BRIEFING POINTS
BACKGROUND
The United States Supreme Court is poised to hear a major school desegregation case which could erode the legal foundation for both affirmative action and school integration plans which use race as a factor to create racially equitable enrollment plans.
The NAACP supports school districts in Seattle, Washington and Louisville, Kentucky which have used race as a factor in admissions to ensure more integrated public schools. These two districts have been challenged in the United States Supreme Court through suits brought by white parents who claim that the use of race as a factor in admissions is unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court's decision has direct implications for more than one thousand school districts across the country that have voluntarily implemented plans to ensure racial integration. It also sets a precedent which further endangers affirmative action by overturning the legal precedent, including the historic Bakke decision, on which it exists.
The two cases, known as Parents In Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 and Meredith v. Jefferson County Public Schools, will be heard jointly and are expected to be argued in the Supreme Court before December 2006. The U.S. Justice Department, under the lead of President Bush, has submitted a Friend of the Court Brief urging that these integration plans are unconstitutional.
The Louisville Case: Meredith v. Jefferson County Public Schools
Louisville is a majority-white school district with a current mandate that no single school can be more than 50% or less than 15% black. In opposition to this mandate, the Meredith v. Jefferson County Public Schools case was initiated by a white parent, Crystal Meredith, who sued the district for racial discrimination when her son was unable to attend the closest elementary school.
The Supreme Court will decide:
1. Should the legal precedent (including the 1978 Bakke decision which is seen as a legal cornerstone for affirmative action) be overturned, and did the Jefferson County Board of Education inappropriately use race as the sole factor to assign students to schools?
2. Does Jefferson County's race-conscious Student Assignment Plan meet the Fourteenth Amendment requirement of the use of race which is a compelling interest narrowly tailored with strict scrutiny?
3. Did the District Court abuse and/or exceed its authority in upholding desegregative measures being employed by public schools in Jefferson County, Kentucky?
The Seattle Case: Parents Involved in Community Schools v Seattle School District
Local residents in this public school district voluntarily instituted an integration program to ensure that Seattle high schools reflect the diverse racial and ethnic mix of the city. Under Seattle's system, when a high school has more applicants than slots the district uses a series of criteria to decide who gets in. Race is considered when there is a tie among other factors. Parents Involved in Community Schools (PICS) has challenged the Seattle practice arguing that race should not be used as a tiebreaker because it denies students the right to attend their neighborhood schools.
The Supreme Court will decide:
1. Are the Equal Protection rights of public high school students affected by Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger?
2. Is racial diversity a compelling interest that justifies the use of race in selecting students for admission to public high schools?
3. May a school district that is integrated and normally permits a student to attend any high school of her choosing deny her admission to her chosen school solely because of her race in an effort to achieve a desired racial balance in particular schools? Or does such racial balancing violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment?
QUICK STATS
• The Harvard Civil Rights Project estimates that American public schools are as segregated today as they have ever been. More than 70% of African-American students nationally attend schools that are predominantly minority.
• When the University of California system dropped race as a criteria in admissions, the number of African-Americans in the system dropped steadily for the next ten years. UCLA has seen a 57% decrease in African-American enrollment since 1996.
TALKING POINTS
• The NAACP spearheaded the fight to have public school segregation declared illegal by the U.S. Supreme Court more than 50 years ago and strongly condemns any plan that resegregates public schools and retreats from the legacy of Brown v. Board of Ed.
• The Fourteenth Amendment allows the use of race as a factor when there is "a compelling interest narrowly tailored with strict scrutiny." The 9th circuit court, which previously upheld Seattle's right to use race as a deciding factor, was correct in arguing that the use of race to ensure integrated schools is "a compelling interest in securing the educational and social benefits of racial (and ethnic) diversity."
• Decades of research has established the educational benefits that accrue to children of different races and cultural backgrounds when they are educated together. It is imperative that the Supreme Court find that the use of race as a factor in creating equitable school enrollment bolsters equal protection under the law rather than denying it. Equity is not unconstitutional.
• De facto segregation that exists in schools nationally is attributable to racially segregated housing patterns indicative of broad social inequalities. The current Seattle and Louisville plans ensure that inequities in housing do not persist into inequities in public schooling.
• Without the legal protection afforded under Brown v Board of Education, there will be no structure to keep public education from returning to a state of "separate and unequal" reminiscent of Plessy v. Ferguson. History and law tell us that segregation is a certain path to inequality.
TAKE ACTION
1. Call your representatives and urge them to protect Student Assignment Plans that aim to foster greater integration and access to quality in public education.
2. Organize local rallies in support of the Seattle and Louisville Student Assignment Plans
3. Write an Op-Ed article for your local newspaper explaining to importance of maintaining voluntary Student Assignment Plans as a tool for fostering greater integration.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, CONTACT:
NAACP National Education Director, Michael Wotorson
410.580.5760 or mwotorson@naacpnet.org
View NAACP Amicus Brief (.pdf 302 kb)
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