S.F. Schools Keep Race Caps for Now

But appeals court wants Chinese Americans' suit heard soon

STAFF AND
WIRE REPORTS

A three-judge panel declined last week to immediately throw out racial guidelines at San Francisco's schools, but said the district must justify its system--including higher admissions standards for Chinese Americans in some schools.

In a 2-to-1 decision June 4, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court's decision not to immediately overturn racial caps, but the panel said a suit filed by Chinese Americans challenging the district's guidelines must be heard before the 1999-2000 school year. To keep the system, the district must prove that segregation persists and can be remedied only by limiting representation of ethnic groups at each school.

The trial for Ho vs. San Francisco Unified School District, 97-15926, is scheduled for September before U.S. District Judge William Orrick.

"We're disappointed there will be another year, at least, of quotas in San Francisco,'' said Daniel Girard, a lawyer for Chinese American students and parents who challenged the admissions system. But he said the standards set by the court show that "the writing is on the wall.''

Girard's clients had asked the court to end the admissions system immediately in the 63,000-student district. But the court said a trial was needed to resolve disputed factual issues about race in the schools.

Haywood Gilliam, a lawyer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, declined comment, saying neither he nor the school district's lawyer had seen the ruling.

In 1983, racial admission caps were instituted with Orrick's endorsement to settle a suit brought five years earlier by civil rights groups claiming segregation in the schools. Since then, the district has limited the representation of any racial or ethnic group to 45 percent at most schools, and 40 percent at alternative or magnet schools, including Lowell High School.

Though Chinese Americans must score higher on the school's entrance exam to make the cut, the school is nonetheless over 40 percent Chinese American. Still, the ceiling on Chinese American applicants at Lowell and other desirable schools infuriated parents and helped lead to the latest lawsuit, which claims that Chinese American students' constitutional rights are being violated. A victory could overturn the district's entire desegregation program, which brings in $34 million a year from the state.

In refusing to dismantle the system without a trial, Orrick said there was evidence that some segregation still exists for blacks and Latinos, and cited a 1995 report indicating that those students were doing worse than others and lacked confidence in the school district. The report also said a disproportionate number of blacks were being placed in special education classes for slow learners.

The district has denied that it imposes racial quotas and described the assignment system as a set of guidelines. Last week, the appeals court disagreed, saying the system imposed "racial classifications and quotas.''

The majority opinion, authored by Judge John Noonan, said California in general, and San Francisco in particular, has a long history of discrimination against Chinese American students. It is therefore "especially hazardous to adopt racial classifications and racial caps that bear most heavily upon [Chinese American] schoolchildren,'' Noonan wrote.

Nevertheless, he said, a school can use racial classifications if it proves them necessary to prevent and repair the "vestiges of segregation.''

In dissent, Judge Evan Wallach, on temporary assignment from the U.S. Court of International Trade, said the district had offered no concrete evidence of persistent segregation or the need for the admissions system.

The Associated Press and staff writer Stacy Lavilla contributed to this report.

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