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The Ninth Circuit asked whether the Seattle school districts particular use of race in its admission process violated the state constitution. of Oral Arg. Seattle School District No. The reason for this omission is clear enough, since the case did not involve any voluntary means adopted by a school district. ; see also App. of Ed., 439 U. S. 1380, 1383 (1978). Ostate-imposed desegregation could only be brought about by busing children across school districts. IV); 34 CFR 280.2, 280.4 (2006) (implementing regulations). Id., at 335336. The memorandum of agreement between Seattle and OCR, of course, contains no admission by Seattle that such segregation ever existed or was ongoing at the time of the agreement, and simply reflects a desire to avoid the incovenience [sic] and expense of a formal OCR investigation, which OCR was obligated under law to initiate upon the filing of such a complaint. From the standpoint of the victim, it is true, an injury stemming from racial prejudice can hurt as much when the demeaning treatment based on race identity stems from bias masked deep within the social order as when it is imposed by law. They contend that the children who have graduated no longer fulfill the third requirement because the parents merely sought injunctive relief prohibiting the school from using the race in admissions, not monetary damages, and consequently a favorable decision will not redress the injury to those children in any concrete way. A mixture? 05908. Dist. In 2001, the district adopted its plan classifying students as black or other in order to make certain elementary school assignments and to rule on transfer requests. Extending Grutter to this context would require us to cut that holding loose from its theoretical moorings. Voluntary cessation does not moot a case or controversy unless 'subsequent events ma[ke] it absolutely clear that the allegedly wrongful behavior could not reasonably be expected to recur,'", First, "remedying the effects of past intentional discrimination.". of Jefferson Cty., Nos. These decisions illustrate well how lower courts understood and followed Swanns enunciation of the relevant legal principle. At a press conference the day of the opinion, Attorney for the Plaintiff Teddy Gordon stated that he would, if necessary, seek legal measures to prevent the use of the current Student Assignment Plan for the 20072008 school year. 539 U. S., at 351352, 353. The law was upheld under rational-basis review, with the state court explicitly rejecting the suggestionwhich is now plainly the lawthat racial group classifications bear a far heavier burden of justification. 352 Mass., at 700, 227 N.E. 2d, at 734 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). 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. The specific interest found compelling in Grutter was student body diversity in the context of higher education. Ibid. What the government is not permitted to do, absent a showing of necessity not made here, is to classify every student on the basis of race and to assign each of them to schools based on that classification. The NAACPs Second Legal Challenge, 1977. Before Brown, the most prominent example of an exemplary black school was Dunbar High School. 1 Hampton I, supra, at 757758, 762; Newburg Area Council, Inc. v. Board of Ed. 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. School Dist. As well, because the racial tiebreaker is only used when more students apply to a certain school than there are spots, schools such as Ranier and Clevelandwhich have only ten percent of white students and are not popular choices remain racially imbalanced. ject.harvard.edu/research/deseg/Racial_Transformation.pdf. In 1963, the transfer programs first year, 239 black students and 8 white students transferred. Brief for Respondents in No. A. Croson Co., 488 U. S. 469, 504 (1989). 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.". Sch. 2d 902 (1980) (Stevens, J., dissenting); brackets omitted). Id., at 143a146a, 152a160a. The new plan permitted each student to choose the school he or she wished to attend, subject to race-based constraints. The basic problem with the pluralitys technical dicta-based response lies in its overly theoretical approach to case law, an approach that emphasizes rigid distinctions between holdings and dicta in a way that serves to mask the radical nature of todays decision. Indeed, the social scientists brief rather cautiously claims the existence of any benefit at all, describing the positive impact as modest, id., at 13, acknowledging that there appears to be little or no effect on math scores, id., at 14, and admitting that the underlying reasons for these gains in achievement are not entirely clear, id., at 15. 250, 251 (1983) (similar in Arkansas); Bullock See Grutter, 539 U. S., at 342 (stating the requirement that all governmental use of race must have a logical end point). Id., at 276, 280 (OConnor, J., concurring). 1 Hampton v. Jefferson Cty., Bd. in No. It gave third preference to students residing in the neighborhood. It also argues that the plan is not narrowly tailored because it does not seek integration at all racially imbalanced schools, only certain ones. v. Barksdale, 348 F.2d 261, 266 (CA1 1965); Pennsylvania Human Relations Commn v. Chester School Dist., 427 Pa. 157, 164, 233 A. of Ed., 402 U. S. 1, 6 (1971); see also Monroe v. Board of Commrs of Jackson, 391 U. S. 450, 452 (1968). When a court subjects governmental action to strict scrutiny, it cannot construe ambiguities in favor of the government. 252, 42 U. S.C. 2000d. The Jefferson County plan, however, is based on a goal of replicating at each school an African-American enrollment equivalent to the average district-wide African-American enrollment. Id., at 81. Reduction of an individual to an assigned racial identity for differential treatment is among the most pernicious actions our government can undertake. Cf. SCHOOLS, PETITIONER, on writ of certiorari to the united states court of Percentage of Black Students in 90100 Percent Nonwhite and Majority Nonwhite Public Schools by Region, 19501954 to 2000, Fall Enrollment. in No. The plan that was the source of this litigation allowed students entering the ninth grade to rank the schools they wanted to attend. Chief Justice Roberts announced the judgment of the Court, and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, IIIA, and IIIC, and an opinion with respect to Parts IIIB and IV, in which Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito join. The present cases, unlike Fullilove but like our decision in Wygant, 476 U. S. 267, require us to ask whether the Board[s] actions[s] advanc[e] the public interest in educating children for the future, id., at 313 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (emphasis added). 