Id. The complaint charged that the school board had brought about this segregated system in part by mak[ing] and enforc[ing] certain rules and regulations, in part by drawing . [Footnote 8]. In 2003, the petitioner now before us, Crystal Meredith, brought this lawsuit challenging the plans unmodified portions, i.e., those portions that dealt with ordinary, not magnet, schools. The techniques that different districts have employed range from voluntary transfer programs to mandatory reassignment. Id., at 21. Consequently, regardless of the perceived negative effects of racial imbalance, I will not defer to legislative majorities where the Constitution forbids it. of Ed. It then placed some grades (say, third and fourth grades) at one school building and other grades (say, fifth and sixth grades) at the other school building. And federal courts would rightly hesitate to find unitary status if the consequences of the ruling were so dramatically disruptive. 539 U.S. at 316. An adoption by the court of a rule that has such connotations as authorizing discrimination of young people will surely question prior decisions holding the opposite and spur related litigation in years to come. A. I dont have a definition for that); id., at 228a229a (I dont think weve ever sat down and said, Define racially concentrated school exactly on point in quantitative terms. I dont think weve ever had that conversation); Tr. 4. 2. of City School Dist. Brief for Petitioner at 11. 5 (Jan. 2003), online at http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research/reseg03/AreWeLosingtheDream.pdf (Frankenberg, Lee, & Orfield) (using U. S. Dept. Our Nation from the inception has sought to preserve and expand the promise of liberty and equality on which it was founded. No. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law). Justice Thomas concludes noting "If our history has taught us anything it has taught us to beware of elites bearing racial theories." After preliminary rulings and an eventual victory for the plaintiffs in the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, the District Court in July 1975 entered an order requiring desegregation. 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. [Footnote 15] Environmental reflection, though, is just another way to say racial balancing. 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. Yesterday, the plans under review were lawful. [12] In order to survive strict scrutiny analysis, "a narrowly tailored plan" must be presented in order to achieve a "compelling government interest. of Oral Arg. In both cases the efforts were in part remedial. A compelling interest exists in avoiding racial isolation, an interest that a school district, in its discretion and expertise, may choose to pursue. As to recruiting faculty on the basis of race, both cities have tried, but only as one part of a broader program. Despite his argument that these cases should be evaluated under a standard of review that is not strict in the traditional sense of that word, post, at 36, Justice Breyer still purports to apply strict scrutiny to these cases. Independent School Dist., 719 S.W. 2d 350, 352-353 (Ct. App. In Louisville, a federal district court found that school segregation reflected pre-Brown state laws separating the races. Section 2. There is ample precedent in the decisions of this Court to uphold school segregation); Brief for Petitioners in Gebhart v. Belton, O.T. 1952, No. "[27], Part III C[14] addressed the school districts' claim that "the way in which they have employed individual racial classifications is necessary to achieve their stated ends." The tenth high school, West Seattle, is located west of downtown. Contrary to the dissents argument, post, at 44, the Louisville school districts interest in remedying its past de jure segregation did vanish the day the District Court found that Louisville had eliminated the vestiges of its historic de jure segregation. In administering public schools, it is permissible to consider the schools racial makeup and adopt general policies to encourage a diverse student body, one aspect of which is its racial composition. Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. This context is not a context that involves the use of race to decide who will receive goods or services that are normally distributed on the basis of merit and which are in short supply. Revisited: Desegregation to Resegregation, 52 J. Negro Educ. The next tiebreaker depends upon the racial composition of the particular school and the race of the individual student. These interests combine remedial, educational, and democratic objectives. In fact, it contends that the District never seriously considered other race-neutral alternatives. Johnson v. California, 543 U. S. 499, 505506 (2005); Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 306, 326 (2003); Adarand, supra, at 224. (This Nation has a moral and ethical obligation to fulfill its historic commitment to creating an integrated society that ensures equal opportunity for all of its children). The Supreme Court will now review that determination in light of its Equal Protection decisions in Grutter and Gratz and is asked to decide whether racial diversity in high schools is a compelling state interest. 2d 1267 (1996). in No. The first case started in 1998 when five African American high school students sued JCPS to allow them to attend Central High School, a magnet school. 