The lesson of history, see ante, at 39 (plurality opinion), is not that efforts to continue racial segregation are constitutionally indistinguishable from efforts to achieve racial integration. Post, at 3436 (citing 426 F.3d 1162, 11931194 (CA9 2005) (Kozinski, J., concurring); Comfort v. Lynn School Comm., 418 F.3d 1, 2829 (CA1 2005) (Boudin, C.J., concurring)). Adarand, 515 U. S., at 228229. 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." And I have found no case that otherwise repudiated this constitutional asymmetry between that which seeks to exclude and that which seeks to include members of minority races. The idea that government racial classifications must be subjected to strict scrutiny did not originate in Adarand. The dissents reliance on this Courts precedents to justify the explicit, sweeping, classwide racial classifications at issue here is a misreading of our authorities that, it appears to me, tends to undermine well-accepted principles needed to guard our freedom. 05908, at 7. 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. As these programs demonstrate, every time the government uses racial criteria to bring the races together, post, at 29, someone gets excluded, and the person excluded suffers an injury solely because of his or her race. Consequently, even though the issue was in some respect moot with respect to that petitioner, jurisdiction existed. 2005). VII, 1, ch. [Footnote 18]. 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. See Freeman v. Pitts, 503 U. S. 467, 494 (1992). Thus, the opinions reasoning is long. See 539 U. S., at 320. See, e.g., Schofield, School Desegregation and Intergroup Relations, in 17 Review of Research in Education 356 (G. Grant ed. The new plan worked roughly as expected for the two school years during which it was in effect (19992000 and 20002001). Five Supreme Court justices rejected voluntary desegregation plans in Seattle and . 89. In Brown, this Court declared that segregation was unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It is evident, however, that Justice Breyers brand of narrow tailoring is quite unlike anything found in our precedents. The only support todays dissent can draw from Grutter must be found in its various separate opinions, not in the opinion filed for the Court. The District also contends that the racial tiebreaker was necessary because other race-neutral activities were inadequate to achieve their compelling interests. Justice Breyers dissenting opinion, on the other hand, rests on what in my respectful submission is a misuse and mistaken interpretation of our precedents. As to the dissent, the general conclusions upon which it relies have no principled limit and would result in the broad acceptance of governmental racial classifications in areas far afield from schooling. Seattle has no history of de jure segregation; therefore, the Constitution did not require Seattles plan. 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. Another 1,200 black students and 400 white students participated in the previously adopted voluntary transfer program. 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. "[13], Roberts noted that prior Supreme Court cases had recognized two compelling interests for the use of race. Such a view was ascendant in this Courts jurisprudence for several decades. See Croson, 488 U. S., at 501 (The history of racial classifications in this country suggests that blind judicial deference to legislative or executive pronouncements of necessity has no place in equal protection analysis); West Virginia Bd. There is nothing technical or theoretical, post, at 30, about our approach to such dicta. 05915, at 22. In my view, to defer to ones preferred result is not to defer at all. See ante, at 9 (Executive and legislative branches, which for generations now have considered these types of policies and procedures, should be permitted to employ them with candor and with confidence that a constitutional violation does not occur whenever a decisionmaker considers the impact a given approach might have on students of different races). The discrepancy identified is not some simple and straightforward error that touches only upon the peripheries of the districts use of individual racial classifications. Opponents brought a lawsuit. These mechanisms are race conscious but do not lead to different treatment based on a classification that tells each student he or she is to be defined by race, so it is unlikely any of them would demand strict scrutiny to be found permissible. Justice Stevenss reliance on School Comm. 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. This is a decision that the Court and the Nation will come to regret. The Bible would be known in the legal community as the first Mr. Justice Harlans dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537, 552 (1896). Resort to the record, including the parties Stipulation of Facts, further confuses the matter. Pp. 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. 90a92a. This assertion is inexplicable. A racial imbalance determination requires the district to submit a plan to correct the racial imbalance, which plan may include mandatory pupil reassignment. 10226e5(a) and (c)(4). 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. 2d 834 (WD Ky. 2004); McFarland v. Jefferson Cty. When a court subjects governmental action to strict scrutiny, it cannot construe ambiguities in favor of the State. Any other approach would freeze the status quo that is the very target of all desegregation processes.). According to the dissent, integration involves an interest in setting right the consequences of prior conditions of segregation. Post, at 37. The plurality pays inadequate attention to this law, to past opinions rationales, their language, and the contexts in which they arise. I shall not accept the school boards assurances on faith, cf. See 448 U. S., at 539. 1, 458 U. S. 457, 461466 (1982). In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law). Both districts also considered elaborate studies and consulted widely within their communities. Wygant, 476 U. S., at 275276 (plurality opinion); id., at 295 (White, J., concurring in judgment). in No. The United States Constitution dictates that local governments cannot make decisions on the basis of race. of Ed., 102 F.Supp. Ante, at 28. These cases consider the longstanding efforts of two local school boards to integrate their public schools. Swann, 402 U. S., at 16. The practice can lead to corrosive discourse, where race serves not as an element of our diverse heritage but instead as a bargaining chip in the political process. In the administration of public schools by the state and local authorities it is permissible to consider the racial makeup of schools and to adopt general policies to encourage a diverse student body, one aspect of which is its racial composition. In many such instances, the contentious force of legal challenges to these classifications, meritorious or not, would displace earlier calm); post, at 65 (Indeed, the consequences of the approach the Court takes today are serious. One schoolGarfieldis more or less in the center of Seattle. Finally, the kind of deference that the Supreme Court will give the School District will also have implications. Are they to draw numbers out of thin air? But eventually a state court found that the mandatory busing was lawful. Post, at 43. Provides practical guidance for public school districts stemming from U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. And stubborn facts of history linger and persist. 503 U. S., at 495. The plan required that each elementary school in the district maintain 20% to 40% enrollment of African-American students, corresponding to the racial composition of the district. See Board of Ed. McFarland v. Jefferson Cty. 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.). Compare Wessmann v. Gittens, 160 F.3d 790, 809810 (CA1 1998) (Boudin, J., concurring), with Comfort, 418 F. 3d, at 2829 (Boudin, C.J., concurring). See Sheff v. ONeill, 238 Conn. 1, 678 A. in Briggs v. Elliott, O.T. 1952, No. See, e.g., Schofield, Review of Research on School Desegregations Impact on Elementary and Secondary School Students, in Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education 597, 606607 (J. 2d 753, 762764 (WD Ky. 1999). Remediation of past de jure segregation is a one-time process involving the redress of a discrete legal injury inflicted by an identified entity. See Tometz v. Board of Ed., Waukegan School Dist. Are they to spend days, weeks, or months seeking independently to validate the use of ratios that this Court has repeatedly authorized in prior cases? Bowen & Bok 155. Unlike todays decision, they were also entirely loyal to Brown. 663, 664 (1962) (same); W. Vaughn, Schools for All: The Blacks and Public Education in the South, 18651877, pp. The boards work in communities where demographic patterns change, where they must meet traditional learning goals, where they must attract and retain effective teachers, where they should (and will) take account of parents views and maintain their commitment to public school education, where they must adapt to court intervention, where they must encourage voluntary student and parent actionwhere they will find that their own good faith, their knowledge, and their understanding of local circumstances are always necessary but often insufficient to solve the problems at hand. Twenty-one elementary schools were between roughly 90% and 100% white. See also ante, at 2223 (Thomas, J., concurring). It consequently conducted a nearly year-long review of its plan. The Court reasoned that the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause prohibited schools from voluntarily using racial classifications to achieve integration. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion. Can the government force black families to relocate to white neighborhoods in the name if bringing the races together? Moreover, the school districts did not consider other options that might have been more narrowly tailored. This Court has also held that school districts may be required by federal statute to undertake race-conscious desegregation efforts even when there is no likelihood that de jure segregation can be shown. It argues that it should not be force to walk the tightrope between violating the constitution by failing to integrate schools and violating the constitution by integrating schools. Brief for Respondents in No. The Courts decision undermines other basic institutional principles as well. 