(Name-mce) ListServ Court to Weigh Race in School Assignments

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Court to Weigh Race in School  Assignments
By MARK SHERMAN
AP
 
WASHINGTON (Dec. 4) - Pro-affirmative action  demonstrators bearing "Fight 
For Equality" placards descended on the _Supreme Court_ (javascript:;)    Monday 
as justices prepared to hear fresh arguments in cases testing when race  may 
be used as a basis for assigning students to public schools. 

Parents  in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle are challenging school assignment 
plans that  factor in a student's race in an effort to have individual school 
populations  approximate the racial makeup of the entire system. Federal appeals 
courts have  upheld both programs. 

On the sidewalk in front of the Supreme Court,  hundreds of pro-affirmative 
action demonstrators marched to dramatize their  issue. A parent-teachers group 
from Chicago and several civil rights groups were  among those sponsoring the 
demonstration. 

Demonstrators chanted "Equal  education, not segregation" and "We won't go to 
the back of the bus, integration  is a must." Some held signs that read "Stop 
racism now." The crowd included  those from the National Organization for 
Women, the NOW, NAACP, the Rainbow/PUSH  Coalition and Howard University 
students. 

"It's ridiculous to separate  us. We worked hard to get everyone together. 
Why separate us now?" said Jade  Johnson, 15, of Washington D.C., who attends 
Theodore Roosevelt Senior High  School in the district. Johnson said she came to 
the demonstration instead of  going to school because the issue is important 
and affects the whole country.  

The school policies in contention are designed to keep schools from  
segregating along the same lines as neighborhoods. In Seattle, only high school  
students are affected. Louisville's plan applies systemwide. 

"The plan  has prevented the resegregation that inevitably would result from 
the  community's segregated housing patterns and that most likely would 
produce many  schools that might be perceived as 'failing,"' the Seattle school 
district said  in its brief to the high court. 

The Bush administration has taken the  side of the parents who are suing the 
school districts, much as it intervened on  behalf of college and graduate 
students who challenged affirmative action  policies before the Supreme Court in 
2003. 

In 2003, the court upheld  race-conscious admissions in higher education in a 
5-4 opinion by Justice Sandra  Day O'Connor. 

O'Connor, however, has since retired and been replaced by  conservative 
_Justice Samuel Alito_ (javascript:;)  . Lawyers on both sides of the issue presume 
 that Alito is inclined to oppose the school plans. 

About 400 of the  nation's 15,000 school districts are under court orders to 
desegregate. It is  believed that hundreds more voluntarily take race into 
account. 

There  are no firm figures, although the Pacific Legal Foundation of 
Sacramento,  Calif., said up to 1,000 districts voluntarily use race as a factor in 
school  assignments, drawing boundaries, deciding where to locate new buildings 
and in  other ways. The foundation opposes race-based policies. 

Seattle has  tried for years to achieve racial diversity in its schools in 
the face of  persistent segregated housing patterns. The city's schools have 
never been  subject to court order. Seattle put the assignment system at issue in 
place in  1998, but suspended it after parents sued. 

The Louisville schools, with  a history of state-imposed segregation, were 
under federal court supervision for  25 years. The Jefferson County Board of 
Education, which encompasses  Louisville,came up with its own plan to maintain 
integrated schools shortly  thereafter. 

But the policy denigrates children's self-worth by  color-coding them 
throughout their school years, said the legal brief for  Crystal Meredith, the 
Louisville parent who sued after her son was denied his  first choice of which 
school to attend. 

The cases are Parents Involved  in Community Schools v. Seattle School 
District No. 1, 05-908; and Meredith v.  Jefferson County Board of Education, 
05-915. 


Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. The information contained  in the AP 
news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise  distributed 
without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All  active 
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12/04/06 09:50  EST