394, 401403 (1994) (hereinafter Dawkins & Braddock); Wells & Crain, Perpetuation Theory and the Long-Term Effects of School Desegregation, 64 Rev. The Ninth Circuit held that the burden had not been met since counsel for the School District admitted it was likely that the policy would be reinstated. Even supposing it mattered to the constitutional analysis, the race-based student assignment programs before us are not as benign as the dissent believes. The segregationists also relied upon the likely practical consequences of ending the state-imposed system of racial separation. All of those plans represent local efforts to bring about the kind of racially integrated education that Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954), long ago promisedefforts that this Court has repeatedly required, permitted, and encouraged local authorities to undertake. While it acknowledges that racial classifications are used to make certain assignment decisions, it fails to make clear, for example, who makes the decisions; what if any oversight is employed; the precise circumstances in which an assignment decision will or will not be made on the basis of race; or how it is determined which of two similarly situated children will be subjected to a given race-based decision. ospi.k12. During and just after World War II, significant numbers of black Americans began to make Seattle their home. Similarly, the Federal courts which have considered the issue . No. . aspx? Other amici dispute these findings. v. Seattle Sch. Most of the dissents criticisms of todays result can be traced to its rejection of the color-blind Constitution. 05915, p. 10; see also App. How do the educational and civic interests differ in kind from those that underlie and justify the racial diversity that the law school sought in Grutter, where this Court found a compelling interest? The plurality, or at least those who follow Justice Thomas color-blind approach, see ante, at 2627 (Thomas, J., concurring); Grutter, 539 U. S., at 353354 (Thomas, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part), may feel confident that, to end invidious discrimination, one must end all governmental use of race-conscious criteria including those with inclusive objectives. If the Supreme Court affirms this holding, it will be a departure from that in Gratz and Grutter which specified diversity as a compelling state interest and emphasized the importance of considering race as only one factor in a holistic review of an applicants potential contribution to the diversity of the school. See, e.g., Brief for Appellees on Reargument in Briggs v. Elliott, O.T. 1953, No. 05915, at 45, the racial guidelines apply at all grade levels. Nor could the school districts have accomplished their desired aims (e.g., avoiding forced busing, countering white flight, maintaining racial diversity) by other means. Is racial diversity a compelling interest that can justify the use of race in selecting students for admission to public high schools? (Enrollment Guide). Simply because the school districts may seek a worthy goal does not mean they are free to discriminate on the basis of race to achieve it, or that their racial classifications should be subject to less exacting scrutiny. Furthermore, for a government unit to remedy past discrimination for which it was responsible, the Court has required it to demonstrate a strong basis in evidence for its conclusion that remedial action was necessary. Croson, 488 U. S., at 500 (quoting Wygant, supra, at 277 (plurality opinion)). I shall not accept the school boards assurances on faith, cf. 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. Nonetheless, the Seattle Plan, due to its busing, provoked serious opposition within the State. Jefferson County accordingly does not rely upon an interest in remedying the effects of past intentional discrimination in defending its present use of race in assigning students. The Courts decision in that case was a grievous error it took far too long to overrule. 2d 304. Diversity, depending on its meaning and definition, is a compelling educational goal a school district may pursue. 2, p. 76 ([A] State has power to establish a school system which is capable of efficient administration, taking into account local problems and conditions). See 539 U. S., at 326. Thus, the school districts must demonstrate that their use of such classifications is narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling government interest. The reason is obvious: In Seattle, where the overall student population is 41% white, permitting 85% white enrollment at a single school would make it much more likely that other schools would have very few white students, whereas in Jefferson County, with a 60% white enrollment, one school with 85% white students would be less likely to skew enrollments elsewhere. 529, 532 (SC 1951))); Brief for Appellees in Briggs v. Elliott, O.T. 1952, No. There, a Georgia school board voluntarily adopted a desegregation plan. 05915, at 82. The Court has jurisdiction in these cases. The dissents assertion that these plans are necessary for the school districts to maintain their hard-won gains reveals its conflation of segregation and racial imbalance. 254, 256, 261 (1956) (40 of Kentuckys 180 school districts began desegre- The School District relies on Grutter in describing the educational benefits of a diverse student body as (1) instilling the civic virtue of cross-racial understanding; (2) creating better-informed citizens by exposing students to a wide range of viewpoints; and (3) enabling students to achieve more success. By limiting the School Districts use of race, it will be more difficult for it to cure these defects. Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle (2007) In 2003, the Supreme Court ruled in Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger that race-based classifications, as used in affirmative-action policies, must be "narrowly tailored" to a "compelling government interest," like diversity. App. Does the pluralitys view of the Equal Protection Clause mean that courts must give no weight to such a board determination? of Ed., 395 U. S., at 232. Here Roberts provides the following string citation: Here, Roberts provides the following string cite: Id., at 337, 123 S. Ct. 2325, 156 L. Ed. In particular, they emphasize that the children on whose high school admissions the case was originally based have since graduated high school, while the children of the other involved parents are not yet at the high school age. 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)). of New Kent Cty., 391 U. S. 430, 435 (1968) ([T]he State, acting through the local school board and school officials, organized and operated a dual system, part white and part Negro. It was such dual systems that 14 years ago Brown I[, 347 U. S. 483,] held unconstitutional and a year later Brown II[, 349 U. S. 294 (1955)] held must be abolished).