Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 of Ed., Harris, and Bustop made one thing clear: significant as the difference between de jure and de facto segregation may be to the question of what a school district must do, that distinction is not germane to the question of what a school district may do. Race is not. . 05915, pp. 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. The districts argue that other factors, such as student preferences, affect assignment decisions under their plans, but under each plan when race comes into play, it is decisive by itself. The board opposed dissolution, arguing that the old dual system had left a demographic imbalance that prevent[ed] dissolution. In 2000, after reviewing the present plan, the District Court dissolved the 1975 order. See Tr. In 2004, he ruled the same for the traditional schools, but allowed the regular public schools to use race as the admission requirement. Nonetheless, the Seattle Plan, due to its busing, provoked serious opposition within the State. at 116970. But with reference to schools, the effect of the legal wrong proved most difficult to correct. Such measures may include strategic site selection of new schools; drawing attendance zones with general recognition of neighborhood demographics; allocating resources for special programs; recruiting students and faculty in a targeted fashion; and tracking enrollments, performance, and other statistics by race. are subject to strict scrutiny, not all are invalidated And the fact that the state and local governments had relied on statements in this Courts opinions was irrelevant to the Brown Court. Parents IV at 1169. See, e.g., D. Armor, Forced Justice (1995). 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. Bd. Although racial imbalance can result from de jure segregation, it does not necessarily, and the further we get from the era of state-sponsored racial separation, the less likely it is that racial imbalance has a traceable connection to any prior segregation. They are based upon numerous sources, which for ease of exposition I have cataloged, along with their corresponding citations, at Appendix B, infra. The Court's ruling in the "Parents Involved in Community Schools" v. "Seattle School District No. Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. The plan created three new middle schools at three school buildings in the predominantly white north end. Read MoreParents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle . In 1963, at the insistence of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and other community groups, the school board adopted a new race-based transfer policy. of Oral Arg. The Founders meant the Constitution as a practical document that would transmit its basic values to future generations through principles that remained workable over time. First, Seattle claimed that none of the current members of Parents Involved can claim an imminent injury. Grutter itself reiterated that outright racial balancing is patently unconstitutional. 539 U. S., at 330. Because attending Ingraham would have placed a burden on the family and would have limited the students ability to participate in after school activities of their choice, both parents elected to send their children to parochial high schools. (explaining why dicta is not binding). Well, we want to have the schools that make up the percentage of students of the population). No one contends that Seattle has established or that Louisville has reestablished a dual school system that separates students on the basis of race. Parents Involved VII, 426 F.3d, at 1192. And second, Kennedy faults the dissent for ignoring the "presumptive invalidity of a State's use of racial classifications to differentiate its treatment of individuals.". No. . 1725, 2841. The conclusions he has set forth in Part IIIA of the Courts opinion are correct, in my view, because the compelling interests implicated in the cases before us are distinct from the interests the Court has recognized in remedying the effects of past intentional discrimination and in increasing diversity in higher education. When a students first choice cannot be accommodated, the District uses race as a tiebreaker in order to achieve a desired racial balance in each individual school. Finally, I recognize that the Court seeks to distinguish Grutter from these cases by claiming that Grutter arose in the context of higher education. Ante, at 16. See also Reply Brief for Appellees in Davis v. County School Board, O.T. 1953, No. 1, 551 U.S. 701 (2007), also known as the PICS case, is a United States Supreme Court case which found it unconstitutional for a school district to use race as a factor in assigning students to schools in order to bring its racial composition in line with the composition of the district as a whole, unless it was remedying a prior history of de jure segregation. 1, 2, 4, 18 (1978 Memo & Order). In doing so, the board created a new racial guideline, namely a floating range of 10% above and 10% below the countywide average for the different grade levels. The board simultaneously redrew district boundaries so that middle school students could attend the same school for three years and high school students for four years. 1, supra, at 461; Seattle Public Schools Desegregation Planning Office, Proposed Alternative Desegregation Plans: Options for Eliminating Racial Imbalance by the 1979-80 School Year (Sept. 1977) (filed with the Court as Exh. 1, supra. Or is it that a prior federal court had not adjudicated the matter? We simply do not understand how Justice Breyer can maintain that classifying every schoolchild as black or white, and using that classification as a determinative factor in assigning children to achieve pure racial balance, can be regarded as less burdensome, and hence more narrowly tailored than the consideration of race in Grutter, post, at 47, when the Court in Grutter stated that [t]he importance of individualized consideration in the program was paramount, and consideration of race was one factor in a highly individualized, holistic review. 