Associate Justice-designate Ketanji Brown Jackson's nomination to Supreme Court was confirmed on April 7th by the U.S. Senate. She remarked during the confirmation hearing that: “My parents attended, and had to attend, racially segregated schools….The fact that we had come that far was, to me, a testament to the hope and the promise of this country….That in one generation…we could go from racially segregated schools in Florida to have me sitting here as the first Floridian ever to be nominated to the Supreme Court....”

UPDATE RE: CHALLENGES TO SCHOOL INTEGRATION IN VIRGINIA

Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School Board

"The Board is aware of no decision of any appellate court — and the Coalition has cited none — holding that public education authorities violate the Equal Protection Clause by adopting race-neutral student admissions criteria in order to promote increased socioeconomic and racial diversity."

--Donald Verrilli, Jr.

Representing the Fairfax County School Board attorney

(and former U.S. Solicitor General) in response to an emergency request from the Coalition for TJ et al to ask the Supreme Court to put a stay on the 4th Circuit's ruling

“Every student has a right to a fair shot at receiving an excellent education, regardless of their income, where they grew up, or their racial and ethnic background. But for well over a decade, the TJ admission process failed to identify all Black, Latino, and underserved Asian American students with the aptitude to excel. It would have been a serious mistake — and, as the court’s order notes, contrary to Supreme Court precedent — to allow this fairer system to be enjoined."

--Statement by NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Asian Americans Advancing Justice,

and Latino Justice PRLDEF in response to 4th Circuit ruling

On April 25th, the Supreme Court rejected a request for emergency relief from the Coalition for TJ to stop Thomas Jefferson High School administrators from using a new admissions policy for TJ's Class of 2026. The request had been joined by Virginia Attorney General Jason S. Miyares and Republican attorneys general from 15 states. 

Background

As described in the New York Times, the most well-known case currently challenging admissions changes at competitive schools is Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School Board. The plaintiffs in the case claim that non-race-based criteria (such as reducing reliance on test scores) at Thomas Jefferson High School, intended to achieve greater racial diversity in the student body, are subject to strict scrutiny under the 14th Amendment because of a foreseeable reduction in the percentage of students in one or more racial/ethnic groups (in this case, Asian-American students). 

Previously, a federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia agreed with the plaintiffs, finding that the Fairfax County School Board acted with discriminatory intent in its efforts to increase the representation of Black and Latino students at Thomas Jefferson. As a result, the judge enjoined school administrators from using the policy. On appeal, a Fourth Circuit panel granted a stay of the ruling, allowing implementation of the new admissions policy to go forward.

Why Does It Matter?

The original decision from the Eastern District of Virginia federal court is very troubling since the school district was following the Supreme Court's 2007 majority opinion from the Parents Involved case in its efforts to increase racial diversity at the school (for example, allocating a significant number of seats to the highest-ranking students at each feeder middle school in the region and eliminating test scores as the deciding factor in awarding seats to the remaining applicants).

The Supreme Court's refusal to stop the enactment of the policy while this case is under appeal is promising. However, the Supreme Court might eventually hear the case and issue a new standard for how public schools go about achieving racial and socioeconomic diversity. The Supreme Court is preparing to consider challenges to the holistic affirmative action programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A decision in those cases, though governed by a different set of legal precedents, could have an effect on diversity efforts in K-12 schools.

Related News:

• Divided Supreme Court Allows Selective High School's Diversity Policy by Greg Stohr (Bloomberg, April 25) - “'This court has long recognized that seeking to improve diversity -- including geographic, socioeconomic, and racial diversity -- is not the same as pursuing racial balancing, and that the former goal may be pursued through race-neutral methods,' the school board argued."

• Va. School Board Tells Supreme Court New Admissions Policies 'Race Neutral' After Suit by Associated Press (NBC News, April 14) - "In a response filed Wednesday in the Supreme Court, the school board insisted that its admissions policy is “race-neutral” and said the 4th Circuit was 'entirely within its authority to suspend the lower court ruling while the board appeals it."

We will continue to watch these developments closely.

What are you planning for the anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education?

We're building a database of events, publications, and announcements for the upcoming anniversary on May 17th.

Planning something, or do you know of anything? Email Michael Mouton at mmouton@prrac.org.

National -

• Why School Segregation Matters by Erika Zelaya (Urban Institute, April 27) - "Persistent school segregation is rooted in both racist housing policy and practice, as well as historic and ongoing decisionmaking that determines school attendance zones. These policies and institutional practices systematically denied people of color access to opportunity-rich neighborhoods. According to the Urban Institute, residential segregation accounts for approximately 76 percent of school segregation in metropolitan areas."

