USA TODAY Collegiate Case Study: The Supreme Court and School Diversity

8/9/2019 USA TODAY Collegiate Case Study: The Supreme Court and School Diversity

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Collegiate

Case

Study

THE NATIONS NEWSPAPER

School vote marked byintense discordByJoan Biskupic

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Todays Debate:Race and schools

Our view: Setback for equal education.....................................................................................4

Opposing view: Ruling sends clear message

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School diversity: A world of itsownBy Patrick Welsh

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Justice Thomas carries the dayBy Tony Mauro

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Copyright 2007 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co., Inc. All rights reserved.

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Presidents with most court picksPresidents with the most

Supreme Court appointments:

Has the future of racial diversity in US public schools been changed forever? A dra-matic Supreme Court decision curtailing the use of race in making school assign-ments was announced in the summer of 2007. The strongly divided court ruled thatrace cannot be a factor when making such assignments. More than fifty years afterthe landmark ruling in Brown v. the Board of Education, which outlawed segrega-tion in public schools, the narrow decision is generating debate in the educationcommunity and beyond about the best way to guarantee a high quality educationfor all students. This case study examines not only the ruling and the makeup of the

court, but includes viewpoints from both sides of the issue as well as a look insidea racially diverse high school.

The Supreme Court and School Diversity

School diversity programs in doubt

By Joan Biskupic

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON A Supreme Courtdecision striking down programs thatconsider race in students' schoolassignments to build district diversityreverberated nationwide Thursday aseducation analysts said it could threatenan array of public school programs.

The dramatic 5-4 decision throws intolegal doubt programs that factor in race,including magnet schools that use raceto draw students from different

neighborhoods. The ruling is likely tospawn litigation nationwide.

The decision came on the last day ofthe court's 2006-07 session a termmarked by deep ideological divisionsand heated rhetoric. Chief Justice JohnRoberts announced the decisiondecrying racial balancing in schools.Stephen Breyer, speaking for the liberaldissenters, declared that the legacy of

Brown v. Board of Education was at risk.That 1954 case set the nation on thepath of desegregation.

The nation's schools use race incountless ways, from set percentages ofwhites and blacks in schoolassignments, as did districts from Seattleand Louisville before the court rulingThursday, to more subtle methods thatsteer minority students into specialprograms. It will be left to lower courtsto determine what policies meet thestandard set by Justice AnthonyKennedy, who provided the key fifthvote for the majority and whose opiniondictates the new rule of the case.

"There are a lot of districts who willsay, 'We don't want to run the risk oflawsuits,' and will simply move awayfrom magnet school programs," saidSpelman College president BeverlyDaniel Tatum.

National School Boards Associationexecutive director Anne Bryant said shehoped schools would continue with"careful race-conscious policies,"including magnet programs.

Ruling limits use ofraces as a factor


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Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. Page 2

Kennedy wrote separately to disagree with Roberts'

categorical opposition to racial policies and to say that the dooris still open to some district efforts that consider schools' racialmakeup, rather than individual student's skin color. He saidofficials could pursue diversity by strategically consideringwhere to build a school or where to allocate resources.

The voluntary integration policies at issue Thursday werepart of district efforts to counteract racially segregated housingpatterns.

In Louisville, the Jefferson County School Board ensured thateach elementary and secondary school had at least 15% but nomore than 50% African-American students. In Seattle, a studentassignment plan similarly sought a racial balance among high

schools. When a school was oversubscribed, officials usedvarious tiebreakers, one of them race, to achieve diversity.

Some parents were denied the schools of their choice andsued, saying the programs violated the Constitution's equalityguarantee. "Each child's education is more important than theirplan," said Crystal Meredith, who sued on behalf of her son inLouisville.

"Classifying and assigning schoolchildren according to ... raceis an extreme approach," Roberts wrote. In addition toKennedy, he was joined by Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomasand Samuel Alito.

Breyer, who read a 21-minute dissent, was joined by JohnPaul Stevens, David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

By Tim Dillon, USATODAY

The Supreme Court: The justices pose for a class photo. From left to right,front row, Anthony M. Kennedy, John Paul Stevens, Chief Justice John G.Roberts, Antonin Scalia and David Souter; second row, Stephen G. Breyer,Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Samuel Alito.


