Supreme Court Timeline

-Thursday, June 28th

Supreme Court rejects school race plans

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected school diversity plans that take account of students' race in two major public school districts but left the door open for using race in limited circumstances.

The decision in cases affecting schools in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle could imperil similar plans in hundreds of districts nationwide, and it further restricts how public school systems may attain racial diversity.

The court split, 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts announcing the court's judgment. The court's four liberal justices dissented.

Yet Justice Anthony Kennedy would not go as far as the other four conservative justices, saying in a concurring opinion that race may be a component of school district plans designed to achieve diversity.

To the extent that Roberts' opinion can be interpreted to foreclose the use of race in any circumstance, Kennedy said, "I disagree with that reasoning."

He agreed with Roberts that the plans in Louisville and Seattle violated constitutional guarantees of equal protection.

Attorney Teddy Gordon, who argued that the school system's plan was discriminatory, said it appeared that Roberts adopted similar reasoning.

"Clearly, we need better race neutral alternatives," Gordon said. "Instead of spending zillions of dollars around the country to place a black child next to a white child, let's reduce class size. All the schools are equal. We will no longer accept that an African-American majority within a school is unacceptable."

Jefferson County Public Schools spokeswoman Lauren Roberts said board members in Louisville were still reading the opinion and declined to comment immediately.

The two school systems in Thursday's decisions employ slightly different methods of taking students' race into account when determining which school they will attend.

Federal appeals courts had upheld both plans after some parents sued. The Bush administration the parents' side, arguing that racial diversity is a noble goal but can be sought only through race-neutral means.

Louisville's schools spent 25 years under a court order to eliminate the effects of state-sponsored segregation. After a federal judge freed the Jefferson County school board, which encompasses Louisville, from his supervision, the board decided to keep much of the court-ordered plan in place to prevent schools from re-segregating.

The lawyer for the Louisville system called the plan a success story that enjoys broad community support, including among parents of white and black students.

The Seattle school district said it used race as one among many factors, relied on it only in some instances and then only at the end of a lengthy process in allocating students among the city's high schools. Seattle suspended its program after parents sued.

The opinion was the first on the divisive issue since 2003, when a 5-4 ruling upheld the limited consideration of race in college admissions to attain a diverse student body. Since then, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who approved of the limited use of race, retired. Her replacement, Justice Samuel Alito was in the majority that struck down the school system plans in Kentucky and Washington.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected public school assignment plans that take account of students' race.

The decision in cases affecting schools in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle could imperil similar plans in hundreds of districts nationwide, and it leaves public school systems with a limited arsenal to maintain racial diversity.

The court split, 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts announcing the court's judgment. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a dissent that was joined by the court's other three liberals.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

-Supreme Court hears arguments

WASHINGTON -- The nation is watching as a case that is challenging Jefferson County Public Schools' racial diversity plan goes before the Supreme Court. The court's decision could set the standard for 1,500 school districts around the country on how they handle racial integration.

Supreme Court justices have been hearing oral arguments Monday morning. They will have to decide if race can be used to assign students to schools to keep racial balance.

Attorney Teddy Gordon represents Crystal Meredith, who sued the district because her son wasn't allowed into the school of his choice because he is white. It would have thrown off the racial balance at Bloom Elementary.

“No one should be color-coded, checking a box to decide the educational outcome,” Gordon says.

“We believe it is the best method to continue to close the achievement gap,” says Pat Todd of the Jefferson County Public School System.

A majority of the justices vote conservatively, which means they may go against Jefferson County's plan.

The justices will come back with a decision most likely in the spring or summer.

Web story produced by Jay Ditzer.

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-Supreme Court agrees to hear case

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Right now in Jefferson County Public Schools, you can walk into any school and you'll find racial diversity -- anywhere from 15 percent to 50 percent of the student population will be African American.

But that could soon change if the U.S. Supreme Court rules their student assignment plan is unconstitutional.

Attorneys for both the parent challenging the plan and the district say this case will have national implications.

“It will decide across the country if the voluntary use of race of student assignment should remain,” says attorney Teddy Gordon.

“It has been a long, hard battle,” says JCPS attorney Frank Mellen. “We have won at every step to this point … make same arguments and hope for the same result.”

Two years ago, the U.S. District Court upheld JCPS’ plan, with the exception of four magnet and traditional schools.

Now Crystal Meredith’s case will be heard before the U.S. Supreme Court. She wanted her son to go to Bloom Elementary, but she says he was denied because he is white. She and her attorney believe that students don't perform better in racial integrated classes and say the district wastes too much money on bussing students to achieve racial balance.

The district stands by their plan.

