In Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle (2007), the United States Supreme Court found that the school district was using race in an unconstitutional manner in its assignment plan. 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. As the Court notes, we recognized the compelling nature of the interest in remedying past intentional discrimination in Freeman v. Pitts, 503 U. S. 467, 494 (1992), and of the interest in diversity in higher education in Grutter. The parties and their amici dispute whether racial diversity in schools in fact has a marked impact on test scores and other objective yardsticks or achieves intangible socialization benefits. Compare ante, at 39 (It was not the inequality of the facilities but the fact of legally separating children on the basis of race on which the Court relied to find a constitutional violation in 1954), with Juris. in No. De jure? The District further points to the line of Supreme Court cases requiring that schools desegregate even when such segregation was simply the effect of where the districts boundaries were drawn. Yet the plurality would deprive them of at least one tool that some districts now consider vitalthe limited use of broad race-conscious student population ranges. In Seattle, the plaintiffs alleged that school segregation unconstitutionally reflected not only generalized societal discrimination and residential housing patterns, but also school board policies and actions that had helped to create, maintain, and aggravate racial segregation. The dissent does not explain how its recognition of an interest in teaching racial understanding and cooperation here is consistent with the Courts rejection of a similar interest in Wygant. 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. denied, 389 U. S. 847 (1967); Springfield School Comm. Both districts also considered elaborate studies and consulted widely within their communities. Section 2. Louisville asserts several similar forward-looking interests, Brief for Respondents in 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. 1 L. Kohn, Priority Shift: The Fate of Mandatory Busing for School Desegregation in Seattle and the Nation 2730, 32 (Mar. In light of this, the Seattle School District . 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. 1986). Similarly, the fact that Joshua has been granted a transfer does not eliminate the Courts jurisdiction; Jefferson Countys racial guidelines apply at all grade levels and he may again be subject to race-based assignment in middle school. And, as an aspiration, Justice Harlans axiom must command our assent. Seattle Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. The question was originally brought up by the Ninth Circuit independently of the parties (377 F.3d 949 at 958) and the School District has now adopted that argument as its own before the Court. The distinction between government and private action, furthermore, can be amorphous both as a historical matter and as a matter of present-day finding of fact. But eventually a state court found that the mandatory busing was lawful. Todays opinion reveals that the plurality would rewrite this Courts prior jurisprudence, at least in practical application, transforming the strict scrutiny test into a rule that is fatal in fact across the board. Yesterday, school boards had available to them a full range of means to combat segregated schools. Racial imbalance is the failure of a school districts individual schools to match or approximate the demographic makeup of the student population at large. Here the most Jefferson County itself claims is that because the guidelines provide a firm definition of the Boards goal of racially integrated schools, they provide administrators with the authority to facilitate, negotiate and collaborate with principals and staff to maintain schools within the 1550% range. Brief in Opposition in No. First, it seeks to distinguish Swann and other similar cases on the ground that those cases involved remedial plans in response to judicial findings of de jure segregation. Yet the Seattle public schools have not shown that they were ever segregated by law, and were not subject to court-ordered desegregation decrees. Consequently, even though the issue was in some respect moot with respect to that petitioner, jurisdiction existed. I am not certain just how the remainder of Justice Kennedys concerns affect the lawfulness of the Louisville program, for they seem to be failures of explanation, not of administration. That point was challenged in Justice Breyer's dissent (joined by Stevens, Souter and Ginsberg). 547 U. S. __ (2006). 05915, p. 48, but we are nonetheless obliged to ensure that it exists, Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp., 546 U. S. 500, 514 (2006). The dissents approach confers on judges the power to say what sorts of discrimination are benign and which are invidious. Swann did not hide its understanding of the law in a corner of an obscure opinion or in a footnote, unread but by experts. Similarly, Jefferson Countys expert referred to the importance of having at least 20 percent minority group representation for the group to be visible enough to make a difference, and noted that small isolated minority groups in a school are not likely to have a strong effect on the overall school. App. Thus, Congress has enacted numerous race-conscious statutes that illustrate that principle or rely upon its validity. Here, race becomes a factor only in a fraction of students non-merit-based assignmentsnot in large numbers of students merit-based applications. 3, p.17 (The Court is dealing with thousands of local school districts and schools. The district retained a racial tiebreaker for oversubscribed schools, which takes effect only if the schools minority or majority enrollment falls outside of a 30% range centered on the minority/majority population ratio within the district. The plurality should have remembered that historically only African-American students had been told where they could go to school. Similarly, in Zaslawsky v. Bd. This brings us to the dissents reliance on the Courts opinions in Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 244 (2003), and Grutter, 539 U. S. 306. Given the significant differences among these contexts, it would be surprising if the law required an identically strict legal test for evaluating the constitutionality of race-based criteria as to each of them. Dawkins & Braddock 401403; Wells & Crain 550. Some districts, such as Richmond, California, and Buffalo, New York, permitted only one-way transfers, in which only black students attending predominantly black schools were permitted to transfer to designated receiver schools. This is not to deny that there is a cost in applying a state-mandated racial label. Ante, at 17 (Kennedy, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). 