539 U. S., at 337. Const., Art. 1 L. Kohn, Priority Shift: The Fate of Mandatory Busing for School Desegregation in Seattle and the Nation 2730, 32 (Mar. Hence, I conclude that the plans before us pass both parts of the strict scrutiny test. This is a fatal flaw under the Courts existing precedent. The dissent again relies upon social science research to support the proposition that state-compelled racial mixing teaches children to accept cooperation and improves racial attitudes and race relations. Cf. Brief for Respondent at 24, 30, 33. United States v. Fordice, 505 U. S. 717, 745 (1992) (Thomas, J., concurring). Yet the Seattle public schools have not shown that they were ever segregated by law, and were not subject to court-ordered desegregation decrees. When it comes to using race to assign children to schools, history will be heard. This presumably refers to the districts decision to cease, for 20012002 school year assignments, applying the racial tiebreaker to students seeking to transfer to a different school after ninth grade. 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. 1? The Jefferson County Board of Education fails to meet this threshold mandate when it concedes it denied Joshuas requested kindergarten transfer on the basis of his race under its guidelines, yet also maintains that the guidelines do not apply to kindergartners. This interest, the Court said, can be achieved by considering the student overall, not just his or her race, and the contribution he or she can make to the schools diversity. The plan paired (or triaded) imbalanced black schools with imbalanced white schools. Jefferson County Public Schools & Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 3, p.37 (Yet a holding that school segregation by race violates the Constitution will result in upheaval in all of those places not now subject to Federal judicial scrutiny. It is not simply one factor weighed with others in reaching a decision, as in Grutter; it is the factor. In a word, the school plans under review do not involve the kind of race-based harm that has led this Court, in other contexts, to find the use of race-conscious criteria unconstitutional. In 1998, it adopted the plan at issue in this case for assigning students to these schools. I am not aware of any case in which this Court has read the narrow tailoring test to impose such a requirement. The Constitution is color-blind. of Ed., 102 F.Supp. Therefore, it is not nearly as apparent as the dissent suggests that increased interracial exposure automatically leads to improved racial attitudes or race relations. 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. Another Connecticut regulation provides that [a]ny school in which the Proportion for the School falls outside of a range from 25 percentage points less to 25 percentage points more than the Comparable Proportion for the School District, shall be determined to be racially imbalanced. Conn. 4143 (Mar. To McDaniel? The District also contends that the racial tiebreaker was necessary because other race-neutral activities were inadequate to achieve their compelling interests. Once those vestiges were eliminated, Jefferson County was on the same footing as any other school district, and its use of race must be justified on other grounds. My view of the Constitution is Justice Harlans view in Plessy: Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537, 559 (1896) (dissenting opinion). And my view was the rallying cry for the lawyers who litigated Brown. In other words, it is not desegregation per se that improves achievement, but rather the learning advantages some desegregated schools provide. Id., at 744. Studies suggest that children taken from those schools and placed in integrated settings often show positive academic gains. We take the Grutter Court at its word. None of the considerations trumpeted by the dissent is relevant to the constitutionality of the school boards race-based plans because no contextual detailor collection of contextual details, post, at 222can provide refuge from the principle that under our Constitution, the government may not make distinctions on the basis of race. Adarand, 515 U. S., at 240 (Thomas, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Absent searching judicial inquiry into the justification for such race-based measures, there is simply no way of determining what classifications are benign or remedial and what classifications are in fact motivated by illegitimate notions of racial inferiority or simple racial politics. Richmond v. J. 32 (2004); A Great Decision, Hindustan Times (New Dehli, May 20, 1954), p.5; USA Takes Positive Step, West African Pilot (Lagos, May 22, 1954), p. 2 (stating that Brown is an acknowledgment that the United States should set an example for all other nations by taking the lead in removing from its national life all signs and traces of racial intolerance, arrogance or discrimination). The term racial imbalance refers to a ratio between nonwhite and other students in public schools which is sharply out of balance with the racial composition of the society in which nonwhite children study, serve and work. Cf. Cities around the country are often segregated based on race with certain racial or ethnic groups concentrated in particular areas, possibly as a result of poverty or immigration. B to Roe Affidavit in Seattle School Dist. 10925, 26 Fed. 1, 2007, p. B1 (describing racial issues in Seattle schools). At some point, the discrete injury will be remedied, and the school district will be declared unitary. 