of Oral Arg. Approximately 307 student assignments were affected by the racial tiebreaker in 20002001; the district was able to track the enrollment status of 293 of these students. 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. & Rodgers, Coercion to Compliance: Southern School Districts and School Desegregation Guidelines, 38 J. In doing so, a reviewing judge must be fully aware of the potential dangers and pitfalls that Justice Thomas and Justice Kennedy mention. 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). A federal District Court dismissed the suit, upholding the tiebreaker. The passage Justice Stevens quotes proves our point; all the quoted language says is that the school committee shall prepare a plan to eliminate the imbalance. Id., at 695, 227 N.E. 2d, at 731; see post, at 4, n. 5. 2841. Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. It is well established that when a governmental policy is subjected to strict scrutiny, the government has the burden of proving that racial classifications are narrowly tailored measures that further compelling governmental interests. Johnson, supra, at 505 (quoting Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peńa, 515 U. S. 200, 227 (1995)). The Nations schools strive to teach that our strength comes from people of different races, creeds, and cultures uniting in commitment to the freedom of all. Banks & C. Banks eds. The plan was in effect from 19992002, for three school years. Because the school boards lack any further interest in remedying segregation, this element offers no support for the purported interest in integration.. Outside the school context, this Courts cases reflect the fact that racial mixing does not always lead to harmony and understanding. 2d 753, 762764 (WD Ky. 1999). By 1988, many white families had left the school district, and many Asian families had moved in. But what about Seattles? The original litigation eventually became a lawsuit against the Jefferson County School System, which in April 1975 absorbed Louisvilles schools and combined them with those of the surrounding suburbs. Part IB, supra. 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. Doubtless, hundreds of letters like this went out from both school boards every year these race-based assignment plans were in operation. Strict scrutiny applies to any government classification based on race. A Connecticut statute states that its student choice program will seek to preserve racial and ethnic balance. Conn. Gen. Stat. 2. After Grutter, however, the two Courts of Appeals in these cases, and one other, found that race-based assignments were permissible at the elementary and secondary level, largely in reliance on that case. 05908, at 299a301a; Affidavit of Kathleen Brose Pursuant to this Courts Rule 32.3 (Lodging of Petitioner Parents Involved), and the complaint sought declaratory and injunctive relief on behalf of Parents Involved members whose elementary and middle school children may be denied admission to the high schools of their choice when they apply for those schools in the future, App. Grutter, supra, at 326; see also Part IIA, infra. 1, p. 7 (We have one fundamental contention which we will seek to develop in the course of this argument, and that contention is that no State has any authority under the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to use race as a factor in affording educational opportunities among its citizens); Tr. See also Bakke, 438 U. S., at 289291 (opinion of Powell, J.) As a result, students who had ranked a school as a second, third, or lower choice sometimes received a spot at the school over those who had ranked it as their first choice. in No. . Prior to Grutter, the courts of appeals rejected as unconstitutional attempts to implement race-based assignment planssuch as the plans at issue herein primary and secondary schools. 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. 733 (1998). No. 05908, at 162a. When the court made this determination in 2000, it did so in the context of the Louisville desegregation plan that the board had adopted in 1996. The next Term, we accordingly stated that full compliance with Brown I required school districts to achieve a system of determining admission to the public schools on a nonracial basis. Brown II, 349 U. S., at 300301 (emphasis added). at 11 and Brief of Historians of the Civil Rights Era William H. Chafe, Davison Douglas, Charles Payne, Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Kenneth Mack, Risa Goluboff, Kevin Kruse and Matt Lassiter as Amici Curiae Supporting Respondents at 23. . 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. . seattleschools.org/schools/aaa/history.htm (all Internet materials as visited June 26, 2007, and available in Clerk of Courts case file). Opposition to Writ of Certiorari at 2021. ORAL ARGUMENT OF HARRY J.F. Id., at 73. Jefferson County assigned Joshua to another elementary school in his cluster, Young Elementary. Statements after the decision friend of JOSHUA RYAN McDONALD, PETITIONER. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court expressly stated: The racial imbalance act requires the school committee of every municipality annually to submit statistics showing the percentage of nonwhite pupils in all public schools and in each school. After the site was removed, the district offered the comforting clarification that the site was not intended to hold onto unsuccessful concepts such as melting pot or colorblind mentality. Ibid. Does the Constitution mandate this inefficient result? Although the District tried to make each high school unique by offering different programs, thus making each desirable, some schools were significantly more popular than others. Each locality is free to tailor local programs to local needs. The majority ruled that the District had a compelling interest in maintaining racial diversity. 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. See Brief for Respondents in No. 421, 424425 (History, too, tells us that segregation was imposed on one race by the other race; consent was not invited or required. 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). The District first gave priority to students who had a sibling at the school. After decades of vibrant life, they would all, under the pluralitys logic, be written out of the law. Joshua McDonalds requested transfer was denied because his race was listed as other rather than black, and allowing the transfer would have had an adverse effect on the racial guideline compliance of Young Elementary, the school he sought to leave. The districts also vary in their racial compositions and levels of segregation. See Grutter, 539 U.S. at 334; Gratz, 539 U.S. at 27071. We granted certiorari, and now reverse. In Seattle, the district seeks white enrollment of between 31 and 51 percent (within 10 percent of the district white average of 41 percent), and nonwhite enrollment of between 49 and 69 percent (within 10 percent of the district minority average of 59 percent). The minimal effect these classifications have on student assignments, however, suggests that other means would be effective. Supporting the school boards, one amicus has assured us that both early desegregation research and recent statistical and econometric analyses indicate that there are positive effects on minority student achievement scores arising from diverse school settings. Brief for American Educational Research Association as Amicus Curiae 10. See Hampton v. Jefferson Cty. I wholly concur in The Chief Justices opinion. summary.aspx?schoolId=1104&reportLevel=School&orgLinkId=1104&yrs=; In fact, they are even more narrowly tailored than the Grutter plan, which withstood strict scrutiny. Hundreds of state and federal statutes and regulations use racial classifications for educational or other purposes. of Jefferson Cty., Nos. 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. See post, at 3745. 3 Seattle School Dist. The tenth high school, West Seattle, is located west of downtown. 1 Administrative Complaint in Seattle Branch, NAACP v. Seattle School Dist. And contexts differ dramatically one from the other. And during the same time, hundreds of local school districts have adopted student assignment plans that use race-conscious criteria. Racial imbalance is the failure of a school districts individual schools to match or approximate the demographic makeup of the student population at large. Parents Involved VII, supra, at 1166. Another 1,200 black students and 400 white students participated in the previously adopted voluntary transfer program. Is it not the height of wisdom that the manner in which that shall be conducted should be left to those most immediately affected by it, and that the wishes of the parents, both white and colored, should be ascertained before their children are forced into what may be an unwelcome contact?). No distinction was made between various categories of non-whites; Asian-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and African-Americans were all treated solely as "non-white" for purposes of the tiebreaker. If so, its interpretation threatens to produce divisiveness among minority groups that is incompatible with the basic objectives of the Fourteenth Amendment. If todays dissent said it was adhering to the views expressed in the separate opinions in Gratz and Grutter, see Gratz, 539 U. S., at 281 (Breyer, J., concurring in judgment); id., at 282 (Stevens, J., dissenting); id., at 291 (Souter, J., dissenting); id., at 298 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting); Grutter, supra, at 344 (Ginsburg, J., concurring), that would be understandable, and likely within the traditionto be invoked, in my view, in rare instancesthat permits us to maintain our own positions in the face of stare decisis when fundamental points of doctrine are at stake.
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