Context matters when reviewing race-based governmental action under the Equal Protection Clause. See Chevron U. S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 845 (1984). Jefferson County also argues that it would be incongruous to hold that what was constitutionally required of it one dayrace-based assignments pursuant to the desegregation decreecan be constitutionally prohibited the next. 5455 (What is the great national and federal policy on this matter? [Footnote 18]. Part III A first reiterated that "when the government distributes burdens or benefits on the basis of individual racial classifications, that action is reviewed under strict scrutiny. Although the matter was the subject of disagreement on the Court, see id., at 346347 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); id., at 382383 (Rehnquist, C.J., dissenting); id., at 388392 (Kennedy, J., dissenting), the majority concluded that the law school did not count back from its applicant pool to arrive at the meaningful number it regarded as necessary to diversify its student body. By 1988, many white families had left the school district, and many Asian families had moved in. Thus, more nonwhite students (107, 27, and 82, respectively) who selected one of these three schools as a top choice received placement at the school than would have been the case had race not been considered, and proximity been the next tiebreaker. 1, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Parents_Involved_in_Community_Schools_v._Seattle_School_District_No._1&oldid=1137632337. In design and operation, the plans are directed only to racial balance, an objective this Court has repeatedly condemned as illegitimate. 89. . To Harris? Ante, at 1718 (opinion of Kennedy, J.). 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. 3, p. 71 ([T]o make such a transition, would undo what we have been doing, and which we propose to continue to do for the uplift and advancement of the education of both races. Justice Kennedy agreed that the Court has jurisdiction to decide these cases and that respondents student assignment plans are not narrowly tailored to achieve the compelling goal of diversity properly defined, but concluded that some parts of the plurality opinion imply an unyielding insistence that race cannot be a factor in instances when it may be taken into account. School authorities are traditionally given broad discretionary powers to formulate and implement educational policy and may properly decide to ensure to their students the value of an integrated school experience. Citizens for Better Ed. But that is also true of the Clarke County schools in McDaniel. 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. ; Grutter, supra, at 329330; Freeman, 503 U. S., at 494. 6th ed. See Brief for Respondent at 3132. Perhaps recognizing as much, the dissent argues that the social science evidence is strong enough to permit a democratically elected school board reasonably to determine that this interest is a compelling one. Post, at 38. (Would it be necessary to adjudicate the obvious The dissents reliance on this interest is, therefore, inconsistent with Wygant. Between 1968 and 1980, the number of black children attending a school where minority children constituted more than half of the school fell from 77% to 63% in the Nation (from 81% to 57% in the South) but then reversed direction by the year 2000, rising from 63% to 72% in the Nation (from 57% to 69% in the South). Sometimes Members of this Court have disagreed about the degree of leniency that the Clause affords to programs designed to include. And individual racial classifications employed in this manner may be considered legitimate only if they are a last resort to achieve a compelling interest. Again, neither school board asserts that its race-based actions were taken to remedy prior discrimination. Compare Brief for Kansas on Reargument in Brown v. Board of Education, O.T. 1953, No. We defend only the validity of the statute that enables the Topeka Board of Education to determine its own course). Unless we believe that the Constitution enforces one legal standard for the South and another for the North, this Court should grant Seattle the permission it granted Clarke County, Georgia. 1, p. 7 (We have one fundamental contention which we will seek to develop in the course of this argument, and that contention is that no State has any authority under the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to use race as a factor in affording educational opportunities among its citizens); Tr. The fact that many such plans have used explicitly racial criteria suggests that such criteria have an important, sometimes necessary, role to play. of Boston v. Board of Education, 389 U. S. 572 (1968) (per curiam). Hist. in McFarland I, at 190 (Dec. 8, 2003) (Q. The dissents characterization of Swann as recognizing that the Equal Protection Clause permits local school boards to use race-conscious criteria to achieve positive race-related goals isat besta dubious inference. Since the Court granted writ over these objections, it seems likely that it will find jurisdiction exists. The new policy added an explicitly racial criterion: If a place exists in a school, then, irrespective of other transfer criteria, a white student may transfer to a predominantly black school, and a black student may transfer to a predominantly white school. Id. [32], Plurality opinion by Chief Justice Roberts. Because Louisville could use race-based measures only as a remedy for past de jure segregation, it is not incoherent, post, at 56, to say that race-based decisionmaking was allowed to Louisville one daywhile it was still remedyingand forbidden to it the nextwhen remediation was finished. See also, e.g., Offerman v. Nitkowski, 378 F.2d 22, 24 (CA2 1967); Deal v. Cincinnati Bd. (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). Cf. 3, p. 57 ([T]he historical background that exists, certainly in this Virginia situation, with all the strife and the history