As the U.S. Supreme Court gears up to hear a school desegregation case brought on by parent groups in Seattle and Louisville, Ky., a group of legal and education scholars filed briefs this week in support of desegregation efforts.
“What is at issue is this country’s promise made 52 years ago in Brown v. Board of Education and how much is left of that promise,” said Theodore M. Shaw, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
More than 600 people and organizations signed briefs supporting what the NAACP calls “voluntary integration efforts.” Among those were 553 university social scientists, arguing in a lengthy brief that decades of research show that segregation is unhealthy and unproductive.
The Supreme Court will begin hearing oral arguments on Dec. 4 involving a case in Seattle, (Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1) and in Louisville, Ky., (Meredith v. Jefferson County Public Schools). In both cases, local education officials in urban school districts designed enrollment plans that encouraged racial diversity while still allowing children to attend neighborhood schools and have some measure of school choice. These efforts were challenged by parent groups, who filed lawsuits claiming that the consideration of race was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
The school districts have won in federal, district and appellate courts. However, the Supreme Court agreed to review the issue on appeal. U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has weighed in against using race in admissions, as have officials from the U.S. Department of Justice, arguing that the school districts’ efforts are “unconstitutional.”
With Justice Sandra Day O Connor’s resignation and Bush’s recent appointments of conservative justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito, it is uncertain how the court will rule.
“Everyone’s watching to see what kind of new court this will be. We know we need at least five votes,” Shaw says.