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). Sch. App. 3, p.4647 (If this case were to be decided solely on the basis of precedent, this brief could have been much more limited. The plan provoked considerable local opposition. 1, supra. 5 (Jan. 2003), online at http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research/reseg03/AreWeLosingtheDream.pdf (Frankenberg, Lee, & Orfield) (using U. S. Dept. For example, one study documented that black and white students in desegregated schools are less racially prejudiced than those in segregated schools, and that interracial contact in desegregated schools leads to an increase in interracial sociability and friendship. Hallinan 745. The classification of applicants by race upheld in Grutter was only as part of a highly individualized, holistic review, 539 U. S., at 337. In fact, without being exhaustive, I have counted 51 federal statutes that use racial classifications. This the Constitution forbids. Ibid. And what has happened to Swann? The point of the narrow tailoring analysis in which the Grutter Court engaged was to ensure that the use of racial classifications was indeed part of a broader assessment of diversity, and not simply an effort to achieve racial balance, which the Court explained would be patently unconstitutional. Id., at 330. In fact, they are even more narrowly tailored than the Grutter plan, which withstood strict scrutiny. The issue in Gratz arose, moreover, in the context of college admissions where students had other choices and precedent supported the proposition that First Amendment interests give universities particular latitude in defining diversity. Accessed 12 Feb. 2023. of Ed. Dayton Bd. The Chief Justice rejects the conclusion that the racial classifications at issue here should be viewed differently than others, because they do not impose burdens on one race alone and do not stigmatize or exclude. 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. First, there is a historical and remedial element: an interest in setting right the consequences of prior conditions of segregation. No State shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. U. S. 2d 834, 837, 864 (WD Ky. 2004). In 1973 a federal court found that Jefferson County had maintained a segregated school system, Newburg Area Council, Inc. v. Board of Ed. Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 125 (1973). Under the Supreme Court's precedents on racial classification in higher education, Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger, race-based classifications must be directed toward a "compelling government interest" and must be "narrowly tailored" to that interest. 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. Other amici dispute these findings. In Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483, the Court held that segregation deprived black children of equal educational opportunities regardless of whether school facilities and other tangible factors were equal, because the classification and separation themselves denoted inferiority. 1977 (1961) (President Kennedy); Exec. Grutter at 33637; Gratz, 539 U.S. at 27071. 2d 257 (2003) (quoting [***38] Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U.S. 448, 537, 100 S. Ct. 2758, 65 L. Ed. Gen. Acts 552 (2007). v. Detiege, 358 U. S. 54 (1958) (per curiam) (public parks); Gayle v. Browder, 352 U. S. 903 (1956) (per curiam) (buses); Holmes v. Atlanta, 350 U. S. 879 (1955) (per curiam) (golf courses); Mayor of Baltimore v. Dawson, 350 U. S. 877 (1955) (per curiam) (beaches). That the school districts consider these plans to be necessary should remind us our highest aspirations are yet unfulfilled. surrounding their adoption, are in some respects quite different. The orders requirements reflected a (newly enlarged) school district student population of about 135,000, approximately 20% of whom were black. 6th ed. Both school districts voluntarily used individualized racial classifications to achieve diversity and/or to avoid racial isolation through student assignment. 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. Is it conceivable that the Constitution, implemented through a court desegregation order, could permit (perhaps require) the district to make use of a race-conscious plan the day before the order was dissolved and then forbid the district to use the identical plan the day after? See 426 F.3d 1162, 11931194 (2005) (Kozinski, J., concurring) (That a student is denied the school of his choice may be disappointing, but it carries no racial stigma and says nothing at all about that individuals aptitude or ability). 2. Therefore, if governments may constitutionally use racial balancing to achieve these aspirational ends in schools, they may use racial balancing to achieve similar goals at every levelfrom state-sponsored 4H clubs, see Bazemore v. Friday, 478 U. S. 385, 388390 (1986) (Brennan, J., concurring), to the state civil service. It pledged the use of other resources in order to encourage all schools to achieve an African-American enrollment equivalent to the average district-wide African-American enrollment at the schools respective elementary, middle or high school level. And the plan continued use of magnet schools. Bd. On the matter of stare decisis, I submit that the duration of the challenged practice, while it is persuasive, is not controlling. That, too, strongly supports the lawfulness of their methods. Other studies have found that both black and white students who attend integrated schools are more likely to work in desegregated companies after graduation than students who attended racially isolated schools. The importance of these differences is clear once one compares the present circumstances with other cases where one or more of these negative features are present. What emerges is a version of strict scrutiny that combines hollow assurances of harmlessness with reflexive acceptance of conventional wisdom. This sentence reminds me of Anatole Frances observation: [T]he majestic equality of the la[w], forbid[s] rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.[Footnote 1] The Chief Justice fails to note that it was only black schoolchildren who were so ordered; indeed, the history books do not tell stories of white children struggling to attend black schools. But if the plan was lawful when it was first adopted and if it was lawful the day before the District Court dissolved its order, how can the plurality now suggest that it became unlawful the following day? And the fact that the state and local governments had relied on statements in this Courts opinions was irrelevant to the Brown Court. The District first gave priority to students who had a sibling at the school. See Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 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 I use the words may need here deliberately. Middle and high school students are designated a single resides school and assigned to that school unless it is at the extremes of the racial guidelines. Race is not. Because the Constitution emphatically does not forbid the use of race-conscious measures by districts in the South that voluntarily desegregated their schools, on what basis does the plurality claim that the law forbids Seattle to do the same? The district has identified its purposes as follows: (1) to promote the educational benefits of diverse school enrollments; (2) to reduce the potentially harmful effects of racial isolation by allowing students the opportunity to opt out of racially isolated schools; and (3) to make sure that racially segregated housing patterns did not prevent non-white students from having equitable access to the most popular over-subscribed schools. Id., at 19. 26401 (1948). See, e.g., Eisenberg v. Montgomery Cty. ?). Kennedy, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. of Ed. 2d 750 (opinion of Powell, J. 2001) (describing President Nixons lobbying for affirmative action plans, e.g., the Philadelphia Plan); White, Affirmative Actions Alamo: Gerald Ford Returns to Fight Once More for Michigan, Time, Aug. 23, 1999, p. 48 (reporting on President Fords support for affirmative action); Schuck, Affirmative Action: Past, Present, and Future, 20 Yale L. & Poly Rev. 05908, at 103a (describing application of racial tiebreaker based on current white percentage of 41 percent and current minority percentage of 59 percent (emphasis added)). 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. Order No. In both Seattle and Louisville, the local school districts began with schools that were highly segregated in fact. Nonetheless, the Seattle Plan, due to its busing, provoked serious opposition within the State. The majority suggests that Seattles classification system could permit a school to be labeled diverse with a 50% Asian-American and 50% white student body, and no African-American students, Hispanic students, or students of other ethnicity. When litigation, as here, involves a complex, comprehensive plan that contains multiple strategies for achieving racially integrated schools, Brief for Respondents in No. App. 05915, Meredith, Custodial Parent and Next Friend of McDonald v. Jefferson County Bd. Citizens Against Mandatory Bussing v. Brooks, 80 Wash. 2d 121, 128129, 492 P.2d 536, 541542 (1972) (en banc), overruled on other grounds, Cole v. Webster, 103 Wash. 2d 280, 692 P.2d 799 (1984) (en banc); School Comm. org/area/equityandrace/whiteprivilegeconference.xml. . Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. . The District further argues that the plan passes muster under the strictest scrutiny. Id., at 470. Many parents, white and black alike, want their children to attend schools with children of different races. 