Seattle schools case could change national scene

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether skin color can be considered in assigning children to public schools, reopening the issue of affirmative action.

The justices said they would hear appeals from parents in Seattle and Louisville, Ky., who say it is unconstitutional for officials to consider a student's race when making school assignments. Both cities adopted voluntary integration programs in recent years that put limits on how many white or black students may be enrolled in some schools.

But Seattle stopped using race as a factor in its admissions after the 2001-02 school year because of the legal fight.

The court's announcement puts a contentious social topic on the national landscape in an election year, and tests the conservatism of the two new justices appointed by President Bush.

Monday's announcement also could signal a historic shift on the role of race in education. Just three years ago, the court upheld affirmative action in colleges and universities.

But the court's two new justices have criticized the use of race by the government.

The court banned racial segregation in public schools in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Since then, race questions have been hugely divisive, both for the court and the public.

Doug Kmiec, a Pepperdine University law professor and former Reagan administration lawyer, said the case will affect students everywhere.

"This is not quite at the level of Brown v. Board, but it will be argued in the style of that case," Kmiec said.

Justices will look at the modern-era classroom, no longer under court-desegregation orders but in some places still using remnants of those policies.

At its heart, the court will consider whether school leaders can promote racial diversity without violating the Constitution's guarantee against discrimination.

The court's announcement that it will take up the cases this fall provides the first sign of an aggressiveness by the court under new Chief Justice John Roberts. The court rejected a similar case in December when moderate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor still was on the bench. The outcome will likely turn on her successor, conservative Justice Samuel Alito.

Both Roberts, 51, and Alito, 56, worked as Justice Department lawyers during the Reagan administration to limit affirmative action.

The court deliberated for six weeks over whether to hear the appeals, an unusually long time.

"This is a very dramatic move. I expect it will create a big national discussion," said Gary Orfield, who heads the Harvard University Civil Rights Project and supports affirmative action.

A ruling against the schools "would be pretty devastating to suburban communities, small towns that have successfully maintained desegregation for a couple of generations," he said. "The same communities that were forced to desegregate would be forced to resegregate."

Sharon Browne is a lawyer for the Pacific Legal Foundation in Sacramento, Calif., which had urged the court to hear both cases.

"The issue here is: Can public schools voluntary discriminate among students to achieve racial balance?" she said. "They are teaching our kids that race still matters. If they can continue to do that, we will never get to a place where the country is color blind."

Browne said as many as 1,000 school districts nationwide seek to integrate some schools by enrolling or not enrolling students based on their race.

Seattle has 10 comprehensive high schools, and it allows students to choose which one they want to attend. But if a school is "over-subscribed" with too many students, officials put limits on who may enroll.

Students are given a preference in enrolling in a school if their brother or sister is attending the same school. Under the part of the system that was halted, their race was described as another "tie breaker."

The district's integration plan had called for trying to maintain a racial balance.

In 2001, for example, 300 students were denied their first choice of a high school because of their race. Of these, 210 were white and 90 were minorities. The minorities include students who are black, Hispanic, Asian and American Indian.

The Seattle plan has been tied up in litigation for years. Last October, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the plan and applauded the school system for achieving "racial diversity" despite the city's segregated housing patterns.

Louisville, unlike Seattle, had a history of official racial segregation. In 1975, it was ordered to bus students to achieve desegregation, but that court order ended in 2000. A year later, it adopted a voluntary integration plan that seeks a black enrollment of at least 15 percent and no more than 50 percent in each school.

Crystal Meredith, a white parent, challenged the plan, charging that it violated her son's rights because he was blocked from attending his neighborhood elementary school because it had too many white students.

But a federal judge and the U.S. appeals court in Cincinnati upheld the integration plan.

The Supreme Court said it will hear both cases in the fall. They are Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education.

Material from Seattle Times archives was used in this report.