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School vote marked by intense discord

By Joan BiskupicUSA TODAY

WASHINGTON More than 50 years after theSupreme Court's decision in Brown v. the Board ofEducation, the justices revealed in a new caseThursday their profound disagreement about the

value of diversity in schools and the relevance ofracial identity.

The justices' divisions over the use of race inschools were echoed in reactions from an array ofadvocates. Overall, the opinions and responsesuggest that however the nation's schools goforward, it will not be against a backdrop ofconsensus or legal clarity.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for themajority, emphasized that the notion of diversityshould be broadly considered and not focused ona student's race. In one section of his opinion that

fell one vote short of a majority, he said race-based policies promote attitudes of racialinferiority and insisted it was time to stopclassifying people by race.

Justice John Paul Stevens, the most senior member of theliberal wing, stressed the difference between governmentpolicies that use race to exclude people widespread beforecivil rights laws and those that use race to include people. Hesaid children of all races benefit from integrated classrooms.

Justice Clarence Thomas, the only African-American on thecourt, questioned whether racially mixed schools help blackchildren.

"What was wrong in 1954 cannot be right today," he said,referring to the 1954 landmark decision in Brown v. Board ofEducation , which struck down the "separate but equal"doctrine. Thomas said Brown forbids the kind of steps taken inLouisville and Seattle for racial balance through school-assignment percentages for whites and blacks.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who cast the key fifth vote, agreedthat considering race "may entrench the veryprejudices we seek to overcome," but he calledRoberts' position "an all-too-unyielding

insistence that race cannot be a factor" in allinstances.

Kennedy said the racial makeup of a schoolcould be considered, but individual studentscould not be classified by race.

He bristled at the Seattle school plan'scharacterization of students as white or non-white. "Who exactly is white and who is non-white?" Kennedy asked, decrying the "state-mandated racial label."

Such competing philosophies come as the

nation's public schools across the country havegradually grown more segregated since the late1980s especially in the South.

Gary Orfield, of the UCLA Graduate School of Education, saidKennedy's standard will make it harder for schools to createvalid policies for racially balanced schools. "We've been goingbackwards since 1990 in terms of resegregating our schools --and the net of this is a little push further backwards, but it's notslamming the door definitively."

Sharon Browne, of the Pacific Legal Foundation, whichopposed the Seattle plan, countered, "Schools across ourcountry must get the message loud and clear: Our young

people should not be assigned to a school based on the color oftheir skin."

Disagreements focus on race'srelevance

USATODAY

Thompson:Joined majority ruling.


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Students, parents and educators have good reason to beconfused about mixed messages from Washington.

The federal No Child Left Behind law demands that schoolsreduce learning gaps between racial groups. On Thursday,however, the Supreme Court took away a key tool for achieving

that goal.

The sharply divided court struck down voluntary schoolintegration plans in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle that use race as afactor in making public school assignments. "The way to stopdiscrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating onthe basis of race," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the 5-4majority.

Roberts' words make for snappy rhetoric. But reality, 53 yearsafter the historic Brown vs. Board of Education decision beganto dismantle segregated school systems, is that children inmany predominately minority schools continue to receiveinferior educations.

If history is any guide, Thursday's ruling means Louisville andother cities will have more such schools. In 1999, for example, ajudge ordered San Francisco schools to stop using race inschool assignment. Since then, schools there have slowlyresegregated.

About the only solace in Thursday's ruling is that the impact

may well fall short of dire predictions by civil rights leaderswho spent the day decrying the decision as a tragic step backfrom Brown vs. Board.

Very few school districts use elaborate race-basedassignment systems of the kind struck down in Louisville.Moreover, in joining the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedymade it clear that he's not about to overturn all affirmativeaction programs in education and the workplace.

Race "may be taken into account" in certain circumstances,and Roberts' opinion "is too dismissive of the legitimate interestgovernment has in ensuring all people have equal opportunityregardless of their race," Kennedy wrote. It's OK, he said, fordistricts to site new schools, recruit students or drawboundaries with diversity in mind.

The biggest damage inflicted by this decision will be ifdistricts give up trying to prepare students to live in a diversesociety or trying to educate students in heavily minorityschools.

Although racially isolated schools typically struggle, somedon't. A recent book, Karin Chenoweth's It's Being Done

documents several success stories. Atlanta's Capital ViewElementary, for example, flourishes in one of that city's mostbeleaguered neighborhoods by setting high expectations, ademanding curriculum and intense professional developmentfor teachers.