1, 458 U. S. 457); see generally Siqueland 2324. ORAL ARGUMENT OF HARRY J.F. . In 1995 and 1996, the Louisville School Board, with the help of a special Planning Team, community meetings, and other official and unofficial study groups, monitored the effects of Project Renaissance and considered proposals for improvement. See F. Welch & A. Connecticut law requires each school district to submit racial group population figures to the State Board of Education. And [p]referring members of any one group for no reason other than race or ethnic origin is discrimination for its own sake. Bakke, 438 U. S., at 307 (opinion of Powell, J.). in No. Justice Breyers dissent ends on an unjustified note of alarm. 3 Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist., No. Le Lys Rouge (The Red Lily) 95 (W. Stephens transl. Seattle School District No. Yet, like so many other legal categories that can overlap in some instances, the constitutional distinction between de jure and de facto segregation has been thought to be an important one. The dissent half-heartedly attacks the historical underpinnings of the color-blind Constitution. 7045 and 7291 (WD Ky., Sept. 24, 1985), p.3; Memorandum from Donald W. Ingwerson, Superintendent, to the Board of Education, Jefferson Cty. in No. This refers back to a time when public schools were highly segregated, often as a result of legal or administrative policies that facilitated racial segregation in public schools. ante, at 1718 (opinion of Kennedy, J.). ents in No. at 315 (opinion of Powell, J. 2005). In answering this question, the court must first consider a jurisdictional challenge raised by the District and then, if it finds jurisdiction, consider the merits of this question. 2d 358, 360 (2000). 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. Bd. b. explicitly overturned the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. The present cases are not governed by Grutter. The Court also found that the magnet programs available at the high school in question were not available at other high schools in the school district. See Chevron U. S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 845 (1984). In 1999, several parents brought a lawsuit in federal court attacking the plans use of racial guidelines at one of the districts magnet schools. of Ed., 476 U. S. 267, 316 (1986) (same). This is made for the. 1, a consolidated 2007 ruling that resolved both cases, the Court ultimately struck down the school plans at issue, holding that they violated the . The Department of Education has characterized this as a compelling interest in regulations and various other statements. The compelling interest at issue here, then, includes an effort to eradicate the remnants, not of general societal discrimination, ante, at 23 (plurality opinion), but of primary and secondary school segregation, see supra, at 7, 14; it includes an effort to create school environments that provide better educational opportunities for all children; it includes an effort to help create citizens better prepared to know, to understand, and to work with people of all races and backgrounds, thereby furthering the kind of democratic government our Constitution foresees. 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. It added that the fact that a law treats [a person] unequally because of his or her race . . 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). 72); Brief for Respondents in No. The dissent refers to an opinion filed by Judge Kozinski in one of the cases now before us, and that opinion relied upon an opinion filed by Chief Judge Boudin in a case presenting an issue similar to the one here. Regardless of the constitutional validity of such remediation, see Croson, supra, at 524525 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment), it does not apply here. 05908, at 286a. Both, he explains, cannot be true. The plurality's decision should not be read so broadly that it prevents the government from engaging in any race-conscious action. Reply Brief for Petitioner in No. [Footnote 30] See, e.g., Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 2, p. 59 ([I]t would be difficult indeed to find a case so favored by precedent as is the case for South Carolina here). The Seattle School District has begun providing transportation to students who live more than 2.5 miles from their assigned high school. I do not know of any opinion which buoyed Marshall more in his pre-Brown days ). In 1972, civil rights groups and parents, claiming unconstitutional segregation, sued the Louisville Board of Education in federal court. 16, 18. 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. See App. 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). Narrow tailoring requires serious, good faith consideration of workable race-neutral alternatives, id., at 339, and yet in Seattle several alternative assignment plansmany of which would not have used express racial classificationswere rejected with little or no consideration. See Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. Id. Id., at 328 (Our holding today is in keeping with our tradition of giving a degree of deference to a universitys academic decisions). 4143 (Mar. A 1987 Civil Rights Commission Study of 125 school districts in the Nation demonstrated the breadth and variety of desegregation plans: The [study] documents almost 300 desegregation plans that were implemented between 1961 and 1985. 1(Parent Involved in Community Schools), limited the use of race in K-12 integration plans on Equal Protection grounds. (Would it be necessary to adjudicate the obvious 3:02CV00620JGH; Doc. 1 App. General claims that past school segregation affected such varied societal trends are too amorphous a basis for imposing a racially classified remedy, Wygant, 476 U. S., at 276 (plurality opinion), because [i]t is sheer speculation how decades-past segregation in the school system might have affected these trends, see Croson, 488 U. S., at 499. 05908, at 308a. But see ante, at 29. See McDaniel, supra, at 41. In 1969, about 2,200 (of 10,383 total) of the districts black students and about 400 of the districts white students took advantage of the plan. Even apart from Grutter, five Members of this Court agree that avoiding racial isolation and achiev[ing] a diverse student population remain today compelling interests. 