WASHINGTON
School officials around the United States are considering how to proceed after a Supreme Court decision rejecting racial integration plans in two cities.
The 5-4 ruling prohibited plans in Seattle and Louisville, Kentucky, but did not entirely shut the door on using race as a factor when making decisions about what schools should look like.
Thursday’s ruling brought complaints that it allegedly betrayed the Supreme Court’s most acclaimed ruling the 53-year-old Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawing segregated schools.
Justice Anthony Kennedy went along with the court’s four most conservative members in rejecting the Louisville and Seattle plans. However, he stopped short of saying race can never be a component of school efforts to achieve diversity.
“A district may consider it a compelling interest to achieve a diverse student population,” Kennedy said. “Race may be one component of that diversity.”
But Kennedy’s opinion had some proponents of the integration plans cheering.