Many charter schools, which are independently run publicschools, do the same. The KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program)charter school in northwest Baltimore manages to transform

Our view:Supreme Court takes away key toolfor promoting equal education

Todays Debate: Race and schools

Setback for equal education


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By Sharon Browne

When the Supreme Court in 1954 ruled in Brown v. Board ofEducation that schools could not be segregated by race, it senta clear message that skin color should not be a defining factorin the education of our children.

While that decision rebuked schools for segregating blackstudents, rulings this week 53 years later send anotherclear message: Students shouldn't be assigned by race,regardless of their race.

The justices, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, rightly sidedwith concerned parents in rejecting school board policies inSeattle and Louisville, Ky., that assigned students to schoolsbased on their skin color. Very simply, such policies areunconstitutional, the court ruled.

The school boards that implemented the policies tried todress up their skin color assignment of students with talk of"diversity," but the reality of what they were doing was not loston the justices. They were turning children away at theschoolhouse because of the color of their skin.

In Seattle, black students were told they couldn't go to a highschool of their choice because there were too many minoritiesthere already.

White students were told they couldn't go to a high school oftheir choice because there were too many whites there.

Seattle school officials wanted high schools to be about 40%white and 60% minority. In Jefferson County, Ky., the racial

balancing plan ensured that no school had a black studentpopulation of less than 15% or greater than 50%. Such practicesmake no sense.

While these decisions directly apply to these two schooldistricts, their impact reaches coast to coast to other schooldistricts that have similar policies or are planning to implementthem.

Instead of trying to "fix" poorly performing schools withrace-based assignments, our school officials should improvethe quality of education at all schools. That will bring realequality to each child in America.

Sharon L. Browne is a principal attorney for the Pacific LegalFoundation, a non-profit public interest law firm that helpedrepresent parents in Seattle and Louisville.

Opposing view:Race-based assignments have noplace in efforts to improve schools.

Todays Debate: Race and schools

Setback for equal education


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USA TODAY's recent editorial on equaleducation advanced the notion thatracial diversity leads to equal education("Setback for equal education," Our view,Race and schools debate, June 29).

But using government coercion toachieve racial diversity inhibits thepursuit of equal education if equalmeans the best possible education for

every individual.Why do we continue to view

education as a zero sum game? Why dowe approach high-quality education assomething that should be rationedbased on race? Why is it preferable to bus some kids to betterschools rather than to bring better schools to all kids?

The best solution to achieve both racial diversity and equaleducation is to disentangle one from the other. Allow childrenand their parents to freely pursue the best education possiblewithout the government interfering in that decision. Letdiversity be a criteria parents use to choose a school. It isunreasonable to expect parents to idly accept sending theirchildren to an inferior school simply to advance the cause ofdiversity.

Brown v. Board of Education opened the schoolhouse doorsto all students regardless of race. It is the government'sresponsibility to keep those doors open wide not to act asthe gatekeeper.

Brian KaiserGreensboro, N.C.

Chilled by conservatives

The wind blowing from the SupremeCourt during its rush to summer vacationmade me double-check my calendar; it feltmore like winter's bite ("Supreme Court'snewcomers lead push to the right," NewsJune 26; "Roberts steers court right back toReagan," News, June 29).

The mercilessness of the conservativetakeover of the high court has beenshocking and widespread, if notunexpected.

But what really sent me shivering wasthese new justices' and the political and religiousconservatives responsible for landing these justices theirlifetime appointments shameless hypocrisy.

In order to get appointed, they spoke of being strict andsteady captains of the constitutional ship.

Now enrobed, they run roughshod through the garden oflegal precedent, ripping out some precedents that were nearlya century old.

They despise the liberal side of the law and mischaracterizeany decision they don't like as being legislated from the bench.

Yet, give these conservative justices any opportunity toadvance their own political agendas, and they have no problemignoring precedent and doing whatever they want to do.

Kenn MarashHarford Mills, N.Y.

Letters

Government coercion will not lead to diversity in schools

Seattle public schools

School in Supreme Court case: A parent whosechild couldn't get into Seattle's Ballard HighSchool (above) because she was white wasamong those who sued.