05915, at89. For example, prior to our decision in School Comm. In contrast, Seattles website formerly described emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology as a form of cultural racism, and currently states that the district has no intention to hold onto unsuccessful concepts such as [a] colorblind mentality. Harrell, School Web Site Removed: Examples of Racism Sparked Controversy, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 2, 2006, pp. Unlike de jure segregation, there is no ultimate remedy for racial imbalance. See Bustop, Inc. v. Los Angeles Bd. in 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)). 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? And it has its roots in preventing what gradually may become the de facto resegregation of Americas public schools. Thus, only by ignoring Grutters reasoning can the dissent claim that recognizing a compelling interest in these cases is an a fortiori application of Grutter. The historical and factual context in which these cases arise is critical. See also id., at 89 (It has been urged that [these state laws and policies] derive validity as a consequence of a long duration supported and made possible by a long line of judicial decisions, including expressions in some of the decisions of this Court. 05915, at 4, these ambiguities become all the more problematic in light of the contradictions and confusions that result. 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. The Court recognized that seeking diversity and avoiding racial segregation in schools are compelling state interests. Pp. 05915, at 82. It contends that race was used in a narrow way because the race tiebreaker determined the placement of only about ten percent of incoming high school students and was one of several factors under consideration. Jefferson County phrases its interest as racial integration, but integration certainly does not require the sort of racial proportionality reflected in its plan. No. Quoting Justice Powells articulation of diversity in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265, 314315, the Grutter Court noted that it is not an interest in simple ethnic diversity, in which a specified percentage of the student body is in effect guaranteed to be members of selected ethnic groups, that can justify the use of race, 539 U. S., at 324325, but a far broader array of qualifications and characteristics of which racial or ethnic origin is but a single though important element, id., at 325. 733, 741742 (1998) (hereinafter Hallinan). That case involves the original Seattle Plan, a more heavily race-conscious predecessor of the very plan now before us. Electoral district lines are facially race neutral so a more searching inquiry is necessary before strict scrutiny can be found applicable in redistricting cases than in cases of classifications based explicitly on race (quoting Adarand, 515 U. S., at 213)). Despite the dissents repeated intimation of a remedial purpose, neither of the programs in question qualifies as a permissible race-based remedial measure. It is the height of arrogance for Members of this Court to assert blindly that their motives are better than others. 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. Sometimes a court refers to it as an interest in achieving racial diversity. Other times a court, like the plurality here, refers to it as an interest in racial balancing. I have used more general terms to signify that interest, describing it, for example, as an interest in promoting or preserving greater racial integration of public schools. Race-conscious objectives to achieve diverse school environment may be acceptable. In Seattle, for example, in more than 80% of all cases, that choice alone determines which high schools Seattles ninth graders will attend. At a minimum, the pluralitys views would threaten a surge of race-based litigation. See post, at 5, 89, 18, 23. Roberts concludes that racial balancing cannot be a compelling state interest. In this plurality opinion, Roberts wrote that the schools at issue contend that a racially diverse environment is beneficial for education and they submit this as the reason why they consider race alone in their school assignments. [Footnote 6] Id., at 28a35a. The State must seek alternatives to the classification and differential treatment of individuals by race, at least absent some extraordinary showing not present here. Indeed, in its more recent opinions, the Court recognized that the fundamental purpose of strict scrutiny review is to take relevant differences between fundamentally different situations . 67759, p.11 (It is implicit in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U. S. 483, that color or race is a constitutionally impermissible standard for the assignment of school children to public schools. (For ease of exposition, I shall still use Louisville to refer to what is now the combined districts.) See post, at 62. 2005) (Parents IV). Some schools are more popular than others. 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). Sociological Rev., No. For schools that never segregated on the basis of race, such as Seattle, or that have removed the vestiges of past segregation, such as Jefferson County, the way to achieve a system of determining admission to the public schools on a nonracial basis, Brown II, 349 U. S., at 300301, is to stop assigning students on a racial basis. in No. As becomes clearer when the districts plan is further considered, Jefferson County has explained how and when it employs these classifications only in terms so broad and imprecise that they cannot withstand strict scrutiny. 1, 458 U. S. 457, 461466 (1982). Get Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist. 51, p. 349 (J. Cooke ed. See supra, at 12. As the panel majority in Parents Involved VI concluded: [T]he tiebreakers annual effect is thus merely to shuffle a few handfuls of different minority students between a few schoolsabout a dozen additional Latinos into Ballard, a dozen black students into Nathan Hale, perhaps two dozen Asians into Roosevelt, and so on. But the Seattle schools had never been segregated by law; and the Kentucky schools, though previously segregated by law, had their desegregation decree dissolved by a District Court in 2000 on the finding the school district had "eliminated the vestiges associated with the former policy of segregation and its pernicious effects". The plans under reviewwhich are less burdensome, more egalitarian, and more effective than prior planscontinue in that tradition. This plan is in place as of 2017.