“Test scores are not the only thing that is important. In K-12 its very important for students to learn to live together in a diverse population,” Mellen says.

“Is it a real picture of desegregation or is it something that just looks nice?” asks Gordon.

If the Supreme Court does not uphold the district’s plan, all students could go back to neighborhood schools, which would not necessarily insure diversity in the classroom,

The U.S. Supreme Court will likely hear the case this fall and make a decision in spring of 2007.

If the court does not uphold Jefferson County’s student assignment plan, students could begin going to different schools as early as fall of 2007.

A similar case out of Seattle, Washington is also going to be heard before the high court.

Web story produced by Jay Ditzer.

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From The Associated Press:

by GINA HOLLAND / AP Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court said Monday it will decide the extent to which public schools can use race in deciding school assignments, setting the stage for a landmark affirmative action ruling.

Justices will hear appeals from a Seattle parents group and a Kentucky parent, ruling for the first time on diversity plans used by a host of school districts around the country.

Race cases have been difficult for the justices. The court’s announcement that it will take up the cases this fall provides the first sign of 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 was still on the bench.

The outcome of this case will turn on her successor, Samuel Alito.

“Looming in the background of this is the constitutionality of affirmative action,” said Davison Douglas, a law professor at William and Mary. “This is huge.”

Arguments will likely take place in November. The court’s announcement followed six weeks of internal deliberations over whether to hear the appeals, an unusually long time.

In one of the cases, an appeals court had upheld Seattle’s system, which lets students pick among high schools and then relies on tiebreakers, including race, to decide who gets into schools that have more applicants than openings.

The lower court decision was based in part on a Supreme Court ruling three years ago, written by O’Connor, which said that colleges and universities could select students based at least in part on race.

The court also will also consider a school desegregation policy in Kentucky. That case is somewhat different, because the school district had long been under a federal court decree to end segregation in its schools. After the decree ended, the district in 2001 began using a plan that includes race guidelines.

A federal judge had said system did not require quotas, and that other factors were considered including geographic boundaries and special programs.

A mother, Crystal Meredith, claimed her son was denied entrance into the neighborhood school because he is white.

The Jefferson County school district, which covers metropolitan Louisville, Ky., and has nearly 100,000 students, was ordered to desegregate its schools in 1974.

The court will also consider whether Seattle’s so-called integration tiebreaker system, which has been discontinued, is tailored to meet a “compelling interest” by the school.

A group called Parents Involved in Community Schools sued in July 2000, arguing that it was unfair for the school district to consider race, and Seattle halted the system.

Lawyers for the Seattle school district had told justices that it was not known what the district’s new school board and new superintendent would do now.

Under the district’s plan, the first tiebreaker was whether an applicant has a sibling already at the school. The second tiebreaker was race: which applicant would bring the high school closer to the district wide ratio of whites to nonwhites, roughly 40 percent to 60 percent. The third tiebreaker was distance, with closer students getting preference.

Seattle has about 46,000 public-school students. The racial tiebreaker helped some whites get into predominantly minority schools, and vice versa.

The cases are Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District, 05-908, and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 05-915.

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)

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-Should race be a deciding factor?

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- If you ask some of these educators, they will tell you the civil rights movement is not over.

“If that plan is thrown out, this community and this county will suffer tremendously,” says Kathryn Kennedy Wallace of the NAACP. “It will be like setting the clock back 100 years.”

Others will tell you there is a new civil rights movement to close the achievement gap between black students and white students.

“I think its insulting if you say the only way for black kids to learn is if he's sitting next to a white kid,” says Pat O’Leary of the JCPS School Board.

Educators from across the country are in downtown Louisville right now for a conference on desegregation in schools, taking a long look at the revolutionary times of breaking down segregation and the ongoing battle to keep desegregated schools equal.

“Of course you want the best for kids and I don't think as a nation we've quite figured that out,” says teacher Toika Ivory.

The conference comes as Jefferson County Public Schools get ready to face the U.S. Supreme Court for what could be one of the biggest cases of the session and of recent years.

The justices will decide if the district can use race as a factor in assigning students to schools. If the district’s plan is overturned, it could send kids back to neighborhood schools -- in many cases, that will mean all white schools and all black schools.

The case before the Supreme Court stems from a claim by Crystal Meredith, who sued JCPS because her son was denied entrance to a traditional school, she says because he is white.

The district policy is to keep each school population at between 15 and 50 percent African American.

“If they are going to be prepared to live in a diverse society, it needs to start when they are children. You can't thrown them into a diverse society,” says Kennedy Wallace.

“I don't like when we make decisions based on the color of a person’s skin,” O’Leary says.

Both sides of the debate move forward to uncertain times for Jefferson County public schools.

Web story produced by Jay Ditzer.