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AS SEEN ON USA TODAYS FORUM PAGE, MAY 22, 2007

By Patrick Welsh

At a basketball game this spring, the opponents of the T.C.Williams High School where I teach let loose with a uniquecheer: "Se-gre-ga-ted, Se-gre-ga-ted," they chanted as theypointed in unison to our cheering section across the court.What brought on the chant was the fact that about 200 whiteT.C. students dressed in white T-shirts were packed together to

one side of the stands and the black students to the other.

That was not exactly the image a school that prides itself onits diversity wants to project. (T.C. Williams, in Alexandria, Va., is43% black, 25% Hispanic, 24% white and 7% Asian PacificIslander.)

Remember the Titans, the hit movie in 2000 starring DenzelWashington as the black head coach, was based on the truestory of how our racially divided football squad eventuallycame together as a team and won the state championship in1971, and at the same time helped to integrate our studentbody.

But the scene at the basketball game, and others like it, raise atroubling question: What does integration mean for a school, orany other institution, if the diverse racial and ethnic groups itbrings together under its roof self-segregate whenever they getthe chance?

My answer is that just bringing students from diversebackgrounds together in the same school provides theminvaluable lessons that they will carry long after they have leftschool. What graduates of T.C. tell me is that going there made

them comfortable with "other" kids. White kids do not fear

blacks the way graduates of all-white schools might, and blackkids realize that white kids can't be stereotyped as a bunch ofsnotty, rich preppies.

At a time when the U.S. Supreme Court is considering thelegality of integration plans in Louisville and Seattle, and otherstates are considering whether desegregation programs are stillnecessary, the benefits of diverse schools cannot beoverlooked.

I teach at a wonderfully diverse high school: T.C. Williams inAlexandria, Va. The racial, ethnic and socioeconomic mixprovides a rich foundation for our students and faculty. But

when left to their own devices, kids self-segregate. A lostcause? Hardly. This reality doesn't diminish the life lessons thattake root in this rainbow of learning.

Photo courtesy of Paul Franklin

School diversity: A world of its own

The Forum

At T.C. Williams High:Jamel Frazier, front left, and Shep Walker, right, are seniors.


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Page 8Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.


Echoing our society

Idealistic educators who bemoan the self-segregation thatstudents fall into should ask themselves this: How manyweekend social events that they attend including church have a good mix of individuals from different racial, ethnic andsocioeconomic backgrounds?

The likely answer in most cases: Not a single one.

T.C. senior Shep Walker, who is white, says it doesn't matterthat blacks, whites, Latinos and Asians don't all hang out with

each other during lunchtime or on the weekends or sittogether at basketball games, for that matter.

"I can't think of any place where kids or adults from totallydifferent backgrounds socialize (together) on a regular basis,"says Walker. "Still, at school there are instances of dailyinteraction among kids from amazingly different backgrounds.It's another facet of my education getting to know people Iwould not normally be around. I would never have gottenthat education had I stayed in private school."

Senior Jamel Frazier, a linebacker on our football team andone of four black males in my AP English class, says, "I may nothang out with white guys on the weekends, but when I see

them in the store or at a restaurant there is a connection frombeing in classes together or playing sports."

As exaggerated as Remember the Titanswas, it did strike theright chord about diversity. No matter what their backgrounds,kids in high school, not unlike adults in the workplace, createbonds of respect and friendship by working together toward acommon goal.

A 'black girl' sport

When Liz Johnson, a recent graduate of Princeton'sWoodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, was at T.C.,she starred in two "white girl" sports field hockey andsoccer. But Johnson, who is white, says her greatest experienceat our school was playing basketball a "black girl" sport.

"It wasn't like being with all the white girls I grew up playingsoccer with," Johnson says. "It was the first time I had to workto be accepted, but once I was, there was a natural growth of

friendship, not some phony 'I'm going to find a black friend'thing."

Johnson learned some things as a teammate of black girlsthat she could never have known otherwise. "I was exposed tothe covert racism the black players always faced," she says."When we went to play white schools, everyone was afraid ofus because we had so many blacks on the team. It was the 'I'mnot a racist, it's just that these girls are dangerous' kind ofattitude." This understanding of what her black teammatesroutinely encountered made her feel especially close to them.

Letichia Epps, who is black, had an experience similar toJohnson's when she tried out for the crew (rowing team), the

ultimate white sport at T.C. "At first it was difficult. I playedbasketball and had always hung around black girls," says Epps,a senior. "At first I didn't feel accepted, but once the white girlssaw how strong I was (and that) that could make a bigdifference in their boat, we became so close I hardly noticedcolor anymore."

