No. 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. In both Seattle and Louisville, the local school districts began with schools that were highly segregated in fact. The Court made clear that [s]trict scrutiny does not trea[t] dissimilar race-based decisions as though they were equally objectionable. Ibid. Even in the context of mandatory desegregation, we have stressed that racial proportionality is not required, see Milliken, 433 U. S., at 280, n. 14 ([A desegregation] order contemplating the substantive constitutional right [to a] particular degree of racial balance or mixing is infirm as a matter of law (internal quotation marks omitted)); Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. 1, 551 U.S. 701 (U.S. 2007). In addition, there is no evidence from the experience of these school districts that it will make any meaningful impact. See Tr. 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. The latter approach would be informed by Grutter, though the criteria relevant to student placement would differ based on the students age, the parents needs, and the schools role. 515 U. S., at 125 (Thomas, J., concurring). of Cal. Nonetheless, in light of Grutter and other precedents, see, e.g., Bakke, 438 U. S., at 290 (opinion of Powell, J. It also argues that the plan is not narrowly tailored because it does not seek integration at all racially imbalanced schools, only certain ones. in Briggs v. Elliott, O.T. 1953, No. See, e.g., Eisenberg v. Montgomery Cty. . By 1972, however, the Louisville School District remained highly segregated. It established that the decisions in Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. ices Office, District Summaries 19992005, available at Some districts, such as Richmond, California, and Buffalo, New York, permitted only one-way transfers, in which only black students attending predominantly black schools were permitted to transfer to designated receiver schools. It initially assigned each student to his or her neighborhood school, but it permitted each student freely to transfer between elementary schools within each cluster provided that the transferring student (a) was black if transferring from a predominantly black school to a predominantly white school, or (b) was white if transferring from a predominantly white school to a predominantly black school. And they are not uniquely relevant to schools or uniquely teachable in a formal educational setting. Id., at 347. 2, p.7 (Local self-government in local affairs is essential to the peace and happiness of each locality and to the strength and stability of our whole federal system. Importantly, it considered that issue only under rational-basis review, 39 Ill. 2d, at 600, 237 N.E. 2d, at 502 (The test of any legislative classification essentially is one of reasonableness), which even the dissent grudgingly recognizes is an improper standard for evaluating express racial classifications. See, e.g., Hallinan 745; Quillian & Campbell, Beyond Black and White: The Present and Future of Multiracial Friendship Segregation, 68 Am. Although there is arguably a danger of racial imbalance in schools in Seattle and Louisville, there is no danger of resegregation. Sometimes Members of this Court have disagreed about the degree of leniency that the Clause affords to programs designed to include. Outside the school context, this Courts cases reflect the fact that racial mixing does not always lead to harmony and understanding. 1, 149 Wash. 2d 660, 72 P.3d 151 (2003); 137 F.Supp. At the time, however, Young Elementary was 46.8 percent black. Disappointed students are not rejected from a States flagship graduate program; they simply attend a different one of the districts many public schools, which in aspiration and in fact are substantially equal. If the dissent were to say that college cases are simply not applicable to public school systems in kindergarten through high school, this would seem to me wrong, but at least an arguable distinction. The plurality should have remembered that historically only African-American students had been told where they could go to school. [Footnote 28]. This Court has previously done just the opposite, permitting a race-conscious remedy without any kind of court decree. Ante, at 67. Once Jefferson County achieved unitary status, it had remedied the constitutional wrong that allowed race-based assignments. (Fourteenth Amendment creates rights guaranteed to the individual. 05908. in No. in No. Rather, the Court has insisted upon some showing of prior discrimination by the governmental unit involved before allowing limited use of racial classifications in order to remedy such discrimination. The Courts decision in Croson, supra, reinforced the difference between the remedies available to redress de facto and de jure discrimination: To accept [a] claim that past societal discrimination alone can serve as the basis for rigid racial preferences would be to open the door to competing claims for remedial relief for every disadvantaged group. Cf. . Indeed, in McDaniel, a case decided the same day as Swann, a group of parents challenged a race-conscious student assignment plan that the Clarke County School Board had voluntarily adopted as a remedy without a court order (though under federal agency pressurepressure Seattle also encountered). 