Given our case law and the paucity of evidence supporting the dissents belief that these plans improve race relations, no democratic element can support the integration interest. Any classification based strictly on race, as the majority notes, still must be predicated on a demonstration that it is necessary. In fact, the available data from the Seattle school district appear to undercut the dissents view. Dayton Bd. The respondents raised this issue in their brief opposing the grant of certiorari. Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist. 1 ET AL. Then-Justice Rehnquist, in denying emergency relief, stressed that equitable consideration[s] counseled against preliminary relief. They are located in every region of the country and range in size from Las Cruces, New Mexico, with barely over 15,000 students attending 23 schools in 1968, to New York City, with more than one million students in 853 schools. Roberts (Parts I, II, IIIA, and IIIC), joined by Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito, Roberts (Parts IIIB and IV), joined by Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Breyer, joined by Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg. But, as to strategic site selection, Seattle has built one new high school in the last 44 years (and that specialized school serves only 300 students). have recognized that voluntary programs of local school authorities designed to alleviate de facto segregation and racial imbalance in the schools are not constitutionally forbidden. Tometz v. Board of Ed., Waukegan School Dist. The District first gave priority to students who had a sibling at the school. 7045 and 7291 (WD Ky., July 30, 1975) (1975 Judgment and Findings). The Courts of Appeals below upheld the plans. Indeed, in its brief Seattle simply assumes that the educational benefits track the racial breakdown of the district. before adopting (or permitting the parties to agree on) a remedy . (quoting Wygant v. Jackson Bd. That necessary implication of the pluralitys position strikes the 13th chime of the clock. 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. 4 See generally Seattle School Dist. are subject to strict scrutiny, not all are invalidated 1 App. 2 Memorandum of Agreement between Seattle School District No. In part for those reasons, the Court has never permitted outright racial balancing solely for the purpose of achieving a particular racial balance. "It is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much," Justice Breyer said of the Court's decision. When a court subjects governmental action to strict scrutiny, it cannot construe ambiguities in favor of the government. 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. Section 1. [Footnote 26], What was wrong in 1954 cannot be right today. See Part IIB, infra. of Oral Arg. Contrary to the dissents argument, post, at 44, the Louisville school districts interest in remedying its past de jure segregation did vanish the day the District Court found that Louisville had eliminated the vestiges of its historic de jure segregation. The fact that many such plans have used explicitly racial criteria suggests that such criteria have an important, sometimes necessary, role to play. He made it clear that "To be forced to live under a state-mandated racial label is inconsistent with the dignity of individuals in our society". 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. The Seattle school districts Website formerly contained the following definition of cultural racism: Those aspects of society that overtly and covertly attribute value and normality to white people and whiteness, and devalue, stereotype, and label people of color as other, different, less than, or render them invisible. If a school has reached the extremes of the racial guidelines, a student whose race would contribute to the schools racial imbalance will not be assigned there. Even after Brown, some schools with predominantly black enrollments have achieved outstanding educational results. Well, we want to have the schools that make up the percentage of students of the population). Many school districts in the South adopted segregation remedies (to which Swann clearly applies) without any such federal order, see supra, at 1920. The dissent overreads Grutter, however, in suggesting that it renders pure racial balancing a constitutionally compelling interest; Grutter itself recognized that using race simply to achieve racial balance would be patently unconstitutional, 539 U. S., at 330. A compelling interest exists in avoiding racial isolation, an interest that a school district, in its discretion and expertise, may choose to pursue. Does that make a difference? Therefore, it took the unusual step of certifying a question for the Washington Supreme Court to answer before it decided the appeal. 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). No. On June 28, 2007, the United States Supreme Court, in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. . Pp. In 19761977, the plan involved the busing of about 500 middle school students (300 black students and 200 white students). 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). The dissents reliance on this interest is, therefore, inconsistent with Wygant. For much of this Nations history, the races remained divided. That is, it is not in all circumstances strict in theory, but fatal in fact. Id., at 237 (quoting Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U. S., at 519 (Marshall, J., concurring in judgment)). denied, 546 U. S. 1061 (2005). First, Seattle claimed that none of the current members of Parents Involved can claim an imminent injury. Justice Breyers dissent next looks for authority to a footnote in Washington v. Seattle School Dist. See, e.g., App. Our Nation from the inception has sought to preserve and expand the promise of liberty and equality on which it was founded. [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. See id., at 342; see also Croson, 488 U. S., at 498; Wygant, 476 U. S., at 275 (plurality opinion). It is an interest in helping our children learn to work and play together with children of different racial backgrounds. And it is for them to debate how best to educate the Nations children and how best to administer Americas schools to achieve that aim. It consequently conducted a nearly year-long review of its plan. Of these, 2.3 million were black and Latino students, and only 72,000 were white. 