that we have shown in this record, shows a basis, a real basis, for the classification that has been made); id., at 69 (describing the potential abolition of segregation as contrary to the customs, the traditions and the mores of what we might claim to be a great people, established through generations, who themselves are fiercely and irrevocably dedicated to the preservation of the white and colored races). The enduring hope is that race should not matter; the reality is that too often it does. The statement by Justice Harlan that [o]ur Constitution is color-blind was most certainly justified in the context of his dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537, 559 (1896). Rather, this Court must assess independently the nature of the interest asserted and the evidence to support it in order to determine whether it qualifies as compelling under our precedents. The Court reasoned that the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause prohibited schools from voluntarily using racial classifications to achieve integration. Indeed, remedial measures geared toward such broad and unrelated societal ills have no logical stopping point, ibid., and threaten to become ageless in their reach into the past, and timeless in their ability to affect the future, Wygant, supra, at 276 (plurality opinion). It is even more difficult to accept the pluralitys contrary view, namely that the underlying plan was unconstitutional. Their decision leaves thousands Parents Involved in Community Schools (PICS) (plaintiff) were parents of students denied assignment to particular schools under these plans solely because of their race. Many parents, white and black alike, want their children to attend schools with children of different races. as Amici Curiae 29. The inclusion of minority teachers in the educational process inevitably tends to dispel that illusion whereas their exclusion could only tend to foster it). . Neither can assign to the other all responsibility for persisting injustices. The Constitution generally prohibits government race-based decisionmaking, but this Court has authorized the use of race-based measures for remedial purposes in two narrowly defined circumstances. Observers claim that the Supreme Court's decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 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). Post, at 5862. 2830 (cataloging state laws requiring separa- 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). One can attempt to identify a construction of Jefferson Countys student assignment plan that, at least as a logical matter, complies with these competing propositions; but this does not remedy the underlying problem. Ostate-imposed desegregation could only be brought about by busing children across school districts. . See App. See, e.g., Springfield School Comm. First, Seattle claimed that none of the current members of Parents Involved can claim an imminent injury. The statement was not a technical holding in the case. The present cases are before us, however, because the Seattle school district was never segregated by law, and the Jefferson County district has been found to be unitary, having eliminated the vestiges of its prior dual status. The next tiebreaker depends upon the racial composition of the particular school and the race of the individual student. 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. See supra, at 1214. And it used busing to transport the students to their new assignments. Seattle Schools Transportation. Without it, some schools such as Cleveland and Ranier would have remained substantially dominated by minorities, while minority students were denied the opportunity to attend the popular schools outside their neighborhoods. See Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339, 343344 (1960) (admonishing that, in dealing with claims under broad provisions of the Constitution, which derive content by an interpretive process of inclusion and exclusion, it is imperative that generalizations, based on and qualified by the concrete situations that gave rise to them, must not be applied out of context in disregard of variant controlling facts). 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)). As part of that burden it must establish, in detail, how decisions based on an individual students race are made in a challenged governmental program. That is particularly true given that, when Swann was decided, this Court had not yet confirmed that strict scrutiny applies to racial classifications like those before us. Magnet and Traditional are exempt from this ratio per the 2000 and 2003 Court Order. 05915, p.7, n.4; Tr. Roberts cites Adarand, supra, at 227, 115 S. Ct. 2097, 132 L. Ed. If Gratz is to be the measure, the racial classification systems here are a fortiori invalid. 2002). And what of respect for democratic local decisionmaking by States and school boards? See 539 U. S., at 320. These arguments are inimical to the Constitution and to this Courts precedents. How does one tell when a racial classification is invidious? of Ed., supra, at 232. 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. & Rodgers, Coercion to Compliance: Southern School Districts and School Desegregation Guidelines, 38 J. Id., at 73. To remedy the wrong, school districts that had been segregated by law had no choice, whether under court supervision or pursuant to voluntary desegregation efforts, but to resort to extraordinary measures including individual student and teacher assignment to schools based on race. Part IB, supra. PICS disagrees that the race tiebreaker was necessary to the Districts goals, even if the Court finds them to be compelling interests. 