Students are not the only ones to gain from being in a diverseschool. Over the years, teaching immigrant kids many ofthem on refugee status from Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Cambodia

Sports at T.C. Williams: Letichia Epps is third from right on her crew team, and members of the soccer team, left photo, are from nine countries and four continents.

Photo courtesy of Kerry Donley Photo courtesy of Asasi Francois-Ashbrook


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and other trouble spots has given me an understanding of

the world that I could never have gotten from even the bestnews reports from those countries.

I have had Central American students in class whom manywhite adults would see as stereotypical gangbangers, when infact they had family values that would shame most Americans.Some worked eight hours a day after school and sent theirearnings back to relatives in their home countries. I havewitnessed black students born with a load of socialdisadvantages excel academically and end up in Ivy Leaguecolleges.

But the more diverse a school is, the more challenges it willface. Schools in predominantly middle- and upper-classneighborhoods, whose property values freeze out the poor,generally have fewer serious discipline problems than oneswith a large number of low-income kids. Furthermore, due tothe national obsession with test scores, diverse schools arepressured to focus on low-income kids, whose test scores aremost likely to give those schools a bad reputation, while payingless attention to middle-class students who often breezethrough the tests. The more diverse schools are often moreconcerned with the racial and ethnic composition ofclassrooms than with the academic needs of students.

Despite those challenges, the value of attending a diverseschool is enormous. For minority kids, learning to feel at easewith whites is more than a matter of enrichment. It can beessential to their success or failure in life. America is still a

white-dominated society, and the way up eventually leads out

into the white world. For whites, the experience has its ownspecial value.

A 'richer' life

"My life is so much richer through all the black friends I madeplaying football at T.C.," says Mike Sharkey, a graduate ofGeorgetown University's medical school who is now a surgeon"If I hadn't gotten to know those guys, I would be so ignorantabout people, about American society, about life in general. Iknow I am a better physician because of all the different typesof people I got to know in high school. Kids who don't get thatkind of experience are really missing something."

High school, unfortunately, is the best and often last chancefor young people from diverse backgrounds to get to know andunderstand each other. In college, racial and ethnic groupsoften stick to themselves. And however much colleges bragabout their diversity, on the whole, they can't touch theeconomic diversity of high schools such as T.C. Williams.

As Shep Walker said, diversity cannot be forced. But when itis present, kids who embrace it receive an education noamount of money can buy.

Patrick Welsh is an English teacher at T.C. Williams HighSchool in Alexandria, Va., and a member of USA TODAY's boardof contributors.


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The Forum

By Tony Mauro

Two weeks have passed, yet thememory of what transpired at theSupreme Court on June 28 remains vivid.

Usually a staid and solemn place, thecourt produced high drama that morningas Chief Justice John Roberts announceda landmark ruling curtailing the use ofrace in assigning students to one publicschool or another in pursuit of diversity.There was drama in what could be seen,and in what was invisible, as well.

As the court announced perhaps the

most significant race case in a decade,Clarence Thomas, the court's onlyAfrican-American justice, was barelyvisible literally. He sits next to JusticeStephen Breyer, and the two can often beseen chatting amiably. But as Breyer readhis angry dissent, accusing the majorityof turning its back on decades of civilrights precedents, I looked up to see howThomas was reacting and could notsee him.

At first, I thought Thomas had left thebench. But he was there; he had justpushed his chair back so far that he wasalmost behind Breyer, well out of view.

Thomas' influence

Thomas' invisibility on the bench wasmatched in the media coverage thatensued. We all wrote about the influenceof Roberts and his fellow Bush-appointednewcomer, Samuel Alito, both in themajority. We focused also on JusticeAnthony Kennedy, whose middle-groundconcurring opinion could ultimatelydictate the impact of the decision.

But these analyses might miss a larger

point about the court, and about theinfluence of Justice Thomas. The court'sdecision marks a cultural as well as alegal turning point on the issue of raceand conservative Thomas probablydeserves more credit or blame thananyone has yet recognized. After 16years on the court often spent asinvisible as he was last week Thomasdisdain for affirmative action, and hisskepticism about the value of integratedschools, carried the day.

When Thomas' predecessor, the civil

rights titan Thurgood Marshall, died in1993, his colleagues paid him tribute bytalking about the power of hisstorytelling within the privatediscussions of the justices. Marshallwould inject an anecdote from his youthor his days as an NAACP litigator, givinghis colleagues a steady and powerfulproof that, as he often said, he never hadto look at his hand to remind himself thathe was black.

Thomas paints a very different picturein his storytelling and in his opinions. Anew biography of Thomas, calledSupreme Discomfort, concludes that"Thomas wears his blackness like a heavyrobe that both ennobles and burdenshim." He was raised in Georgia by a sterngrandfather -- whom he worshipped in a home where no favors were soughtor accepted, complaining was notallowed, and food came after hard work.

The only black high court justice is usually quiet, but as evidencedrecently, his voice on civil rights issues is loud and unmistakable.

Justice Thomas

carries the day


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Thomas went to an all-black Catholic high school, and whenit was later merged with white Catholic schools, Thomas said,

"It broke my heart. Some people think that the solution to allthe problems of black people is integration. I never worshippedat the altar (of integration)." His experiences at mixed-raceschools were often negative, and when he meets blackstudents today, Thomas makes it clear that they don't need torub elbows with white kids to get a good education.

An alternative view

Thomas continued that theme last week in his little-noticedconcurring opinion in the race cases. He cited studies indicatingthat "black students attending historically black collegesachieve better academic results than those attendingpredominantly white colleges."

In a 1995 decision on affirmative action, Thomas put it morebluntly: "So-called 'benign' discrimination teaches many thatbecause of chronic and apparently immutable handicaps,

minorities cannot compete with them without theirpatronizing indulgence."

To Thomas, school is a place for hard work and discipline, notnurturing, favors or social experimentation. Just a few daysbefore last week's race ruling, Thomas made this clear in adecision on student free speech rights. Students have no suchrights, Thomas said, reporting with approval that in early publicschools, "teachers taught, and students listened. Teacherscommanded, and students obeyed."

It is hard to know how much Thomas' private storytelling orhis public opinions influenced his colleagues in the race rulinglast week. But he clearly represents a powerful and on thecourt at least a more accepted alternative to mainstream civilrights thinking.

Tony Mauro, Supreme Court correspondent for AmericanLawyer Media, is a member of USA TODAY's board ofcontributors.


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1. Examine the changes in your community concerning

racial diversity in schools. Interview at least three people

in your community from different generations about their

experiences with racial diversity (or lack of) in schools. Based on your interviews, make a prediction as to what attitudes

in your community will be in the next 20 years. Create a 3-5 minute oral presentation for the class.

2. The new Supreme Court ruling brings up several issues about race and equality. Is race a prominent issue in the news?

Should it be? Use USA TODAY and other news sources to track stories based on racial issues over a 2-3 week period.

What conclusions can you draw? Prepare a 2-3-page report for class.

3. How did each of the justices vote on this issue? Was it along conservative and liberal lines? Who cast the deciding vote?

Do you think the makeup of liberal and conservative justices in the Supreme Court reflects the current composition of the

country as a whole? Should it? Compose a 2 minute quick write and describe what changes your foresee in the next five

years regarding the makeup of the Court. Share your paper with a peer and discuss.

4. Assuming the ruling stays in place, how do you think US schools will be affected over the next 20 years? Write a story

describing a day in the life of a high school student 20 years from now within the context of racial diversity in schools.

1. In small groups of three to four students, discuss Patrick

Welshs experience at TC Williams High School. How is

TC Williams similar to or different from the schools you

attended before entering college? Were your schools racially balanced (did they reflect the racial balance of your com-munity)? Do you believe communities should make an effort to create or maintain racial balance? Why or why not?

After discussing in small groups, choose a leader to summarize your groups thoughts and share with the class.

2. The school diversity ruling revealed sharp divisions among the Supreme Court justices. As a class create your own

mock Supreme Court and explore this issue from different perspectives. Assign the nine justices and then choose

two attorneys to argue for and against the ability of schools to make assignments based on race. After hearing the

arguments, the justices should deliberate and then write their own opinion. As a group, the justices will announce

their ruling to the class. Were your justices just as divided? Was the decision unanimous? Discuss how your ruling

was similar to or different from the actual decision.

3. Analyze this case studys Opposing Views: which argument do you think is most compelling? Why? Compose your

own persuasive essay in support of your viewpoint and share with the class.

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USA TODAY Collegiate Case Study: The Supreme Court and School Diversity