05908, at 36 (For Seattle, racial balance is clearly not an end in itself but rather a measure of the extent to which the educational goals the plan was designed to foster are likely to be achieved). In 1987, the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights studied 125 large school districts seeking integration. on writ of certiorari to the united states court of 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? Compare, e.g., Green, 391 U.S., at 437438 (School boards operating state-compelled dual systems have an affirmative duty to take whatever steps might be necessary to convert to a unitary system in which racial discrimination would be eliminated root and branch), with, e.g., Milliken, 418 U.S., at 745 (the Constitution does not impose a duty to desegregate upon districts that have not been shown to have committed any constitutional violation). Justice Anthony Kennedy did not join parts of the opinion of Chief Justice Roberts. But Tometz addressed a challenge to a statute requiring race-consciousness in drawing school attendance boundariesan issue well beyond the scope of the question presented in these cases. Parents Involved in Cmty. Educational Research 531, 550 (1994) (hereinafter Wells & Crain). There the Court sustained a system that, it found, was flexible enough to take into account all pertinent elements of diversity, 539 U. S., at 341 (internal quotation marks omitted), and considered race as only one factor among many, id., at 340. In this case, the Ninth Circuit held that the School District had a compelling state interest in achieving racial and ethnic diversity in its individual schools. However, the government is entitled to consider race as one of several factors in determining school admissions and enrollment. The plurality opinion is too dismissive of the legitimate interest government has in ensuring all people have equal opportunity regardless of their race. of Ed., supra, at 232. He writes that Justice Breyer misused and misapplied previous Supreme Court precedents in this area and that he greatly exaggerates the consequences of the decision of this case. App. The District tried to give students their first choice, but when a school had more students applying for it than spots available, it used a series of tiebreakers to determine who received the spots. 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. Source: G. Orfield & C. Lee, Racial Transformation and the Changing Nature of Segregation 18 (Table 8) (Jan. 2006), (Civil Rights Project), online at http://www.civilrightspro By finding the School Districts plan unconstitutional, districts will be limited in their ability to provide such benefits. The plurality does not seem confident as to the answer. 7276 (Feb. 1989); see also Clotfelter, Interracial Contact in High School Extracurricular Activities, 34 Urban Rev., No. Ed. Here Roberts provides the following string citation: Here, Roberts provides the following string cite: Id., at 337, 123 S. Ct. 2325, 156 L. Ed. Dawkins & Braddock 403. Id., at 335336. See Tr. See id., at 12, 2930. This type of exclusion, solely on the basis of race, is precisely the sort of government action that pits the races against one another, exacerbates racial tension, and provoke[s] resentment among those who believe that they have been wronged by the governments use of race. Adarand, supra, at 241 (opinion of Thomas, J.). Jefferson County phrases its interest as racial integration, but integration certainly does not require the sort of racial proportionality reflected in its plan. Ostate-imposed desegregation could only be brought about by busing children across school districts. See Brief for Respondent at 3132. No. In 2000, the District Court that entered that decree dissolved it, finding that Jefferson County had eliminated the vestiges associated with the former policy of segregation and its pernicious effects, and thus had achieved unitary status. The histories also make clear the futility of looking simply to whether earlier school segregation was de jure or de facto in order to draw firm lines separating the constitutionally permissible from the constitutionally forbidden use of race-conscious criteria. For the next decade, annual program transfers remained at approximately this level. The United States Constitution dictates that local governments cannot make decisions on the basis of race. Indeed, the consequences of the approach the Court takes today are serious. 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. The Chief Justice states that the Massachusetts racial imbalance Act did not require express classifications. The Court split 414 on key aspects of the case, with Justice Kennedy writing the swing vote opinion and agreeing with four Justices (Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito) that the programs used by Seattle and Louisville did not pass constitutional muster (because the districts failed to demonstrate that their plans were sufficiently narrowly tailored), but Kennedy also found, along with four Justices (Breyer, Stevens, Souter, and Ginsburg), that compelling interests exist in avoiding racial isolation and promoting diversity. State laws or administrative policies, directed toward the reduction and eventual elimination of de facto segregation of children in the schools and racial imbalance, have been approved by every high State court which has considered the issue. McFarland I, 330 F.Supp. 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. Id., at 525528 (Thomas, J., dissenting). No. The Court recognized that seeking diversity and avoiding racial segregation in schools are compelling state interests. Both school districts voluntarily used individualized racial classifications to achieve diversity and/or to avoid racial isolation through student assignment. Before Brown, schoolchildren were told where they could and could not go to school based on the color of their skin. Strict scrutiny of race-based government decisionmaking is more searching than Chevron-style administrative review for reasonableness. as Amici Curiae, with Rosen, Perhaps Not All Affirmative Action is Created Equal, N.Y. Though Brown decisively rejected those arguments, todays dissent replicates them to a distressing extent. Written and curated by real attorneys at Quimbee. It is an interest in teaching children to engage in the kind of cooperation among Americans of all races that is necessary to make a land of three hundred million people one Nation. B to Roe Affidavit in Seattle School Dist. The dissent accuses me of feel[ing] confident that, to end invidious discrimination, one must end all governmental use of race-conscious criteria and chastises me for not deferring to democratically elected majorities. Accord, post, at 68 (Today, almost 50 years later, attitudes toward race in this Nation have changed dramatically.
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