2002), but then withdrew its opinion, finding that the appeal turned on an unsettled question of state law which the state courts would best be able to answer in the first instance. Both, he explains, cannot be true. By and large, public education in our Nation is committed to the control of state and local authorities); Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U. S. 294, 299 (1955) (Brown II) (Full implementation of these constitutional principles may require solution of varied local school problems. In doing so, it consulted widely with parents and other members of the local community, using public presentations, public meetings, and various other methods to obtain the publics input. The wide variety of different integration plans that school districts use throughout the Nation suggests that the problem of racial segregation in schools, including de facto segregation, is difficult to solve. in No. 05915, at 410. The allocation of governmental burdens and benefits, contentious under any circumstances, is even more divisive when allocations are made on the basis of individual racial classifications. This Court then held that the initiativewhich would have prevented the Seattle Plan from taking effectviolated the Fourteenth Amendment. 1725. Justice Breyer speaks of bringing the races together (putting aside the purely black-and-white nature of the plans), as the justification for excluding individuals on the basis of their race. 05908, at 308a. Magnet and Traditional are exempt from this ratio per the 2000 and 2003 Court Order. The transfer might have had an adverse effect on the effort to approach district-wide racial proportionality at Young, but it had nothing to do with preventing either the black or other group from becoming small or isolated at Young. denied, 389 U. S. 847 (1967); Springfield School Comm. 1. See Hallinan 741742. In a footnote the Justice added a personal mention of Justice Breyer: "Justice Breyer's good intentions, which I do not doubt, have the shelf life of Justice Breyer's tenure. yrs= (showing that reading scores went up, not down, when Seattles race-based assignment program ended at Sealth High School, Ingraham High School, and Franklin High Schoolsome of the schools most affected by the plan). Plessy, supra, at 559 (Harlan, J., dissenting). Notwithstanding these concerns, allocation of benefits and burdens through individual racial classifications was found sometimes permissible in the context of remedies for de jure wrong. And the present context requires a court to examine carefully the race-conscious program at issue. Cf. [Footnote 27] Whatever else the Courts rejection of the segregationists arguments in Brown might have established, it certainly made clear that state and local governments cannot take from the Constitution a right to make decisions on the basis of race by adverse possession. It also determined that the actual case or controversy requirement was met despite the School Districts discontinuation of the use of race in high school admissions. As I have pointed out, supra, at 4, de facto resegregation is on the rise. 2841. In Grutter, in contrast, the consideration of race was viewed as indispensable in more than tripling minority representation at the law school there at issue. See Regents of Univ. Pp. Wash., 2001). In so doing, the Illinois Supreme Court acted in explicit reliance on our decision in School Comm. Assertions of general societal discrimination are plainly insufficient. Plessy, of course, concerned official classification by race applicable to all persons who sought to use railway carriages. 426 F.3d 1162, 1166 (9th Cir. 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. Cities that have implemented successful school desegregation plans have witnessed increased interracial contact and neighborhoods that tend to become less racially segregated. Id., at 8391. People Who Care v. Rockford Bd. Most worked at unskilled jobs. See Brief for Petitioner at 44. Reply Brief for Petitioner in No. Tex. [14], Neither school could plead this compelling interest, because "[w]e have emphasized that the harm being remedied by mandatory desegregation plans is the harm that is traceable to segregation, and that 'the Constitution is not violated by racial imbalance in the schools, without more. 2d 854 (Kennedy, J., concurring in part [*2761] and concurring in judgment), "Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. I do not understand why this Courts cases, which rest the significance of a unitary finding in part upon the wisdom and desirability of returning schools to local control, should deprive those local officials of legal permission to use means they once found necessary to combat persisting injustices. No. I shall consequently ask whether the school boards in Seattle and Louisville adopted these plans to serve a compelling governmental interest and, if so, whether the plans are narrowly tailored to achieve that interest. Although the Court has certified three separate questions in this case, all three questions essentially involve the same inquiry: in light of the Courts rulings in Grutter and Gratz, does the Seattle School Districts use of race in high school admissions violate the Equal Protection Clause? What do the racial classifications at issue here do, if not accord differential treatment on the basis of race? 161, 170, 212 A. Public Schools, 416 F.3d 513 (2005); Memorandum from Stephen W. Daeschner, Superintendent, to the Board of Education, Jefferson Cty. At the same time it adopted an open transfer policy under which approximately 3,000 of Louisvilles 46,000 students applied for transfer. This case was brought by a non-profit organization, Parents Involved in Community Schools (PICS), representing parents of students in the Seattle School District (District) who objected to the school districts use of race as a tiebreaker for admission to schools as violating the Equal Protection Clause. The Jefferson County Board of Education fails to meet this threshold mandate. Le Lys Rouge (The Red Lily) 95 (W. Stephens transl. 