Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 et al. (551 U.S. 701)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 28, 2007 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 551 U.S. 701 · 127 S. Ct. 2738
- Decided
- June 28, 2007
- Term
- October Term 2006
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Roberts
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
- Constitutional ruling
- Local ordinance held unconstitutional
Opinion excerpt
Chief Justice Roberts announced the judgment of the Court, and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, III-A, and III — C, and an opinion with respect to Parts III-B and IV, in which Justice Scalia, Justice Thomas, and Justice Alito join. The school districts in these cases voluntarily adopted student assignment plans that rely upon race to determine which public schools certain children may attend. The Seattle school district classifies children as white or nonwhite; the Jefferson County school district as black or “other.” In Seattle, this racial classification is used to allocate slots in oversubscribed high schools. In Jefferson County, it is used to make certain elementary school assignments and to rule on transfer requests. In each case, the school district relies upon an individual student’s race in assigning that student to a particular school, so that the racial balance at the school falls within a predetermined range based on the racial composition of the school district as a whole. Parents of students denied assignment to particular schools under these plans solely because of their race brought suit, contending that allocating children to different public schools on the basis of race violated the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of equal protection. The Courts of Appeals below upheld the plans. We granted certiorari, and now reverse. I Both…
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