unrestricted voluntary transfers. Id. The plurality does not seem confident as to the answer. [Footnote 10]. 1, No. Brief for Respondent at 1617. 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.). Compare ante, at 12 (opinion of the Court) ([T]he Seattle public schools have never shown that they were ever segregated by law (emphasis added)), with ante at 2930 (plurality opinion) (assuming the Seattle school district was never segregated by law, but seeming to concede that a school district with de jure segregation need not be subject to a court order to be allowed to engage in race-based remedial measures). See Grutter, supra, at 393 (Kennedy, J., dissenting) (allowing consideration of race only if it does not become a predominant factor). to Brief for 553 Social Scientists as Amici Curiae 1314 (footnote omitted). Many proceeded under the now-rejected view that classifications seeking to benefit a disadvantaged racial group should be held to a lesser standard of review. 2. As to recruiting faculty on the basis of race, both cities have tried, but only as one part of a broader program. See id., at 711. I add that one cannot find a relevant distinction in the fact that these school districts did not examine the merits of applications individual[ly]. See ante, at 1315. The reason for this omission is clear enough, since the case did not involve any voluntary means adopted by a school district. Furthermore, it would leave our equal-protection jurisprudence at the mercy of elected government officials evaluating the evanescent views of a handful of social scientists. 539 U. S., at 351352, 353. were race-neutral) does not indicate the decline in black achieve- And what of respect for democratic local decisionmaking by States and school boards? 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. After decades of vibrant life, they would all, under the pluralitys logic, be written out of the law). But the plurality does not convincingly explain why those interests do not constitute a compelling interest here. In the real world, it is regrettable to say, it cannot be a universal constitutional principle. Bd. In 1968 our mandatory jurisdiction was defined by the provision of the 1948 Judicial Code then codified at 28 U. S.C. 1257, see 62 Stat. In "Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist. Gen. Acts 552 (2007). Grutter, supra, at 326. Franklin was integration positive because its nonwhite enrollment the previous school year was greater than 69 percent; 89 more white students were assigned to Franklin by operation of the racial tiebreaker in the 20002001 school year than otherwise would have been. The Courts misuse of the three-tiered approach to Equal Protection analysis merely reconfirms my own view that there is only one such Clause in the Constitution. 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. Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens). Reduction of an individual to an assigned racial identity for differential treatment is among the most pernicious actions our government can undertake. The decision today should not prevent school districts from continuing the important work of bringing together students of different racial, ethnic, and economic backgrounds. I fear the consequences of doing so for the law, for the schools, for the democratic process, and for Americas efforts to create, out of its diversity, one Nation. The limitation of this power to instances where there has been de jure segregation serves to confine the nature, extent, and duration of governmental reliance on individual racial classifications. 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.
Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District The latter approach would be informed by Grutter, though the criteria relevant to student placement would differ based on the students age, the parents needs, and the schools role. Indeed, the very school districts that once spurned integration now strive for it. If that is so, then all of Seattles earlier (even more race-conscious) plans must also have been unconstitutional. But with reference to schools, the effect of the legal wrong proved most difficult to correct. Even supposing it mattered to the constitutional analysis, the race-based student assignment programs before us are not as benign as the dissent believes. Instead of strict scrutiny, Judge Kozinski would have analyzed the plans under robust and realistic rational basis review. Id., at 1194. 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.