Educational Purposes only:
How has the court addressed procedural history?
The courts discussed the parents of students denied assignment to particular schools under these plans solely because of their race brought lawsuits. The argument contended that allocating children to different public schools based on race violated the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of equal protection. The Court of Appeals below upheld the plans. The Supreme Court granted certiorari, and now reversed.
The court clearly stated that when the government distributes burdens or benefits based on individual racial classifications, that action is reviewed under strict scrutiny.
In order to satisfy this searching standard of review, the school districts must demonstrate that the use of individual racial classifications in the assignment plans her under review is “narrowly tailored” to achieve a “compelling” government interest.
In specific, there is two interests that qualify as compelling.
The first is the compelling interest of remedying the effects of past intentional discrimination.
The court stated that the harm remedied by mandatory desegregation plans is the harm that is traceable to segregation, and that “the Constitution is not violated be racial imbalance in the schools, without more.”
Furthermore, once Jefferson County achieved unitary status, it had remedied the constitutional wrong that allowed race-based assignments. In addition, any continued use of race must be justified on some other basis.
Moreover, the second government interest we have recognized as compelling for purposes of strict scrutiny is the interest in diversity in higher education upheld in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003).
The court ruled that it is not simply one factor weighed with others in reaching a decision.
The court stated “[c]ontext matters” in applying strict scrutiny, and repeatedly noted that it was addressing the use of race “in the context of higher education.”
The court in Grutter expressly articulated key limitations on its holding, defining a specific type of broad-based diversity and noting the unique context of higher education, but these limitations were largely disregarded by the lower courts in extending Grutter to uphold race-based assignments in elementary and secondary schools.
In addition, the court stated that the present cases are not governed by Grutter.
The court expressed the debate is not one we need to resolve, however, because it is clear that the racial classifications employed by the districts are not narrowly tailored to the goal of achieving the educational and social benefits asserted to flow from racial diversity.
In addition, the court stated the plans’ design and operation are directed only to racial balance, an objective this Court has repeatedly condemned as illegitimate.
Moreover, accepting racial balancing as a compelling state interest would justify the imposition of racial proportionality throughout American society, contrary to our repeated recognition that “[a]t the heart of the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection lies the simple command that the Government must treat citizens as individuals, not as simply components of a racial, religious, sexual, or national class.”
Furthermore, allowing racial balancing as a compelling end in itself would “effectively assur[e] that race will always be relevant in American life, and that the ‘ultimate goal’ of ‘eliminating entirely from governmental decision-making such irrelevant factors as a human being’s race will never be achieved.”
In addition, the districts have also failed to show that they considered methods other than explicit racial classifications to achieve their stated goals.
Justice Breyer seeks to justify the plans at issue under our precedents recognizing the compelling interest in remedying past intentional discrimination.
Moreover, the distinction between segregation by state action and racial imbalance caused by other factors has been central to our jurisprudence in this area for generations.
The court held “[N]o State has any authority under the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to use race as a factor in affording educational opportunities among its citizens.”
Moreover, it should escape no one that behind Justice Breyer’s veil of judicial modesty hides an inflated role for the federal judiciary.
The court’s dissent confers on judges the poser to say what sorts of discrimination are benign and which are invidious.
Furthermore, having made that determination (based on no objective measure that I can detect), a judge following the dissent’s approach will set the level of scrutiny to achieve the desired result. Only then must the judge defer to a democratic majority.
Justice Kennedy concurring stated that “[t]he Nation’s schools strive to teach that our strength comes from people of different races, creeds, and cultures uniting in commitment to the freedom of all. . . may view the state-mandated racial classifications at issue, official labels proclaiming the race of all persons in a broad class of citizens -elementary school students in one case, high school students in another- are unconstitutional as the cases now come to us.”
In addition, the diversity, depending on its meaning and definition, is a compelling educational goal a school district may pursue.
Moreover, in the administration of public schools by the state and local authorities it is permissible to consider the racial makeup of schools and to adopt general policies to encourage a diverse student body, one aspect of which is its racial composition.
In specific, the court expressed concern that the student-body compositions of certain schools interfere with the objective of offering an equal education opportunity to all of their students. Because they are free to devise face-conscious measures to address the problem in a general way and without treating each student in different fashion solely on the basis of a systematic individual typing by race.
In addition, school boards may pursue the goal of bringing together students of diverse backgrounds and races through other means, including strategic site selection of new schools; drawing attendance zones with general recognition of the demographics of neighborhoods; allocating resources for special programs; recruiting students and faculty in a targeted fashion; and tracking enrollments, performance, and other statistics by race.
Furthermore, these mechanisms are race conscious but do not lead to different treatment based on a classification that tells each student he or she is to be defined by race. Thus, it is unlikely any of them would demand strict scrutiny to be found permissible.
In Justice Breyer, Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg dissenting, this court has recognized that the public interests at stake in such cases are “compelling”.
The court approved of “narrowly tailored” plans that are no less race-conscious than the plans before us.
The courts refer to a longstanding and unbroken line of legal authority tells us that the Equal Protection Clause permits local school boards to use race-conscious criteria to achieve positive race-related goals, even when the constitution does not compel it.
Moreover, the courts ruled the government may voluntarily adopt race-conscious measures to improve conditions of race even when it is not under a constitutional obligation to do so.
In specific, the court expressed the principle has been accepted by every branch of government and is rooted in the history of the Equal Protection Clause itself.
The court state this contextual approach to scrutiny is altogether fitting.
HOW HAS THE COURT ADDRESSED THE ISSUE OF DETERMINING A COMPELLING INTEREST?
The compelling interest at stake possesses three essential elements:
First, there is a historical and remedial element: an interest in setting right the consequences of prior conditions of segregation.
Second, there is an educational element: an interest in overcoming the adverse educational effects produced by and associated with highly segregated schools.
Third, there is a democratic element: an interest in producing an educational environment that reflects the “pluralist society” in which our children will live.
First, the race-conscious criteria at issue only help set the outer bounds of broad ranges. They constitute but one part of plans that depend primarily upon other, non-racial elements.
Second, broad-range limits on voluntary school choice plans are less burdensome, and hence more narrowly tailored, than other race-conscious restrictions this Court has previously approved.
Third, the manner in which the school boards developed these plans itself reflects “narrow tailoring.”
Moreover, each plan was made to overcome a history of segregated public schools. Each plan embodies the results of local experience and community consultation. In addition, each plan is the product of a process that has sought to enhance student choice, while diminishing the need for mandatory busing. Furthermore, each plan’s use of race-conscious elements is diminished compared to the use of race in preceding integration plans.
The courts discussing racial classifications benefiting minorities state that no topic in constitutional law is more controversial than affirmative action.
In considering affirmative action, three questions exist.
First, what level of scrutiny should be used for racial classifications benefiting minorities?
Second, what purposes for affirmative action programs are sufficient to meet the level of scrutiny?
Third, what techniques of affirmative action are sufficient to meet the level of scrutiny?
In Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978), the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision without a majority opinion invalidated the set-aside, but ruled that colleges and universities may use race as one factor in admissions decisions to benefit minorities and enhance diversity.
The court has insisted upon some showing of prior discrimination by the governmental unit involved before allowing limited use of racial classification in order to remedy such discrimination.
HOW HAS THE COURT ADDRESSED THE EMERGENCE OF STRICT SCRUTINY TEST?
In Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469 (1989), the courts discussed arguments against set-aside include that the city must limit any race-based remedial efforts to eradicating effects of its own prior discrimination.
The court stated that the appellant argues that our decision in Fullilove is controlling, and that as a result the city of Richmond enjoys sweeping legislative power to define and attack the effects of prior discrimination in its local construction industry.
Thus, if the city could show that it had essentially become a “passive participant” in a system of racial exclusion practiced by elements of the local construction industry, we think it clear that the city could take affirmative steps to dismantle such as system.
In addition, it is beyond dispute that any public entity, state or federal, has a compelling interest in assuring that public dollars drawn from the taw contributions of all citizens, do not serve to finance the evil of private prejudice.
The court expressed that without searching judicial inquiry into the justification for such race-based measures, there is simply no way of determining, what classifications are “benign” or “remedial” and what classifications are in fact motivated by illegitimate notions of racial inferiority or simple racial politics.
In specific, the court states the purpose of strict scrutiny is to “smoke out” illegitimate uses of race by assuring that the legislative body is pursuing a goal important enough to warrant use of a highly suspect tool.
The test also ensures that the means chosen “fit” this compelling goal so closely that there is little or no possibility that the motive for the classification was illegitimate racial prejudice or stereotype.
Moreover, the court implied unless they are strictly reserved for remedial settings, they may in fact promote notions of racial inferiority and lead to a politics of racial hostility.
The court’s concern that a political majority will more easily act to the disadvantage of a minority based on unwarranted assumptions or incomplete facts would seem to militate for, not against, the application of heightened judicial scrutiny in this case.
The court stated the “role model “ theory employed in Wygant, is analogous to the generalized assertion that there has been past discrimination in an entire industry provides no guidance for a legislative body to determine the precise scope of the injury it seeks to remedy.
Moreover, while there is no doubt that the sorry history of both private and public discrimination in this country has contributed to a lack of opportunity for black entrepreneurs, this observation, standing alone, cannot justify a rigid racial quota in the awarding of public contracts in Richmond, Virginia.
Clearly, an amorphous claim that there has been past discrimination in a particular industry cannot justify the use of an unyielding racial quota.
The court emphasized in defining these sorts of injuries as “identified discrimination” would give local governments a license to create a patchwork of racial preferences based on statistical generalizations about any particular field of endeavor.
Furthermore, the 30% quota cannot in any realistic sense be tied to any injury suffered by anyone.
In specific, none of [the district court’s] “findings,” singly or together, provide the city of Richmond with a “strong basis in evidence for its conclusion that remedial action was necessary”
But, the mere recitation of a “benign” or legitimate purpose for a racial classification is entitled to little or no weight.
In addition, the court contended that racial classifications are suspect, and that means that simple legislative assurances of good intention cannot suffice.
The gross over inclusiveness of Richmond’s racial preference strongly impugns the city’s claim of remedial motivation.
The court discusses whether the Richmond Plan is narrowly tailored to remedy prior discrimination since it is not linked to an identified discrimination in any way.
In addition, the court expressed how to examine if narrowly tailored: Any consideration of the use of race-neutral means to increase minority business participation in city contracting.
The quota is not narrowly tailored to any goal, except perhaps outright racial balancing.
The court states that it rests upon the “completely unrealistic” assumption that minorities will choose a particular trade in lockstep proportion to their representation in the local population.
In addition, the court emphasized the proper findings in this regard are necessary to define both the scope of the injury and the extent of the remedy necessary to cure its effects.
Moreover, such findings also serve to assure all citizens that the deviation from the norm of equal treatment of all racial and ethnic groups is a temporary matter, a measure taken in the service of the goal of equality itself.
The court stated “if there is no duty to attempt either to measure the recovery by the wrong or to distribute that recovery within the injured class in an evenhanded way, our history will adequately support a legislative preference for almost any ethnic, religious, or racial group with the political strength to negotiate a ‘ a piece of the action’ for its members.”
Because the City of Richmond has failed to identify the need for remedial action in the awarding of its public construction contracts, its treatment of its citizens on a racial basis violates the dictates of the Equal Protection Clause.
In Justice Marshall Brennan, and Blackmun dissenting, racial classifications drawn for the purpose of remedying the effects of discrimination that itself was race based have a highly pertinent basis: the tragic and indelible fact that discrimination against blacks and other racial minorities in this Nation has pervaded our Nation’s history and continues to scar our society.
In Metro Broadcasting, Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission, 497 U.S. 547 (1990), the court stated “[w]e hold that benign race-conscious measure mandated by Congress-even if those measure are not ‘remedial’ in the sense of being designed to compensate victims of past governmental or societal discrimination-are constitutionally permissible to the extent that they serve important governmental objectives within the power of Congress and are substantially related to the achievement of those objectives.”
Originally, overruled by Adarana, the four dissenters from Metro Broadcasting were joined by Justice Thomas to create a majority that overruled Metro Broadcasting.
Justice O’ Connor stated that “[a]ll racial classifications, imposed by whatever federal, state, or local governmental actor, must be analyzed by a reviewing court under strict scrutiny.”
The court held that such classifications are constitutional only if they are narrowly tailored measures that further compelling governmental interests.
The majority of the courts have adopted the strict scrutiny test in evaluating racial classifications benefiting minorities.
