Parents Involved VII, 426 F.3d, at 1192. See McDaniel, supra, at 41. in No. Here, race becomes a factor only in a fraction of students non-merit-based assignmentsnot in large numbers of students merit-based applications. Voluntary School Diversity Efforts A decade ago, on June 28, 2007, the United States Supreme Court issued its ruling in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District ("PICS"), the only Chief Justice Burger, on behalf of a unanimous Court in a case of exceptional importance, wrote: School authorities are traditionally charged with broad power to formulate and implement educational policy and might well conclude, for example, that in order to prepare students to live in a pluralistic society each school should have a prescribed ratio of Negro to white students reflecting the proportion for the district as a whole. Observers claim that the Supreme Court's decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 3, p.8283 (Our many hours of research and investigation have led only to confirmation of our view that segregation by race in Virginias public schools at this time not only does not offend the Constitution of the United States but serves to provide a better education for living for the children of both races); Tr. v. Goose Creek Consol. Examples of these norms include defining white skin tones as nude or flesh colored, having a future time orientation, emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology, defining one form of English as standard . And to the extent the plurality opinion can be interpreted to foreclose consideration of these interests, I disagree with that reasoning. Ed. 61, 39 Ill. 2d 593, 596598, 237 N.E. 2d 498, 500502 (1968), an Illinois decision, as evidence that state and federal courts had considered the matter settled and uncontroversial. Post, at 25. The plan forbade transfers, however, if the transfer would lead to a school population outside the guideline range, i.e., if it would create a school where fewer than 15% or more than 50% of the students were black. (2007) siso/reports/anrep/altern/938.pdf. of Ed., 395 U. S., at 232. The lesson of history, see ante, at 39 (plurality opinion), is not that efforts to continue racial segregation are constitutionally indistinguishable from efforts to achieve racial integration. The District tried to give students their first choice, but when a school had more students applying for it than spots available, it used a series of tiebreakers to determine who received the spots. 05915, at 43 (Transfer applications can be denied because of lack of available space or, for students in grades other than Primary 1 (kindergarten), the racial guidelines in the Districts current student assignment plan); id., at 29 (The student assignment plan does not apply to . Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and He also wrote about the unsettled debate concerning whether racial balance or diversity has a positive effect on educational outcomes. 05915, at 97. Even if these measures were appropriate as remedies in the face of widespread resistance to Browns mandate, they are not forever insulated from constitutional scrutiny. [S]chool districts themselves retain a state-law obligation to take reasonably feasible steps to desegregate, and they remain free to adopt reassignment and busing plans to effectuate desegregation (emphasis added)); School Comm. This interest, the Court said, can be achieved by considering the student overall, not just his or her race, and the contribution he or she can make to the schools diversity. Decisions to assign students to schools within each cluster are based on available space within the schools and the racial guidelines in the Districts current student assignment plan. Id., at 38. That initial 1956 plan proved ineffective. Indeed, if our history has taught us anything, it has taught us to beware of elites bearing racial theories. See also ante, at 17 (opinion of Kennedy, J.) 2005). After preliminary rulings and an eventual victory for the plaintiffs in the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, the District Court in July 1975 entered an order requiring desegregation. First, it contends that the schools were already diverse; in particular it notes that the non-white population was made up of students from varying backgrounds such as Asian, Hispanic, and African-American, making them diverse even when there was not a significant white population. 3941, 8283. The Jefferson County plan, however, is based on a goal of replicating at each school an African-American enrollment equivalent to the average district-wide African-American enrollment. Id., at 81. of Ed., 476 U. S. 267, 274 (1986), the plurality noted: This Court never has held that societal discrimination alone is sufficient to justify a racial classification. The Court likewise paid heed to societal practices, local expectations, and practical consequences by looking to the established usages, customs and traditions of the people, and with a view to the promotion of their comfort, and the preservation of the public peace and good order. Ibid. Hundreds of state and federal statutes and regulations use racial classifications for educational or other purposes. To raise the specter of