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. See Chevron U. S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 845 (1984). [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. I describe those histories at length in order to highlight three important features of these cases. The Current Lawsuit, 2003 to the Present. Law is not an exercise in mathematical logic. of Ed., 476 U. S. 267, 277 (1986) (plurality opinion). Both sought to achieve these objectives while preserving their commitment to other educational goals, e.g., districtwide commitment to high quality public schools, increased pupil assignment to neighborhood schools, diminished use of busing, greater student choice, reduced risk of white flight, and so forth. R. Kluger, Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black Americas Struggle for Equality, p. x (1975) (arguing that perhaps no other Supreme Court case has affected more directly the minds, hearts, and daily lives of so many Americans); Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education xxvii (2001) (identifying Brown as the most eagerly awaited and dramatic judicial decision of modern times). 4. The only counter argument in the record is the Ninth Circuits resolution of the question. Even as to race, the plans here employ only a limited notion of diversity, viewing race exclusively in white/nonwhite terms in Seattle and black/other terms in Jefferson County. By 1984, after several schools had fallen out of compliance with the orders racial percentages due to shifting demographics in the community, the school board revised its desegregation plan. While this Court has permitted the States to legislate or otherwise officially act experimentally in the social and economic fields, it has always recognized and held that this power is subject to the limitations of the Constitution, and that the tests of the Constitution must be met); Reply Brief for Appellants in Briggs v. Elliott, O.T. 1953, No. When the actual racial breakdown is considered, enrolling students without regard to their race yields a substantially diverse student body under any definition of diversity. In many such instances, the contentious force of legal challenges to these classifications, meritorious or not, would displace earlier calm); post, at 65 (Indeed, the consequences of the approach the Court takes today are serious. 1117, 2528. Compare ante, at 39 (It was not the inequality of the facilities but the fact of legally separating children on the basis of race on which the Court relied to find a constitutional violation in 1954), with Juris. There are obvious disincentives for students to transfer to a different school after a full quarter of their high school experience has passed, and the record sheds no light on how transfers to the oversubscribed high schools are handled. Finally, the kind of deference that the Supreme Court will give the School District will also have implications. 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. What emerges is a version of strict scrutiny that combines hollow assurances of harmlessness with reflexive acceptance of conventional wisdom. Similarly, in Zaslawsky v. Bd. VI (1978) (prescribing percentage enrollment requirements for minority students); Siqueland 55 (discussing HEW definition of minority). in No. 2d 753, 762764 (WD Ky. 1999). All this is true enough in the contexts in which these statements were madegovernment contracting, voting districts, allocation of broadcast licenses, and electing state officersbut when it comes to using race to assign children to schools, history will be heard. See post, at 3435. 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). See also Hanawalt 31; Pub. Federal authorities had claimedas the NAACP and the OCR did in Seattlethat Clarke County schools were segregated in law, not just in fact. See Sheff v. ONeill, 238 Conn. 1, 678 A. See Brief for Respondent at 3132. None of these elements is compelling. Neither can assign to the other all responsibility for persisting injustices. See Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 244, 275. of Jefferson Cty., Nos. . 1, supra, at 461; Complaint and Motion to Dismiss or Affirm in Seattle School Dist. Roberts cites to: Grutter, supra, at 327, 328, 334, 123 S. Ct. 2325, 156 L. Ed. Hence, applying Grutters strict test, their lawfulness follows a fortiori. Dayton Bd. Finally, the dissent asserts a democratic element to the integration interest. 