1, 458 U. S. 457, 461466 (1982). That principle has been accepted by every branch of government and is rooted in the history of the Equal Protection Clause itself. See, e.g., Brief for Respondents in No. Racial imbalance is not segregation, and the mere incantation of terms like resegregation and remediation cannot make up the difference. The District asserts that it helped these schools by allowing students from the schools to attend other schools, furthering the goals of ending racial isolation and promoting equal access. . See Harrell, School Web Site Removed: Examples of Racism Sparked Controversy, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 2, 2006, p. B1. Bd. Together with No. I describe those histories at length in order to highlight three important features of these cases. Indeed, the very school districts that once spurned integration now strive for it. in No. [citation needed], The 414 split makes PICS somewhat similar to the 1978 Bakke case, which held that affirmative action was unconstitutional in the case directly before the Court. Initially, as the Court explained just last Term, we are not bound to follow our dicta in a prior case in which the point now at issue was not fully debated. Central Va. Community College v. Katz, 546 U. S. 356, 363 (2006). In the present cases, by contrast, race is not considered as part of a broader effort to achieve exposure to widely diverse people, cultures, ideas, and viewpoints, id., at 330; race, for some students, is determinative standing alone. No. Second, Seattle School Dist. And it expanded the transfer opportunities available to elementary and middle school pupils. 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. 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. In Louisville, Kentucky, the Jefferson County Public Schools voluntarily implemented a system of student assignments that set quota percentages for African-American students in each school. And the Court repeated this same statement in Grutter. See Missouri v. Jenkins, 515 U. S. 70, 124125 (1995), (Thomas, J., concurring). in No. These include the facially race-neutral means set forth above or, if necessary, a more nuanced, individual evaluation of school needs and student characteristics that might include race as a component. 17, 48 (1978). Project Renaissance again revised the boards racial guidelines. The District argues that under the Courts jurisprudence, strict scrutiny does not require sacrificing every other goal to that of avoiding the use of race, but that it requires a proper balancing of goals. The district did not attempt to defend the proposition that anything outside its range posed the specter of exceptionality. Nor did it demonstrate in any way how the educational and social benefits of racial diversity or avoidance of racial isolation are more likely to be achieved at a school that is 50 percent white and 50 percent Asian-American, which would qualify as diverse under Seattles plan, than at a school that is 30 percent Asian-American, 25 percent African-American, 25 percent Latino, and 20 percent white, which under Seattles definition would be racially concentrated. "[5], According to Kennedy, "The cases here were argued upon the assumption, and come to us on the premise, that the discrimination in question did not result from de jure actions." See Brief of the States of New York, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, the District of Columbia, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico as Amici Curiae in Support of Respondents at 11. See supra, at 1214. of Oral Arg. It is an interest in helping our children learn to work and play together with children of different racial backgrounds. Brief for Respondent at 1617. Absent searching judicial inquiry into the justification for such race-based measures, there is simply no way of determining what classifications are benign or remedial and what classifications are in fact motivated by illegitimate notions of racial inferiority or simple racial politics. Richmond v. J. Public schools may not use race as the sole determining factor for assigning students to schools. 2d 257 (2003) (quoting [***38] Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U.S. 448, 537, 100 S. Ct. 2758, 65 L. Ed. 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. 3, p. 76 (The question is a practical one for them to solve; it is not subject to solution in the theoretical realm of abstract principles); Tr. No. If a school district has an interest in teaching racial understanding and cooperation, there is no logical reason why that interest should not extend to the composition of the teaching staff as well as the composition of the student body. Indeed, in 1968, the Illinois Supreme Court rejected an equal protection challenge to a race-conscious state law seeking to undo de facto segregation: To support [their] claim, the defendants heavily rely on three Federal cases, each of which held, no State law being involved, that a local school board does not have an affirmative constitutional duty to act to alleviate racial imbalance in the schools that it did not cause. The first tiebreaker selects for admission students who have a sibling currently enrolled in the chosen school. School districts that had engaged in de jure segregation had an affirmative constitutional duty to desegregate; those that were de facto segregated did not. Such deference is fundamentally at odds with our equal protection jurisprudence. Justice Thomas suggests that it will be easy to identify de jure segregation because [i]n most cases, there either will or will not have been a state constitutional amendment, state statute, local ordinance, or local administrative policy explicitly requiring separation of the races. Ante, at 6, n.4 (concurring opinion).