resegregation to defend these programs is to ignore the meaning of the word and the nature of the cases before us. By 1991, the board had concluded that assigning elementary school students to two or more schools during their elementary school years had proved educationally unsound and, if continued, would undermine Kentuckys newly adopted Education Reform Act. PARENTS INVOLVED IN COMMUNITY SCHOOLS v.SEATTLE SCHOOL DIST. NO. 1 For decades now, these school boards have considered and adopted and revised assignment plans that sought to rely less upon race, to emphasize greater student choice, and to improve the conditions of all schools for all students, no matter the color of their skin, no matter where they happen to reside. To Seattle School Dist. As the Court recently reaffirmed, racial classifications are simply too pernicious to permit any but the most exact connection between justification and classification. Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 244, 270 (2003) (quoting Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U. S. 448, 537 (1980) (Stevens, J., dissenting); brackets omitted). The Ninth Circuit initially reversed based on its interpretation of the Washington Civil Rights Act, 285 F.3d 1236, 1253 (2002) (Parents Involved II), and enjoined the districts use of the integration tiebreaker, id., at 1257. Nothing in the extensive history of desegregation efforts over the past 50 years gives the districts, or this Court, any reason to believe that another method is possible to accomplish these goals. At the state level, 46 States and Puerto Rico have adopted policies that encourage or require local school districts to enact interdistrict or intradistrict open choice plans. I add that one cannot find a relevant distinction in the fact that these school districts did not examine the merits of applications individual[ly]. See ante, at 1315. The discrepancy identified is not some simple and straightforward error that touches only upon the peripheries of the districts use of individual racial classifications. would support indefinite use of racial classifications, employed first to obtain the appropriate mixture of racial views and then to ensure that the [program] continues to reflect that mixture. But with reference to schools, the effect of the legal wrong proved most difficult to correct. See ante, at 1112 (Thomas, J., concurring); ante, at 3, 17 (opinion of Kennedy, J.). In Board of Ed. 1922). Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. A. Croson Co., 488 U. S. 469, 507 (1989); Bakke, 438 U. S., at 307 (opinion of Powell, J.) 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. Again, though, the school boards have no say in deciding whether an interest is compelling. Id., at 493494. Most are not. "[11] Schools argue that a diverse environment teaches students tolerance and respect, and the exposure to diverse viewpoints enhances education and dispels stereotypes. See App. There has been considerable interest in this case, as demonstrated by the extraordinary number (approximately sixty) of amicus briefs filed in the case. Jefferson County has articulated a similar goal, phrasing its interest in terms of educating its students in a racially integrated environment. App. Race may be one component of that diversity, but other demographic factors, plus special talents and needs, should also be considered. Here, the context is one in which school districts seek to advance or to maintain racial integration in primary and secondary schools. org/area/equityandrace/whiteprivilegeconference.xml. 12319 (1965) (President Johnson); Sugrue, Breaking Through: The Troubled Origins of Affirmative Action in the Workplace, in Colorlines: Affirmative Action, Immigration, and Civil Rights Options for America 31 (Skretny ed. In many such instances, the contentious force of legal challenges to these classifications, meritorious or not, would displace earlier calm. The Supreme Court's 5-4 vote on the matter of desegregation and equal access to educational opportunity signals that a divide exists in the United States with respect to the underlying educational values of excellence and . The dissent refers to an opinion filed by Judge Kozinski in one of the cases now before us, and that opinion relied upon an opinion filed by Chief Judge Boudin in a case presenting an issue similar to the one here. Without it, some schools such as Cleveland and Ranier would have remained substantially dominated by minorities, while minority students were denied the opportunity to attend the popular schools outside their neighborhoods. If that is so, then all of Seattles earlier (even more race-conscious) plans must also have been unconstitutional. Such deference is fundamentally at odds with our equal protection jurisprudence. [Footnote 17] One researcher has stated that the reviews of desegregation and intergroup relations were unable to come to any conclusion about what the probable effects of desegregation were [;] virtually all of the reviewers determined that few, if any, firm conclusions about the impact of desegregation on intergroup relations could be drawn. Schofield, School Desegregation and Intergroup Relations: A Review of the Literature, in 17 Review of Research in Education 356 (G. Grant ed.