05908, at 128a, 129a. Cf. For the dissents purposes, the relevant hard-won gains are the present racial compositions in the individual schools in Seattle and Louisville. See also Grutter, supra, at 326 ([G]overnmental action based on racea group classification long recognized as in most circumstances irrelevant and therefore prohibitedshould be subjected to detailed judicial inquiry (internal quotation marks and emphasis omitted)). In Brown, this Court declared that segregation was unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The dissent does not explain how its recognition of an interest in teaching racial understanding and cooperation here is consistent with the Courts rejection of a similar interest in Wygant. in No. Swann, 402 U. S., at 16. A longstanding and unbroken line of legal authority tells us that the Equal Protection Clause permits local school boards to use race-conscious criteria to achieve positive race-related goals, even when the Constitution does not compel it. Contrary to what the dissent would have predicted, see post, at 3839, the children in Seattles African American Academy have shown gains when placed in a highly segregated environment. School Bd., 195 F.3d 698, 701 (CA4 1999); Wessman v. Gittens, 160 F.3d 790, 809 (CA1 1998). The limitation of this power to instances where there has been de jure segregation serves to confine the nature, extent, and duration of governmental reliance on individual racial classifications. The Seattle School district and Jefferson County district have applications that require a parent to state what the race of his or her child is. 3 Seattle School Dist. Ed. 2, p. 50 ([T]he state is deprived of any power to make any racial classifications in any governmental field). To uphold these programs the Court is asked to brush aside two concepts of central importance for determining the validity of laws and decrees designed to alleviate the hurt and adverse consequences resulting from race discrimination. See, e.g., Brief for Appellees on Reargument in Briggs v. Elliott, O.T. 1953, No. 2d, at 1289. Id. Roberts (Parts I, II, IIIA, and IIIC), joined by Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito, Roberts (Parts IIIB and IV), joined by Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Breyer, joined by Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg. Dawkins & Braddock 401403; Wells & Crain 550. In Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle (2007), the United States Supreme Court found that the school district was using race in an unconstitutional manner in its assignment plan. In order to satisfy this searching standard of review, the school districts must demonstrate that the use of individual racial classifications in the assignment plans here under review is narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling government interest. That principle has been accepted by every branch of government and is rooted in the history of the Equal Protection Clause itself. See post, at 37. Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 306 (2003); id., at 387388 (Kennedy, J., dissenting). v. Brinkman, 443 U. S. 526, 531, n.5 (1979) (Racial imbalance is not per se a constitutional violation); Freeman v. Pitts, 503 U. S. 467, 494 (1992); see also Swann, supra, at 3132; cf. Nowhere is this more profoundly true than in the field of education); Tr. Part II dismissed the respondent's attempts to argue that Parents Involved lacks standing. 2d 750 (opinion of Powell, J. Order No. on writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the ninth circuit. Id., at 276, 280 (OConnor, J., concurring). Here the racial balance the districts seek is a defined range set solely by reference to the demographics of the respective school districts. 05915, at 37 (Each [Jefferson County] school has a designated geographic attendance area, which is called the resides area of the school[, and each] such school is the resides school for those students whose parents or guardians residence address is within the schools geographic attendance area); id., at 82 (All elementary students shall be assigned to the school which serves the area in which they reside); and Brief for Respondents in No. As a result of this Courts insistence on strict scrutiny of that policy, but see id., at 538547, inmates in the California prisons were killed. Regardless of the constitutional validity of such remediation, see Croson, supra, at 524525 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment), it does not apply here. Seattle operates a K8 African-American Academy, which has a nonwhite enrollment of 99%. The way Seattle classifies its students bears this out. Yet, as explained, each has failed to provide the support necessary for that proposition. Brief for Petitioner at 3637. For this reason, among others, I do not join Parts IIIB and IV. But eventually a state court found that the mandatory busing was lawful. of Cal. The dissents proposed testwhether sufficient social science evidence supports a government units conclusion that the interest it asserts is compellingcalls to mind the rational-basis standard of review the dissent purports not to apply, post, at 36-37. 458 U. S., at 472, n. 15. 1 uses an open choice plan in which students rank their preferred schools. 1 L. Kohn, Priority Shift: The Fate of Mandatory Busing for School Desegregation in Seattle and the Nation 2730, 32 (Mar. The constitutional problems with government race-based decisionmaking are not diminished in the slightest by the presence or absence of an intent to oppress any race or by the real or asserted well-meaning motives for the race-based decisionmaking. See 539 U. S., at 320. That statement, to be sure, invites this response: A sense of stigma may already become the fate of those separated out by circumstances beyond their immediate control. Eight of those States condition approval of transfers to another school or district on whether the transfer will produce increased racial integration. The Seattle Plan achieved the school integration that it sought. Thus, the dissent argues that [e]ach plan embodies the results of local experience and community consultation. Post, at 47. School districts that had engaged in de jure segregation had an affirmative constitutional duty to desegregate; those that were de facto segregated did not. 2 Id., at 151152; Hanawalt 3738; Seattle School Dist. of Ed etal., on certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. My view of the Constitution is Justice Harlans view in Plessy: Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537, 559 (1896) (dissenting opinion). 