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. Perhaps the best example is provided by our approval of the decision of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in 1967 upholding a state statute mandating racial integration in that States school system. In the Jefferson County case, the District Court found that the school district had asserted a compelling interest in maintaining racially diverse schools, and that its plan was, in all relevant respects, narrowly tailored to serve that interest. The principle that racial balancing is not permitted is one of substance, not semantics. I have long adhered to the view that a decision to exclude a member of a minority because of his race is fundamentally different from a decision to include a member of a minority for that reason. The new plan permitted each student to choose the school he or she wished to attend, subject to race-based constraints. See, e.g., Part IB, supra. See Sheff v. ONeill, 238 Conn. 1, 678 A. They further contend that the children who have yet to reach high school age fail to fulfill the first requirement because their potential injury is not imminent; they have not even applied yet and consequently any injury to them is purely hypothetical at this point. See Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 244, 301 (2003) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting); Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peńa, 515 U. S. 200, 243 (1995) (Stevens, J., dissenting). A 2007 Supreme Court ruling in Parents Involved in Community Schools vs. Seattle School District #1, limited the. Section 2. 05908, at 257a (Q. The school districts in these cases have not carried the heavy burden of demonstrating that we should allow this once againeven for very different reasons. Does that make a difference? 26. And their history reveals school district goals whose remedial, educational, and democratic elements are inextricably intertwined each with the others. Parents in Louisville, Kentucky and Seattle, Washington argued that those districts' school integration programs - each of which was voluntarily adopted by local school boards to promote racial integration - violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In addition, there is no evidence from the experience of these school districts that it will make any meaningful impact. Navigating around that inconvenient authority, the dissent argues that the racial balancing in these plans is not an end in itself but is instead intended to teac[h] children to engage in the kind of cooperation among Americans of all races that is necessary to make a land of three hundred million people one Nation. Post, at 3940. See also Reply Brief for Appellees in Davis v. County School Board, O.T. 1953, No. Swann, supra, at 6; see also Green v. School Bd. Yet neither of those briefs contains specific details like the magnitude of the claimed positive effects or the precise demographic mix at which those positive effects begin to be realized. Racial balancing is not transformed from patently unconstitutional to a compelling state interest simply by relabeling it racial diversity. While the school districts use various verbal formulations to describe the interest they seek to promoteracial diversity, avoidance of racial isolation, racial integrationthey offer no definition of the interest that suggests it differs from racial balance. See, e.g., Shaw v. Hunt, 517 U. S. 899, 909910 (1996) ([A]n effort to alleviate the effects of societal discrimination is not a compelling interest); Croson, supra, at 498499; Wygant, 476 U. S., at 276 (plurality opinion) (Societal discrimination, without more, is too amorphous a basis for imposing a racially classified remedy); id., at 288 (OConnor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) ([A] governmental agencys interest in remedying societal discrimination, that is, discrimination not traceable to its own actions, cannot be deemed sufficiently compelling to pass constitutional muster). Stripped of the baseless and novel interests the dissent asserts on their behalf, the school boards cannot plausibly maintain that their plans further a compelling interest. Thus, racial balancing will have to take place on an indefinite basisa continuous process with no identifiable culpable party and no discernable end point. But that legal circumstance cannot make a critical difference here for two separate reasons. 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. The suggestion that our decision today is somehow inconsistent with our disposition of that appeal is belied by the fact that neither the lower courts, the respondent school districts, nor any of their 51 amici saw fit even to cite the case. The Amendment sought to bring into American society as full members those whom the Nation had previously held in slavery. Any use of race to distinguish one person from another threatens to stigmatize individuals and incite hostility. of New York v. Harris, 444 U. S. 130, 148149 (1979), the Court concluded that a federal statute required school districts receiving certain federal funds to remedy faculty segregation, even though in this Courts view the racial disparities in the affected schools were purely de facto and would not have been actionable under the Equal Protection Clause. Dawkins & Braddock 401403; Wells & Crain 550. Id., at 25. of Ed., Harris, and Bustop made one thing clear: significant as the difference between de jure and de facto segregation may be to the question of what a school district must do, that distinction is not germane to the question of what a school district may do. Which of the following statements offers the most accurate comparison between this case and the decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954)? These changes conformed with the concurring opinion of Justice Kennedy. The Seattle Board Statement Reaffirming Diversity Rationale speaks of the inherent educational value in [p]roviding students the opportunity to attend schools with diverse student enrollment, App. Cf. Id. 3. In Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978), relied on by the Court in Gratz, Justice Powell, in a plurality opinion, stated that preferring members of one group for no reasons other than race or ethnic origin is discrimination for its own sake, and therefore unlawful.