Supreme Court bars use of race by public schools

Friday, June 29, 2007  

A deeply divided Supreme Court on Thursday outlawed the use of race in public school integration plans.

By a 5-4 vote, the justice said school districts in Washington and Kentucky cannot use race as a “tiebreaker” to determine who gets into certain schools. "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race," Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority.

The vote was split along ideological lines. Joining Roberts were the conservative and conservative leaning members of the court -- Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

Justice Anthony Kennedy agreed with the outcome of the case but not the reasoning. He said the majority went too far, noting there are sometimes "compelling interests" to back the use of race in limited instances.

The minority was composed of Justices Stephen G. Breyer, John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. "It is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much," Breyer said.

The Supreme Court previously upheld the use of race in law school admissions because as long as it wasn't the sole consideration.

Get the Story:
Divided Court Limits Use of Race by School Districts (The Washington Post 6/29)
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Justices Limit the Use of Race in School Plans for Integration (The New York Times 6/29)
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Court Decision:
Syllabus | Opinion [Roberts] | Concurrence [Thomas] | Concurrence [Kennedy] } Dissent [Stevens] | Dissent [Breyer]