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Lawsuit Challenges Race-Based School Assignments

By Associated Press

Three-fourths of Seattle’s minority students live south of downtown and would be denied access to north end schools if a lawsuit challenging school assignment policies succeeds, school district lawyers say. Lawyers for parents who brought the case in U.S. District Court countered on March 28 that administrators can find other ways to diversify the classrooms and already tolerate racial imbalances in less popular schools.

The case being heard by Judge Barbara Jacobs Rothstein could result in the first court ruling on the constitutionality of Initiative 200, which was passed in 1998 and bars preferential treatment by state and local governments on the basis of gender, race or national origin.

“This is a case of great significance and could well end up not only in appeals but in the Supreme Court,” said former Rep. John Miller, R-Wash., a member of Parents Involved in Community Schools.

The group went to court last year, challenging the city school system’s use of race as one of a number of factors in deciding enrollment at the most popular schools. The group’s lawyers say that policy violates the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as well as I-200.

The issue was heightened when some white students in Ballard were denied admission to the rebuilt and newly popular Ballard High, while some minority students in other neighborhoods were admitted.

According to documents submitted in court, 83.6 percent of the city’s black students, 74.2 percent of Asian students, 65 percent of Hispanic students and 51.1 percent of Indian students live south of downtown, compared with 33.2 percent of white students.

Citing those figures, school district lawyer Michael Madden said relying solely on residence for school assignments would mean segregated classrooms.

I-200 does not apply to the city’s public school assignments because no student is denied the benefit of public education, and if the law does bar all race-based assignments then it is unconstitutional, Madden argued.

Dan Ritter, representing the parents group, said school administrators had done little about the 90 percent minority enrollment at two of the city’s least popular high schools, Cleveland and Rainier Beach.

School administrators say in court papers they expect racial factors to become less important after popularity-boosting improvements are finished at less popular schools, and “if that’s true, race is not necessary to accomplish the goals they seek to accomplish,” said Harry Korrell, another lawyer for the parents.