2d 834, 837845, 855862 (WD Ky. 2004). See ante, at 1725. ", Justice Stephen G. Breyer, in the principal dissenting opinion, dismissed Justice Kennedy's proposed alternatives to the labeling and sorting of individual students by race and, in a surprisingly emotional 20 minute speech from the bench, denounced the plurality opinion. Id., at 73. As to allocating resources for special programs, Seattle and Louisville have both experimented with this; indeed, these programs are often referred to as magnet schools, but the limited desegregation effect of these efforts extends at most to those few schools to which additional resources are granted. Instead, what was upheld in Grutter was consideration of a far broader array of qualifications and characteristics of which racial or ethnic origin is but a single though important element. 539 U. S., at 325 (quoting Bakke, supra, 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. 1(Parent Involved in Community Schools), limited the use of race in K-12 integration plans on Equal Protection grounds. Justice Breyers dissent also asserts that these cases are controlled by Grutter, claiming that the existence of a compelling interest in these cases follows a fortiori from Grutter, post, at 41, 6466, and accusing us of tacitly overruling that case, see post, at 6466. See Brief for Petitioner at 44. Second, since this Courts decision in Brown, the law has consistently and unequivocally approved of both voluntary and compulsory race-conscious measures to combat segregated schools. 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)). Race may be one component of that diversity, but other demographic factors, plus special talents and needs, should also be considered. The public school population had fallen from about 100,000 to less than 50,000. By this term, I mean the school districts interest in eliminating school-by-school racial isolation and increasing the degree to which racial mixture characterizes each of the districts schools and each individual students public school experience. students in Primary 1); see also Stipulation of Facts in No. The opinions cited by the plurality to justify its reliance upon the de jure/de facto distinction only address what remedial measures a school district may be constitutionally required to undertake. Scholars have differing opinions as to whether educational benefits arise from racial balancing. Parents of students denied assignment to particular schools under these plans solely because of their race brought suit, contending that allocating children to different public schools on the basis of race violated the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of equal protection. For example, in Wygant v. Jackson Bd. 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. See post, at 5, 89, 18, 23. "[11] No. The Ninth Circuit initially reversed based on its interpretation of the Washington Civil Rights Act, 285 F.3d 1236, 1253 (2002) (Parents Involved II), and enjoined the districts use of the integration tiebreaker, id., at 1257. But I can find no case in which this Court has followed Justice Thomas colorblind approach. At the elementary school level, based on his or her address, each student is designated a resides school to which students within a specific geographic area are assigned; elementary resides schools are grouped into clusters in order to facilitate integration. App. That interest was not focused on race alone but encompassed all factors that may contribute to student body diversity, id., at 337, including, e.g., having overcome personal adversity and family hardship, id., at 338. Preliminary Challenges, 1956 to 1969. Id., at 29 ([I]n the period 19181923, Dunbar graduates earned fifteen degrees from Ivy League colleges, and ten degrees from Amherst, Williams, and Wesleyan). See id., at 711. If the need for the racial classifications embraced by the school districts is unclear, even on the districts own terms, the costs are undeniable. By limiting the School Districts use of race, it will be more difficult for it to cure these defects. At a particular school either whites or non-whites could be favored for admission depending on which race would bring the racial balance closer to the goal. Compare Brief for Kansas on Reargument in Brown v. Board of Education, O.T. 1953, No. No. Moreover, these cases are not governed by Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 306, 328, in which the Court held that, for strict scrutiny purposes, a government interest in student body diversity in the context of higher education is compelling. Section 3. Yet the school district does not explain how, in the context of its diverse student population, a blunt distinction between white and non-white furthers these goals. I cannot rely upon Swanns statement that the use of race-conscious limits is permissible without showing, rather than simply asserting, that the statement represents a constitutional principle firmly rooted in federal and state law. Third, there is a democratic element: an interest in producing an educational environment that reflects the pluralistic society in which our children will live. MacFarland v. Jefferson County Public Schoolsand Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. Seattle has never operated segregated schoolslegally separate schools for students of different racesnor has it ever been subject to court-ordered desegregation.