Desegregation Cases Force Changes In Districts' Student Assignment Plans

9/30/2002

From: Sally Banks Zakariya, 703-838-6231 or Glenn Cook, 703-838-6234 both of the American School Board Journal http://www.asbj.com

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 30 -- Approximately 400 school districts nationwide are still under desegregation orders, but a number of lower court decisions have leaned toward eschewing race as a factor in student assignment, according to the October issue of American School Board Journal.

"It's an absolute tragedy that we're losing a lot of those desegregation plans that were successful for 30 years," said Gary Orfield, director of the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, which released a report in August saying that schools are becoming increasingly resegregated.

As a result of a rash of lawsuits, a number of school attorneys are advising their clients to avoid any mention of race in making student assignment decisions. Eventually, a desegregation lawsuit is expected to reach the U.S. Supreme Court that could reverse the impact of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education.

One potential case involves Lynn Public Schools, which serves 15,000 students in Massachusetts. A parent has sued to overturn Lynn's plan, which guarantees students seats in their neighborhood schools and offers students transfers to other schools if seats are available and if the transfer does not contribute to an existing racial imbalance.

A federal judge is expected to announce a decision in the Lynn case by the end of the year, and legal observers say the ruling could become the Supreme Court's test case.

Many districts have fought to keep their court orders for desegregation in place, sometimes with odd consequences. The San Francisco Unified School District, for instance, won the right to keep its court-ordered desegregation plan but in 1999 lost a reverse-discrimination lawsuit where the plaintiffs claimed the plan set unfair limits on Chinese-American students' ability to attend the schools of their choice.

San Francisco board president Jill Wynns still marvels at the district's predicament. "The court said to us, believe it or not, 'You must have schools and programs that are not racially isolated, but you can't use race as an assignment factor,'" she told ASBJ.

Contradictions can be found in a number of desegregation cases, another factor that led many to believe the Supreme Court will eventually take a case such as Lynn. The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, for instance, has approved race-based decisions in school districts, but the 4th Circuit banned them.

"If you move 200 miles up the seacoast, (a school-desegregation plan) would be fine, but in the 4th Circuit, it's not fine," said John Munich, a former Missouri deputy attorney general who works on desegregation issues around the country. "What we need is a decision that applies to the whole country so people know exactly what the law is. This is a constitutional issue. This isn't something that should vary locality by locality."

------ American School Board Journal (http://www.asbj.com) is the award-winning, editorially independent education magazine of the National School Boards Association in Alexandria, Va. Founded in 1891, ASBJ covers a broad range of topics pertinent to school governance and management, policy making, student achievement, and the art of school leadership. In addition, regular departments cover education news, school law, research, and new books. Opinions expressed in the magazine do not necessarily reflect positions of the National School Boards Association.