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Seattle School Racial Quotas
Headed for Supreme Court (06-06-06) [Adversity.Net Special Report] -- On Monday June 5, 2006 the Supreme Court agreed to hear two K - 12 cases involving the use of race in deciding school assignments, potentially setting the stage for a landmark affirmative action ruling. The high court agreed to hear appeals from a Seattle parents group and a Kentucky parent, and will rule for the first time on so-called diversity plans used by a host of school districts (elementary and high schools) around the country. The two cases are:
SEE: Adversity.Net Special Report Seattle
School Racial Quotas Argued in State Supreme Court (10/25/02)
"A U.S. district judge last year ruled in favor of the district [in support of the use of race in assigning students to schools]. "Daniel Ritter, attorney for the parents group, said: "The constitution permits schools to address racial imbalances. It does not require them to do so. The question then is who gets to decide. It's not the school board, it's not the courts, but ultimately, it's the people." And the people voted for I-200, Ritter said. Ritter [also] said the assignment process results in some students getting preferential treatment simply because of race. "Another attorney for the parents, Harry Korrell, said ... "It's offensive to say that the right education only comes from having a certain percentage of white kids." "[Michael] Madden [an attorney for the Seattle school district] argued yesterday [before the state supreme court] that if it wasn't for the racial tiebreaker, Seattle schools would be segregated because of the racial makeup of the city's neighborhoods, and therefore contrary to the interpretation of the state constitution. "The district halted use of the racial tiebreaker after the April federal court ruling. That involved recalculating assignments for about 9,000 children entering kindergarten, sixth and ninth grades. The district chose not to redo assignments again after the federal appeals court withdrew its ruling." Excerpted from the Michael Ko story
in the Seattle Times 10/25/02 On
Again: Racial Quotas in Seattle Schools (06/18/02)
Additional Reading: Excerpted from the Keith Ervin story
in the Seattle Times 06/18/02 Racial Quotas in Seattle Schools Ruled Illegal! (04/17/02)
"Yesterday's decision was also noteworthy because the 9th Circuit has been more supportive of [forced diversity] integration efforts than many other courts. Seattle University constitutional-law professor David Skover, who was critical of the ruling, said it "invites other states and citizen groups to consider I-200 as a model for race law in America today." "[Harry Korrell, attorney for Parents Involved in Community Schools, which sued the district over its racial quota policies] said the court affirmed "there's nothing wrong with a state deciding that race-based preferences are illegal." "The lawsuit was brought by parents after many students were turned away from Ballard High School two years ago because of the racial tiebreaker. The tiebreaker, one factor in student placement, favors nonwhite students at Ballard and Nathan Hale high schools and white students at Franklin High. "[The Seattle school district's former, race-based goal was to] have the ratio of nonwhites to whites in each high school roughly equal that of the 47,000-student district as a whole: 60 percent nonwhite to 40 percent white. If a school's ratio varies by plus or minus 15 percentage points, then race is considered as a tiebreaker. "Although the appeals court ruling applies only to students entering high school, the district's general counsel, Mark Green, said the legal precedent would apply to lower grades as well. "Because yesterday's ruling turned primarily on state rather than federal law, its immediate effect will be mostly on school districts in Washington and California, the only states with voter-approved bans on racial preferences. But the decision accelerates a national trend in which federal courts have limited the methods school districts may use to promote racial diversity [to enforce forced diversity] in classrooms. [Comment added.] "[The 9th U.S.Circuit Court of Appeals said that] The current [racial] tiebreaker ... is "inherently invidious," the court wrote, because in one stage of the assignment process all decisions are based on race." Seattle School District officials in the past have debated possible use of other proxies for race such as family income, in order to create forcibly-diverse school environments. Last Known Link: Seattle must end school race plan now (04/27/02)
"A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit ruled last week that the district's use of race as a factor in school assignments violates state Initiative 200, which was passed by voters in 1998 and prohibits racial preferences in public-school admissions, hiring and contracting." Ballard High School’s pro-racial-preference principal, David Engle, resigned in protest of the Court’s ruling. Last Known Link: THE JUDGES’ RULING on 04/26/02: United States Court of Appeals for
the Ninth Circuit THE INJUNCTION (filed by the Court of Appeals April 26, 2002)
"The motion for immediate issuance of the mandate is DENIED." /s/ Justices Reavley, O’Scannlain, and Graber, Circuit Judges Last Known Link: Washington (Seattle): Excerpted from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer story titled "White woman settles school reverse-bias suit; Apology, staff training, $40,000 won by Rainier Beach graduate" as published 08/14/01 in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer In 1995, white girl Rebecca Porcaro entered Seattle's Rainier Beach High School and began receiving taunts from the disadvantaged minorities who were in the majority at that school. According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the "students of color" taunted Ms. Porcaro with epithets like: "White slut. Stupid white girl. White bitch, go back to Bellevue. This is our school." The racially-sensitive staff and administrators at Seattle's Rainier Beach High School basically told Ms. Porcaro to "get over it". According to the Post-Intelligencer, "The problem soon escalated to a daily gantlet of merciless harassment both inside and outside class... [Ms. Porcaro] said she faced constant threats of violence; humiliating and lewd propositions; and insults from fellow students, most aimed at her race. "Porcaro filed an unusual reverse-discrimination lawsuit against the Seattle Public Schools shortly after graduation, claiming that African American students at the school had targeted her because she was one of a minority of Caucasian students, leaving lasting scars on her education and her life. The lawsuit claimed the district and former principal had allowed a hostile environment where Porcaro was subject to race and gender discrimination, violating state and federal laws." Rebecca Porcaro graduated from Rainier Beach High School in 1999, and according to the Post-Intelligencer report, the Seattle School District settled her suit by paying her $40,000 for her suffering, and agreed to train all district high school administrators and teachers on "peer harassment" which includes gender and race harassment. The school district also apologized to Ms. Porcaro for any adverse effects the harassment may have caused her. According to the Post-Intelligencer, Ms. Porcaro said of her lawsuit and the district's settlement: "I just felt something needed to be done ... A lot of people go, 'Well, teasing is normal,'" she said. "This was not teasing." "Porcaro's mother, Patty, said she hoped no other child would have to go through the same torment, and that she didn't believe the problem would have dragged on if the races of the students had been reversed. "(Racism) is a two-way street," Porcaro's mother said. "[Only] Eighteen percent of Rainier Beach's 912 students were white in Porcaro's freshman year, according to district records, though Porcaro said it was rare to see other white faces in the halls. Last year [2002], the number had dropped to 7.8 percent of 683 students, the smallest percentage [of whites] in [any of] the district's high schools. Fifty-two percent [of Raineir's students in 2000] were African American, 30.5 percent Asian American, 8.1 percent Latino, and 1.6 percent Native American." According to the Post-Intelligencer, Porcaro said "it was hard to face the message every day that "I'm a whore, I'm trash, I'm white." She doesn't blame high school for everything, but says she has to wonder how her life might have been different if her Rainier Beach experiences were less miserable. "I feel I was really destroyed in who I was and who I wanted to be," she said. (Excerpted from the Tuesday, August 14, 2001 story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Rebekah Denn.) Last known link: University of Washington Reverse Discrimination Suit: Update** Some Public Colleges CAN Consider Applicants' Race (12/05/00) Synopsis: California and Washington state are exempt from a court ruling that public colleges can use racial preferences in determining student admissions. California and Washington state's anti-preferences laws trump the Court's ruling, but seven other western states in the 9th U.S. Circuit must abide by the court's decision: Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Hawaii, Montana, Nevada, and Oregon. A three judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals (based in San Francisco) issued the ruling Dec. 4, 2000 stating that public colleges are free to use race and ethnicity to deny white students entrance in order to promote "diversity". The opinion was prompted by a 1997 federal lawsuit against the University of Washington's racially biased admissions policies. The plaintiffs were three white applicants who were denied admission in favor of lower-scoring minorities. The Chronicle writes: "The ruling by a three-judge panel led by one of the court's most conservative judges, Ferdinand Fernandez, was welcome news for affirmative action advocates after a crushing defeat in the California Supreme Court. "[The California Supreme Court] ruled unanimously last week that Prop. 209, the 1996 initiative outlawing race and gender preferences in state and local government, prohibits recruitment programs that selectively distribute information to minorities and women even if they were not given an advantage in bidding. The ruling in a San Jose case could invalidate scores of local programs, including a San Francisco contracting ordinance. "Yesterday's federal court ruling "sends a very important message that there is still room for race- and gender-conscious remedies under the federal Constitution, barring a local 209-type law," said American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Edward Chen. "The Clinton administration's Justice Department and several educational organizations filed arguments supporting the view that the court ultimately took. "Attorney Michael E. Rossman of the Center for Individual Rights, a conservative organization based in Washington, D.C., that filed the federal suit, said the issue is ripe for U.S. Supreme Court review because the ruling created a split among appeals courts. "We think there is far too much consideration of race in the admission process," he said." (Excerpted from the story by Bob Egelko in the 12/5/00 San Francisco Chronicle.) Last Known Link: For additional news and background clips about the University of Washington case, see also: http://www.adversity.net/cirnews.htm#umich Washington (Seattle): "The University of Washington has adopted a new policy on scholarships that will allow it to use race and gender to give out targeted scholarships and to accept money from donors for such programs. The Board of Regents unanimously approved the policy yesterday. It is meant to comply with Initiative 200, which banned the use of race preferences in state hiring, contracting and education. "The new policy will keep all existing scholarships that target students by gender, ethnicity, race and national origin. But it will also review them for compliance with state and federal law and the UW policy. "The UW will keep accepting money for [racially] targeted scholarships from donors. But it will create "diversity pools" of candidates selected on merit and other neutral factors such as economic need, but not race or gender. Then it will match qualified recipients in those pools by the donor's wishes, which could include race or gender. If no qualified students match the criteria, no scholarship will be given out. "The new policy will even allow the university to use race and gender and other diversity indicators to give out scholarships meant to increase diversity, including funds to recruit students. It may do so only after it exhausts all other means to maintain or increase diversity at the campus." (Seattle Times 04/17/99 by Roberto Sanchez) Last Known Link: Washington (Seattle): "How to award scholarships to minorities without violating Initiative 200 has been hotly debated at the University of Washington. Today, the UW Board of Regents will discuss a second try at forming a scholarship policy. The rewrite would better accommodate privately funded scholarships that donors want awarded based on race or gender. "I-200, which Washington voters approved in November, prohibits special preferences based on race or gender in public education, contracting and hiring. As the university wrestles with how to preserve diversity within the limits of I-200, admissions policies, scholarships, outreach and recruitment programs have all been put up for review." (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 03/19/99, by Ruth Schubert) Last Known Link: Washington (Seattle): "After weeks of hearing student and donor concerns, the University of Washington is backing down from a policy that would have ended many scholarships targeting minorities and women. "Worried about a conflict with the voter-approved Initiative 200, the UW had been considering a halt to accepting donations for targeted scholarships. And university officials talked about reviewing every existing scholarship for compliance with the law, which bans the use of race, gender or national origin in state hiring, education and contracting. "But after student groups held a series of campus forums, arguing that the UW was taking a more conservative approach toward I-200 than any other school in the state, the university is retreating from its initial position in a new draft policy to be presented to the Board of Regents on Friday. "Under the new proposal, the university will accept new money for targeted scholarships directly from donors, only requiring that the donors agree to put that money in a "diversity fund." Students would be put into the candidate pool based on merit, need or other neutral factors, but winners would be chosen according to the donors' criteria, including race." (Seattle Times, 03/17/99, by Roberto Sanchez) Last Known Link: Washington
(Seattle): [Adversity.Net] Katuria Smith, Angela Rock and Michael Pyle had been denied admission to the UW Law School because they were not 'disadvantaged minorities'. The judge in the case, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas S. Zilly is currently waiting for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to act on challenges brought by the trio's lawyers from the Center for Individual Rights, a nonprofit group in Washington, D.C., that opposes race-based admissions policies. While the legal beagles wrestle with the points of law, the rest of Washington State, and the nation, anxiously await the outcome of this potential landmark decision against race-based admissions in state colleges and universities. Interestingly, the passage of I-200 in Washington, outlawing race-based criteria for admissions, jobs, and contracts, is delaying the decision in this case. (Adversity.Net, 02/22/99) Current Link: Washington (Seattle): "The University of Washington is so concerned about losing minority students that deans, vice presidents and even the UW president have personally called every minority student selected for admission in an effort to persuade them to attend the school. "The effort is an aggressive extension of a program the university began three years ago, in which student volunteers placed telephone calls to greet each in-state applicant accepted for the next year's freshman class. "This year, for the first time, those calls are going to all of the roughly 9,000 students offered a place in the 1999-2000 class. And the UW Admissions Office has issued lists of minority students who have been admitted to the deans of every college at the university. The deans have called those students to answer questions about the university and encourage them to attend." (Seattle Times 05/11/99 by Roberto Sanchez) Last Known Link: Washington (Seattle): "Seattle Public Schools still use race as a factor in school assignments, but one parent is threatening to sue, saying the practice violates Initiative 200's ban on the use of racial preferences. "Seattle lawyer Pat Brown, who is trying to get his son into Olympic View Elementary School's popular all-day kindergarten, says that the school’s use of race is illegal even though it is only one of three factors considered by the district in admissions. "The district to some extent should be colorblind," says Brown, who is white. "If Brown files suit, it could develop into the first legal test of Initiative 200, the law passed by voters Nov. 3. The law bans preferences based on race, ethnicity and gender in state and local public employment, contracting and education. (Seattle Times, 01/30/99, by Lynne K. Varner) Last Known Link: Washington (Seattle): This is a "fair" article by Seattle Times IF you ignore their implicitly biased assumption that it somehow falls to the colleges and universities to correct any presumed "prior discrimination" through the use of quotas. Nonetheless, this article examines the data of "college quotas" over the past 30 years and concludes that the results are ambiguous: college racial quotas have failed to solve the problem of historic racial discrimination. Gee, WE could have told 'em that! (Based on Seattle Times 10/18/98) Last Known Link: END of Education: Washington State |
