Grutter and Parents Involved: Brown coming full circle

1
Grutter and Parents Involved Brown coming full
circle?

• Professor Garcia
• Office hours 2-250 today
• Rjgarcia_at_ucsd.edu
• Monday Read Muller (p. 253), not Bradwell
• Wednesday Craig and Frontiero (Reader 257)
• Friday U.S. v. Virginia (Dont read Castle
  Rock)
• Papers Due at the beginning of lecture on Monday
  Class will start at 105.

2
Justice Thomass Dissent

• Universities will use this as a subterfuge
• The program is not narrowly tailored Critical
  mass is an amorphous, quota-like concept
• Michigan merely wants a law school with high
  standards and diversity. If this is a compelling
  government interest then everything is.
• Quotes Frederick Douglass What I ask for the
  negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy
  but merely justice.

3
History of Desegregation Efforts

• Brown II Desegregation should be accomplished
  with all deliberate speed.
• Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg, 1971 (approved,
  in passing, even the assignment by ratio of Negro
  to white children)
• Milliken v. Bradley, 1974 (inter-district busing
  not possible absent history of de jure
  segregation).
• End of court-ordered supervision in many
  districts, such as Louisville in 2000.

4
Parents Involved v. Seattle Sch. Dist. 1

• High school students classify themselves as white
  or nonwhite. If they are oversubscribed,
  tiebreakers are used to determine adequate
  diversity.
• First tiebreaker Sibling already attending
• Second tiebreaker White/Nonwhite status
• Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals approved the
  Seattle plan.

5
Some numbers from Seattle

• Franklin High School In 2000, 25 white
  enrollment. In 2005, it had 10 white enrollment.
  
• Ballard was 56 white students in 2000 it was
  62 in 2005.

6
Louisville Plan

• Louisville Plan had two categories Black and
  other. Joshua McDonald wanted to be in a school
  closer to his home but was told that would have
  an adverse effect on desegregation compliance.
• School district cannot be more than 85 white.
• Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals approved
  Louisvilles plan

7
Questions Presented

• How do Grutter and Gratz apply to this situation?
• Should these plans be subject to strict scrutiny?
  
• Do the plans violate the Equal Protection Clause?
  

8
Judgment of the Court

• Chief Justice Roberts announced the judgment of
  the Court in which Justices Kennedy, Scalia,
  Thomas and Alito joined.
• Strict Scrutiny must be met.
• The Seattle and Louisville plans are
  unconstitutional. The school districts have
  failed to show that they considered methods other
  than explicit racial classifications to achieve
  their stated goals. Narrow tailoring requires
  serious, good faith consideration of workable
  race-neutral alternatives.

9
Chief Justice Roberts Opinion (joined by Alito,
Thomas and Scalia)

• Racial balancing is unconstitutional if not to
  address de jure segregation.
• The School Districts fail to show a compelling
  governmental interest.
• Racial classifications such as this stigmatize
  and exclude.

10
Justice Kennedys opinion

• This can be a compelling governmental interest
• The plurality ignores de facto segregation the
  dissent allows crude generalizations.
• The districts have not tried less restrictive
  means.
• School district should try other means, such as
  locating new schools in diverse areas, and
  drawing district lines with race consciousness in
  mind.