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Arlington, Virginia schools lose appeal to keep quotas on Nov. 2, 1999. School board considering arguing for racial quotas before the U.S. Supreme Court. |
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Additional References on this issue are also available at "Additional Links", below.
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| Suburban DC School District Defies Judge: Practices Racial Preferences! Judge Reverses Arlington School Board for Second Year Running! (April 24, 1998) Arlington, Virginia is a suburb of Washington, DC. Being in such close proximity to President Bill Clinton, it is no surprise that the Arlington school board feels that admitting the "right number" of minorities into Arlington's schools is more important than fair and equal treatment under the law. The Arlington Traditional School starts 'em young: At the tender age of 5 years old, kindergartners here are taught that race is more important than academic qualifications, achievement, AND the constitution! That’s quite a civics lesson for 5 year olds! According to the Washington Post today, the Arlington County School Board has once again violated a Judge's order prohibiting them from holding race-based lotteries to determine admissions to their school. Quite an example to set for those impressionable young minds, don't you think? U.S. District Judge Albert Bryan is a tad unhappy with the Arlington County School Board. It seems that a year ago he had also ordered them to stop using race-based lotteries to determine school admissions. This year, on April 14, Judge Bryan ruled (once again) that the school's racially-weighted lottery was not Constitutional. The school officials had set up the lottery to favor Blacks, Hispanics, low-income households, and just about anyone who did not speak English as their first language. Honest! The school's admissions formula gave preference to students who do not speak English as their first language over English-speaking students! With your tax dollars! Judge Bryan's current ruling negates the school's stated rationale of making the school "as ethnically, economically and linguistically diverse" as the school district. The Judge's order voided the current admission of 46 kindergarten students who had been admitted on the basis of Arlington’s racially-weighted lottery system. Here's a racial breakdown of the admissions and rejections using Arlington's "diversity formula", as reported by the Washington Post:
Another, similar "reverse discrimination" law suit is pending from a neighboring school district in Arlington which also likes to use racially-weighted admissions policies. Adversity.Net may be wrong here, but didn't the original Civil Rights Act seek to strike down this kind of racial discrimination? (Fri., May 8, 1998): Yesterday, the Board for the Arlington Traditional School finally complied with the Judge's order and held their new "non-racially-biased" lottery for the 46 available kindergarten spaces. The racial breakdown of yesterday's lottery is not available. The Board isn't through with its campaign to alienate parents in this county, however. The Board is using Arlington County tax dollars to appeal the Judge's decision. Does Arlington have a line-item in their school budget for fighting the Constitution? A better use of these tax dollars would be to expand the Arlington Traditional School to admit more students! In its coverage of yesterday's lottery, the liberal Washington Post soft-pedals Arlington's previous racist admissions policies by stating that "school officials sometimes passed over white students who had placed high in an admissions lottery in order to increase minority enrollment." As if the fact that it only happened "sometimes" makes it any less reprehensible! Maybe the U.S. Congress should appoint a Control Board for the Arlington County Schools like they did for DC! ------------------- The H-B Woodlawn alternative school threw out an admissions lottery conducted earlier this year which had been weighted to favor of certain racial and ethnic groups. The school board was afraid that the original, racially-biased lottery would not stand up to judicial review following Judge Bryan's ruling on the unconstitutionality of the Arlington Traditional School lottery. If this keeps up, maybe parents of non-minority school age children in this suburb of Washington, DC will regain confidence that their kids will be treated equally and without racial bias in their own tax-supported public schools! Clinton's "Pro-Quota" Dept. of Justice Joins the Fight: U.S. District Judge Albert Bryan has twice ruled that the Arlington school's racially-biased admissions lottery was unconstitutional. But that isn't good enough for Bill Lann Lee and the Clinton Justice Department. The Washington Post reported today that DOJ filed a "friend of the court" brief in the controversy, in which DOJ strongly defends the use of racial quotas and preferences in school admissions, especially at the elementary and secondary school level. The Arlington school board has appealed U.S. District Judge Albert V. Bryan's second ruling throwing out their race-based admissions. The appeal was filed in July 1998 with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, VA. Bill Lee's Civil Rights Division at DOJ has filed a friend of the court brief with the 4th U.S. Circuit, arguing speciously that "a long series of Supreme Court and lower court decisions have recognized the