05915, at 82. Regardless of what Justice Breyers goals might be, this Court does not sit to create a society that includes all Americans or to solve the problems of troubled inner city schooling. Ibid. They resemble other plans, promulgated by hundreds of local school boards, which have attempted a variety of desegregation methods that have evolved over time in light of experience. 05908, at 162a. . Id., at 143a146a, 152a160a. Although the Constitution almost always forbids the former, it is significantly more lenient in respect to the latter. See Craig v. Boren, 429 U. S. 190, 211 (1976) (concurring opinion). After discussing the democratic element, the dissent repeats its assertion that the social science evidence supporting that interest is sufficiently strong to permit a school board to determine that this interest is compelling. Post, at 40. This type of exclusion, solely on the basis of race, is precisely the sort of government action that pits the races against one another, exacerbates racial tension, and provoke[s] resentment among those who believe that they have been wronged by the governments use of race. Adarand, supra, at 241 (opinion of Thomas, J.). See Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peńa, 515 U. S. 200, 240 (1995) (Thomas, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). See App. In Johnson v. California, 543 U. S. 499 (2005), this Court considered a California prison policy that separated inmates racially. See Brief for Respondent at 27. See Brief for Petitioner at 2526. in No. The system that was upheld in Grutter considered a number of other factors to assure diversity of not only race but also socioeconomic status, skills, and so forth. of Ed. Parents Involved . The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the District had a compelling state interest in achieving the benefits of racial diversity and that its plan was narrowly tailored. Jefferson County has failed to present any evidence that it considered alternatives, even though the district already claims that its goals are achieved primarily through means other than the racial classifications. However, Roberts considers that this interest is not compelling and that the use of race for this goal is not narrowly tailored, it is instead used for racial balancing, which is unconstitutional. The boards work in communities where demographic patterns change, where they must meet traditional learning goals, where they must attract and retain effective teachers, where they should (and will) take account of parents views and maintain their commitment to public school education, where they must adapt to court intervention, where they must encourage voluntary student and parent actionwhere they will find that their own good faith, their knowledge, and their understanding of local circumstances are always necessary but often insufficient to solve the problems at hand. The Current Plan: Project Renaissance Modified, 1996 to 2003. In design and operation, the plans are directed only to racial balance, an objective this Court has repeatedly condemned as illegitimate. 05908, at 286a. The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. Again, however, the evidence supporting a democratic interest in racially integrated schools is firmly established and sufficiently strong to permit a school board to determine, as this Court has itself often found, that this interest is compelling. To do this as an educational policy is within the broad discretionary powers of school authorities. Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. And federal courts would rightly hesitate to find unitary status if the consequences of the ruling were so dramatically disruptive. Pp. 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. If that is so, then all of Seattles earlier (even more race-conscious) plans must also have been unconstitutional. Thus, only by ignoring Grutters reasoning can the dissent claim that recognizing a compelling interest in these cases is an a fortiori application of Grutter. The board responded to the lawsuit by introducing a plan that required race-based transfers and mandatory busing. See Washington State Report Cf. 3, p.8 ([W]e take the unqualified position that the Fourteenth Amendment has totally stripped the state of power to make race and color the basis for governmental action); Tr. See Brief for Respondents in No. 17, 48 (1978). Its view of the law rests either upon a denial of the distinction between exclusionary and inclusive use of race-conscious criteria in the context of the Equal Protection Clause, or upon such a rigid application of its test that the distinction loses practical significance.
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