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Constitutional Law Keyed to Stone
Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1
Citation:
551 U.S. 701 (2007)Facts
Seattle and Jefferson County adopted student assignment plans that relied on students’ race to varying degrees. In Seattle, incoming ninth grade students could rank their high schools of choice in order of preference. If too many students listed the same school, the district would employ tiebreakers. The second tiebreaker used was race—if an oversubscribed school is not within 10 percentage points of the district’s overall white/nonwhite racial balance, the district would select a student who would bring the school closer to that balance.
In 1975, a federal court ordered Jefferson County to desegregate its school system. In 2000, the Court found that the district had achieved integration to the greatest extent practicable, and dissolved the desegregation order. Thereafter, Jefferson County adopted the student assignment plan at issue in this case. The plan required all nonmagnet schools to maintain populations of Black students within the range of 15 to 50 percent. For elementary schools, students were designated a “resides” school to which students within a specific geographic area were assigned. Resides schools were grouped together to facilitate integration. Students whose parents did not submit an application indicating their preferred schools within their cluster were assigned within the cluster by the district. If the school had reached the limits of the racial guidelines, students would not be assigned to schools where they would contribute to the school’s racial imbalance.
Plaintiffs’ children were denied assignment to particular schools under these plans.
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Topic Resources
Topic Outline
Equal ProtectionTopic Refresher Course
Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment