Reply to tired of "diversity for Deal and Wilson" as an argument

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "tired of "diversity for Deal and Wilson" as an argument"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=jsteele][quote=Anonymous]
The Supreme Court's PICS (Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, 551 U.S. 701 (2007)) ruling might have fundamentally altered the landscape here.

If the boundaries of Deal or Wilson are redrawn to preserve AA enrollment a the expense of non-AA kids who live closer to the schools, those boundaries can and should be challenged by neighborhood families, and those families will likely prevail.

[/quote]

While the PICS case certainly makes things more complicated, I am not sure that I come to the came conclusion you have. A majority of the court recognized that  the state has a compelling interest in seeking diversity in schools. However, the court ruled that plans to promote diversity have to be narrowly tailored. In the case of Deal and Wilson, a narrowly-tailered solution that preserves diversity would be fairly easy to develop. Defending a solution that did not preserve diversity, on the other hand, would be difficult given the compelling state interest in promoting diversity.
[/quote]

It's not clear that a state has a compelling interest in seeking diversity in middle and high schools, though.  Again, from the Wikipedia article,

[quote]Second, "the interest in diversity in higher education", as upheld in Grutter v. Bollinger.
But Roberts distinguished Grutter from this case, and argued that this case was more similar to Gratz v. Bollinger. In Grutter, the interest was student body diversity "in the context of higher education," and was not focused on race alone but encompassed "all factors that may contribute to student body diversity".[13] The Grutter Court quoted the articulation of diversity from Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, noting that "it is not an interest in simple ethnic diversity, in which a specified percentage of the student body is in effect guaranteed to be members of selected ethnic groups, that can justify the use of race." [14] What was upheld in Grutter was consideration of "a far broader array of qualifications and characteristics of which racial or ethnic origin is but a single though important element." [15] "The entire gist of the analysis in Grutter was that the admissions program at issue there focused on each applicant as an individual, and not simply as a member of a particular racial group." As the Grutter Court explained, "[t]he importance of this individualized consideration in the context of a race-conscious admissions program is paramount." 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."[16] 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," ibid.; race, for some students, is determinative standing alone. Even when it comes 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. "The way Seattle classifies its students bears this out. Upon enrolling their child with the district, parents are required to identify their child as a member of a particular racial group. If a parent identifies more than one race on the form, "[t]he application will not be accepted and, if necessary, the enrollment service person taking the application will indicate one box.""[17] Furthermore, Roberts wrote:[9]

In upholding the admissions plan in Grutter ... [b]this Court relied upon considerations unique to institutions of higher education, noting that in light of "the expansive freedoms of speech and thought associated with the university environment, universities occupy a special niche in our constitutional tradition."[/b][18] The Court explained that "[c]ontext matters" in applying strict scrutiny, and repeatedly noted that it was addressing the use of race "in the context of higher education." [19] The Court in Grutter expressly articulated key limitations on its holding—defining a specific type of broad-based diversity and noting the unique context of higher education—but [b]these limitations were largely disregarded by the lower courts in extending Grutter to uphold race-based assignments in elementary and secondary schools[/b]. The present cases are not governed by Grutter.[/quote][/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics