For Jessica Vautard, attending classes with students from a variety of backgrounds is a treat that can’t be duplicated.
“The diversity we have right now is so major,” said Vautard, a 17-year-old senior at Louisville’s DuPont Manual High School. “It’s such a big part of our lives.”
Now she’s afraid diversity in schools is something that will end after the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 Thursday to reject the use of race in student assignments in cases out of Louisville and Seattle. The case now goes back to U.S. District Judge John Heyburn, who will decide the legality of any new system put in place and possibly when a new system will go into place.
Those decisions have sparked a dispute between the parents who sued to overturn the system and the school system and has parents nervous about what it could mean for their kids with the start of school about seven weeks away.
Jefferson County Public Schools downplayed any immediate effect, saying the district will not change its current assignment plan for the coming year. School assignments have been issued and will be kept in place, said Pat Todd, the district’s executive director for student assignment.
“Parents and students need not worry about any disruption to the educational process,” Todd said.
But attorney Teddy Gordon, who represents the parents that successfully challenged the plan, said if the current assignment plan is left in place, he’ll ask a federal judge to hold the board in contempt of court for violating the Supreme Court’s ruling.