Kentucky -

• Opinion: Why the Promise of Brown v. Board of Education is Slipping Away Inside JCPS by Dewey M. Clayton (Louisville Courier-Journal, April 18) - “Gary Orfield, a noted scholar who worked with JCPS on its student assignment plan, has argued that a school district alone cannot bear the brunt of desegregating an otherwise segregated community. He testified to the school board about the importance of adding housing desegregation initiatives in order to strengthen the student assignment plan implemented after the U.S. Supreme Court, in Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education, struck down the race-based student assignment plan in 2007."

New Jersey -

• As Judge Mulls School Segregation Case, Lawmakers Look at Potential Solutions by P. Kenneth Burns (New Jersey Monitor, April 18) - “'This lawsuit is super important because it’s at the root of so many issues Black and Latino people have,' said Jesselly De La Cruz, executive director of plaintiff Latino Action Network. 'We don’t have a workforce that looks like us and that’s able to meet our needs, and a lot of that is because educational attainment is very difficult. Now we need to find what is part of that solution.'”

New York -

• NYC Unveils Changes to ‘Gifted’ Program, Adding 1,000 Seats to Third Grade by Christine Veiga (Chalkbeat, April 14) - "Allison Roda, a professor at Molloy College who advised the previous administration on how to overhaul its current programs, noted that most of the country’s gifted classrooms — regardless of what grade they begin in — are segregated. Expanding the current model in third grade isn’t likely to make classrooms more representative, she said in an interview prior to the city’s announcement. 'It’s just based on competition, and an ‘us-versus-them’ mentality, and winners and losers,' she said. 'We’ve critiqued this program as only serving a small percentage of students and we’ve critiqued them for segregation. We’ve critiqued them for the advantage that students received all the way through, not just in elementary but beyond, and I think they need to address all of those.'"

• Related: Time to End the Zero-Sum Mindset and Adopt Inclusive, Gifted-for-All Programs in Public Schools by Allison Roda, Yvette Jackson, & Halley Potter (The 74, April 10) - "Many more students lack access to G&T classes than have it. Why not use those numbers as the rationale to provide gifted education to all? What is now a private commodity that benefits mostly white and Asian students can become a public good for all children. It is time to set a new path forward and celebrate all students for their unique abilities and strengths, rather than labeling and sorting them."

AASA: STUDENT INTEGRATION ISSUE

On March 31st, NCSD member group the Othering & Belonging Institute hosted three brilliant authors who have helped create reports on local histories of segregation for the San Francisco Bay Area and Hartford, Connecticut. The event was a part of OBI's "Roots of Structural Racism Project," where they are compiling local histories of segregation into a repository. 

The speakers included: 

• NCSD founding member Susan Eaton, Professor of Practice in Social Policy at Brandeis University and author of A Steady Habit of Segregation: The Legacy and Continuing Harm of Residential Segregation in the Hartford, Ct. Region 
• Rasheed El Shabazz, journalist, photographer and historian, and co-author of 'Alameda is our Home': African Americans and the Struggle for Housing in Alameda, California, 1860-present 
• Nicole Montojo, Housing Research Analyst for the Othering & Belonging Institute and co-author of Roots, Race, & Place: A History of Racially Exclusionary Housing in the San Francisco Bay Area;
• Sarah Crowell, Artistic Director Emeritus, Destiny Arts Center and Strategic Partnerships, Othering and Belonging Institute (moderator)

• Why Aren’t States Innovating in Student Assessments? by Michelle Croft (Bellwether Education Partners, April 4) - "Given the current need for educators and parents to understand their student’s academic progress — especially amid an ongoing pandemic that has upended education and the systematic tracking of student achievement — comparability of test scores may outweigh the advantages of innovative end-of-year assessments. By focusing on comparability, states can better direct resources to the students and schools that need them most." 

• Podcast: NEPC Talks Education - Discussing Freedom Schools: (National Education Policy Center, April 2022): "In this month’s episode of NEPC Talks Education, NEPC Researcher Christopher Saldaña interviews Kristal Moore Clemons, the national director of the Children’s Defense Fund’s Freedom Schools program; Kendall Deas, a post-doctoral fellow in the African American Studies program at the University of South Carolina; and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Professor Jon Hale about Freedom Schools."

• History Class is Under the Microscope. This National Teacher of the Year is Diving into Lessons of Race and Oppression. by Kalyn Belsha (Chalkbeat, April 19) - "'We are living in a time when our students need conscientious teachers more than ever,' Russell wrote in his application, noting his parents attended segregated schools in the Jim Crow South, where Black students were denied basic resources at school, a disparity that still persists today. 'While I cannot alter time or reverse past practices or policies, I can help construct opportunities for students of all races, ethnicities, religious affiliations, and gender identities.'”