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. See supra, at 27. The Western District of Washington dismissed the suit, upholding the tiebreaker. Held:The judgments are reversed, and the cases are remanded. Plessy, of course, concerned official classification by race applicable to all persons who sought to use railway carriages. 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. Cf. That determination typically will not be nearly as difficult as the dissent makes it seem. 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. See Hallinan 741742. ; race, for some students, is determinative standing alone. It is the height of arrogance for Members of this Court to assert blindly that their motives are better than others. Section 1. At that time, about 20% or 12,000 of the districts students were black. 3, p. 71 ([T]o make such a transition, would undo what we have been doing, and which we propose to continue to do for the uplift and advancement of the education of both races. To begin with, Justice Breyer seeks to justify the plans at issue under our precedents recognizing the compelling interest in remedying past intentional discrimination. For one thing, consider the effect of the pluralitys views on the parties before us and on similar school districts throughout the Nation. Add to the inconclusive social science the fact of black achievement in racially isolated environments. See also Statement of Appellees Opposing Jurisdiction and Motion to Dismiss or Affirm in Davis v. County School Board, O.T. 1952, No. This view is informed by dissents in our previous cases and the concurrences of two Court of Appeals judges. First, in an open choice district like that in Seattle, using race as an isolated factor for admission may deny some students the opportunity to attend the school of their choice, thereby burdening those families affected. to Brief for 553 Social Scientists as Amici Curiae 1314 (footnote omitted). The second most important tiebreaker was a racial factor intended to maintain racial diversity. But that cost does not approach, in degree or in kind, the terrible harms of slavery, the resulting caste system, and 80 years of legal racial segregation. 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. Not every decision influenced by race is equally objectionable, and strict scrutiny is designed to provide a framework for carefully examining the importance and the sincerity of the reasons advanced by the governmental decisionmaker for the use of race in that particular context. 539 U. S., at 326327. "[31] He goes on to explain that he is skeptical that school boards will always have such good intentions in their race-based decisionmaking, for, as Madison said, "if men were angels, no government would be necessary.". 05915, at 97. 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). Andy was accepted into this selective program but, because of the racial tiebreaker, was denied assignment to Ballard High School. 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. Magnet and Traditional are exempt from this ratio per the 2000 and 2003 Court Order. of Ed., 439 U. S. 1380, 1383 (1978). 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. He is entitled of course to his own opinion as to which studies he finds convincingalthough it bears mention that even the author of some of Justice Thomas preferred studies has found some evidence linking integrated learning environments to increased academic achievement. Second, as Grutter specified, [c]ontext matters when reviewing race-based governmental action under the Equal Protection Clause. 539 U. S., at 327 (citing Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339, 343344 (1960)). 1, supra); Hanawalt 3638, 40; Siqueland 3, 184, Table 4. 05915, 416 F.3d 513, reversed and remanded. So, the argument proceeds, if race is the problem, then perhaps race is the solution. Like the dissent, the segregationists repeatedly cautioned the Court to consider practicalities and not to embrace too theoretical a view of the Fourteenth Amendment. 05915, Meredith, Custodial Parent and Next Friend of McDonald v. Jefferson County Bd. See Brief for Respondent at 27. . ([A]ll governmental action based on racea group classification long recognized as in most circumstances irrelevant and therefore prohibited, Hirabayashi [v. United States, 320 U. S. 81, 100 (1943)]should be subjected to detailed judicial inquiry to ensure that the personal right to equal protection of the laws has not been infringed (first emphasis in original); Metro Broadcasting, supra, at 636 ([O]ur Constitution protects each citizen as an individual, not as a member of a group (Kennedy, J., dissenting)); Bakke, supra, at 289 (opinion of Powell, J.) In Grutter, the number of minority students the school sought to admit was an undefined meaningful number necessary to achieve a genuinely diverse student body, 539 U. S., at 316, 335336, and the Court concluded that the law school did not count back from its applicant pool to arrive at that number, id., at 335336. In briefing and argument before this Court, Seattle contends that its use of race helps to reduce racial concentration in schools and to ensure that racially concentrated housing patterns do not prevent nonwhite students from having access to the most desirable schools. To that end, in 2011, the U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Justice jointly issued Guidance on the Voluntary Use of Race to Achieve Diversity and Avoid Racial Isolation in Elementary and Secondary Schools, acknowledging the flexibility that school districts have in taking proactive steps to meet the compelling interests of promoting diversity and avoiding racial isolation within the parameters of current law.