Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education,
Issues
Can school districts constitutionally use percentage-based range plans to assign students to public schools based on race in order to capture the benefits of educational diversity?
The Jefferson County Public School District in Jefferson County, Kentucky, requires that 15 to 50 percent of all students in each school be African-American. Petitioner Crystal Meredith claims that the district violated the Fourteenth Amendment when it rejected her application to enroll her son at a nearby school on the basis of race. To decide this case, the Supreme Court will have to determine whether racial diversity in K–12 public education is a compelling state interest and whether the district’s racial range mandate is narrowly tailored to further that interest. The decision will determine the extent to which schools are permitted to consider race in school assignment policies.
Questions as Framed for the Court by the Parties
- Should Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003) and Regents of University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978) and Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244 (2003) be overturned and/or misapplied by the Respondent, the Jefferson County Board of Education to use race as the sole factor to assign students to the regular (non-traditional) schools in the Jefferson County Public Schools?
- Whether the race-conscious Student Assignment Plan with mechanical and inflexible quota systems of not less than 15% nor greater than 50% of African American students without individually or holistic review of any student, meets the Fourteenth Amendment requirement of the use of race which is a compelling interest narrowly tailored with strict scrutiny.
- Did the District Court abuse and/or exceed its remedial judicial authority in maintaining desegregative attractiveness in the Public Schools of Jefferson County, Kentucky?
Desegregation of Schools in Jefferson County
The backdrop for this case was set in 1954. In Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), the Supreme Court mandated the desegregation of public schools. Over subsequent decades, federal courts ordered school districts with institutionalized segregation plans to desegregate through a system of redistricting and busing. See Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd.
The authors would like to thank Professors Sherri Lynn Johnson, Trevor Morrison, and Michael Heise for their insights into this case.
The Supreme Court will hear this case in tandem with a companion case, Parents Involved in Community Sch. v. Seattle Sch. District , which involves a student assignment plan that uses race as a tiebreaker to balance high schools that differ by more than 15 percent from the racial make up of the Seattle public school system.