“Together at the Table of Brotherhood”: Voluntary Student Assignment Plans and the Supreme Court

Posted on Oct 29, 2010

By Craig R. Heeren

Many school districts embrace voluntary programs designed to maintain or increase diversity (racial, ethnic, and other sorts) within their schools. They do so for a variety of reasons and through a number of different mechanisms and formulas. Most controversially, some schools use race to determine a student’s school assignment. In June 2007, the Supreme Court considered two challenges to race-based plans. In a deeply divided plurality decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist No. 1 (PICS), the Court held both assignment plans unconstitutional. Following PICS, the question remains: what voluntary school assignment plans in the K-12 public school setting are constitutional and how effective are they at achieving their stated goals? The purpose of this Article is to review the different paths school districts may take in crafting assignment plans and to determine if they will both pass constitutional muster and succeed at increasing diversity. After analyzing the PICS decision and the tension inherent in the two lines of precedent that inform this area of law, the Article will review existing and theoretical voluntary assignment plans to assess their constitutionality and effectiveness in achieving diversity, racial or otherwise. This Article concludes that race-based plans remain constitutionally permissible after PICS, but only with exacting standards school districts will find difficult if not impossible to meet or in circumstances where the plan is largely ineffective at effecting change in school composition. While raceneutral plans, including those related to socioeconomic status, are almost certainly constitutional, their effectiveness varies and may not capture all forms of student diversity.

View Full Article