[7]. of Oral Arg. And so it is, in prestige, in achievements, in education, in wealth and in power. The districts point to dicta in a prior opinion in which the Court suggested that, while not constitutionally mandated, it would be constitutionally permissible for a school district to seek racially balanced schools as a matter of educational policy. See Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. It consequently held unconstitutional the use of race-based targets to govern admission to magnet schools. See ante, at 3436. 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. I next ask whether the plans before us are narrowly tailored to achieve these compelling objectives. Post, at 38. De jure? But eventually a state court found that the mandatory busing was lawful. See post, at 35 (citing 426 F.3d 1162, 11931196 (CA9 2005) (concurring opinion) (citing Comfort v. Lynn School Comm., 418 F.3d 1, 2729 (CA1 2005) (Boudin, C.J., concurring))). 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. A. I dont have a definition for that); id., at 228a229a (I dont think weve ever sat down and said, Define racially concentrated school exactly on point in quantitative terms. I dont think weve ever had that conversation); Tr. 05908, at 3942; Research, Evaluation and Assessment, Student Information Services Office, Seattle Public Schools Data Profile: DistrictSummary December 2005, online at http://www.seattleschools.org/ Seattles racial tiebreaker results, in the end, only in shifting a small number of students between schools. The student assignment plan of Seattle Public Schools and Jefferson County Public Schools does not meet the narrowly tailored and compelling interest requirements for a race-based assignment plan because it is used only to achieve "racial balance." The Court reasoned that the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause prohibited schools from voluntarily using racial classifications to achieve integration. 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. Regardless of the constitutional validity of such remediation, see Croson, supra, at 524525 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment), it does not apply here. 23 (OCR, Apr. Franklin in 20052006 was 48.9 percent Asian-American, 33.5 percent African-American, 6.6 percent Latino, 10.2 percent Caucasian, and 0.8 percent Native-American. 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. 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. of Ed., 102 F.Supp. gation without court orders); Branton, Little Rock 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.) These plans are unnecessarily crude solutions to the problem of school segregation, which can be achieved through more indirect means. But that is not a meaningful legal distinction. 1, p.29 (It is universally held, therefore, that each state shall determine for itself, subject to the observance of the fundamental rights and liberties guaranteed by the federal Constitution, how it shall exercise the police power . The fact that the controlling opinion would make a school districts use of such criteria often unlawful (and the pluralitys colorblind view would make such use always unlawful) suggests that todays opinion will require setting aside the laws of several States and many local communities. Revisited: Desegregation to Resegregation, 52 J. Negro Educ. No. of Ed., 402 U. S. 1, 16 (1971) (emphasis added). v. Barksdale, 348 F.2d 261, 266 (CA1 1965). In Seattle School Dist. The panel determined that while achieving racial diversity and avoiding racial isolation are compelling government interests, id., at 964, Seattles use of the racial tiebreaker was not narrowly tailored to achieve these interests, id., at 980. See Bush v. Vera, 517 U. S. 952, 958 (1996) (plurality opinion) (Strict scrutiny does not apply merely because redistricting is performed with consciousness of race. 11246, 30 Fed. The U.S. Constitution in Article III 2 specifies the scope of matters on which the federal courts can issue decisions. at 116669. Lacking a cognizable interest in remediation, neither of these plans can survive strict scrutiny because neither plan serves a genuinely compelling state interest. Race may be one component of that diversity, but other demographic factors, plus special talents and needs, should also be considered. Jefferson County operated under this decree until 2000, when the District Court dissolved the decree after finding that the district had achieved unitary status by eliminating [t]o the greatest extent practicable the vestiges of its prior policy of segregation. 2d 304 (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted). 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. Id., at 493494. As we have held, one form of injury under the Equal Protection Clause is being forced to compete in a race-based system that may prejudice the plaintiff, Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peńa, 515 U. S. 200, 211 (1995); Northeastern Fla. Chapter, Associated Gen. See Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U. S. 1 (1958). The principle that racial balancing is not permitted is one of substance, not semantics. The District contends that these requirements are not met in this case. Answer: the equal protection clause Explanation: the Supreme Court ruled in brown v board of education that separate public accommodations for African Americans where discernibly unequal and thus violated the 14th amendments equal protection clause Advertisement New questions in History Narrow tailoring requires "serious, good faith consideration of workable race-neutral alternatives", Grutter, supra, at 339, 123 S. Ct. 2325, 156 L. Ed. The statute establishing MSAP permits granting federal grants to magnet programs that seek to decrease minority group isolation. 20 U.S.C. 67759, at 9 (Unlike the Massachusetts Court, the Illinois Supreme Court has recently held its law to eliminate racial imbalance unconstitutional on the ground that it violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment); ibid., n.1.