importance of racial integration" in the schools. What DOJ's amicus brief does not present are the long and more recent list of court decisions which clearly establish that race-based admissions policies are not allowed, and in virtually every case the use of such quotas is found by the courts to fail the "strict scrutiny" test. Bill Lann Lee's quota-supporting friends have also joined in supporting Arlington's appeal: the NAACP and the League of United Latin American Citizens have also joined the school board in its appeal. DOJ's entry into the fray represents a "last gasp" grab for the minority vote by the Clinton administration and by his helpers like Bill Lee. Many legal experts believe it is just a matter of time before the Supreme Court completely outlaws racially-weighted school admissions. Clint Bolick of the Institute for Justice predicts the high court will probably use a case very much like Arlington's to make the point that racial admissions are against the law. Related News: A federal appeals court ruled on 11/19/98 that Boston Latin School's race-based admissions policies are unconstitutional. Additionally, the court ordered Boston Latin School (a public "college prep" school) to admit a white girl, Sarah Wessmann, who has been suing the school for two years over their refusal to admit her because she is white. This precedent setting case will undoubtedly have a tremendous impact on the recalcitrant Arlington School Board who have been fighting court decisions against reverse discrimination in school admissions for several years. Stay tuned! This ruling takes a lot of the wind out of the sails of Arlington, VA in its appeal to keep racial admissions quotas. Virginia (Arlington
County): Lawsuits Test Race's Role in School Admissions (01/25/99) "Later this year, the same court will hear an appeal from the parents of a white Montgomery County first-grader who was told that he could not transfer to a math and science magnet program because it would leave his neighborhood school with too few white students. The cases are being watched closely, because the U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled on whether elementary and secondary schools can impose admissions restrictions in order to achieve racial balance, and there have been few other court rulings on the issue. "Stephan Thernstrom, a Harvard University history professor who testified against the admissions system used at the Boston school, welcomes the legal challenges. 'It is disgusting and harmful and immoral and unconstitutional for the state to be treating pupils not as individuals but as members of racial and ethnic groups,' he said." "Arlington and Montgomery appear to be the only Washington area school systems that decided on their own to consider race as a factor in admissions. Prince George's County [Maryland suburb to DC] promotes racial diversity in its magnet schools under a policy that stems from a court desegregation order [which order is soon to end].
"In November, a federal appeals court ruled against an effort to limit the number of
white students at a public magnet school in Boston [See also: Boston
Latin School]. Many educators and legal observers think the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals in Richmond will take the same position." (Washington Post, 01/25/99,
Page B01, by Jay Mathews and Ellen Nakashima) According to the Washington Post, a two-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Arlington School Board’s request to rehear a lawsuit against Arlington’s racial quota admissions policies. The policy had earlier been struck down by U.S. District Judge Albert Bryan who had to order the school board three times to dismantle the racial quota program. Following Judge Bryan’s third order, with which Arlington finally complied, the school board in July 1998 filed an appeal of the decision with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, VA. Following the loss of their appeal before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (Tue., 11/02/99) Arlington has 90 days to consider carrying their appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Recently, neighboring Montgomery County (Maryland) decided to appeal a similar anti-quota
ruling (issued by the same court) to the U.S. Supreme Court. (Based on
Washington Post News in Brief 11/04/99) See Also: Montgomery County to Argue Quotas to High Court. Additional Links on this Issue: See Also: The Topeka
Capital-Journal Nov. 29, 1998 -- Affirmative action debate
moves to public school districts See Also: NY Times Nov. 28,
1998 - Undated/Undecided Desegration Plan
(dead link) See Also: Education Week May 21, 1997 -- Judge Rejects Race-Based Admissions to Va. Magnets (dead link, formerly at http://www.edweek.org/ew/vol-16/34magnet.h16) See Also: Education Week Apr. 30, 1997 -- Racial Quotas in Desegregation Case Rejected See Also: Washington Post Aug. 25, 1998 -- U.S. Backs Arlington in Suit (dead link; see article by Jay Matthews, appearing on page D1 of the Aug. 25 print edition. Former link location: *http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-082598-idx.html) See Also: Washington Post Nov. 20, 1998 -- Race-Based School Policy Struck Down! (dead link; former location was: *http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-11/20/211l-112098-idx.html) More / Related: Montgomery County, Maryland Denies Racial
Quotas! (10/07/99) END Case 9: Arlington Kindergarten Quotas |
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