High Court Limits Race In School Choice

5-4 Decision Will Affect How Race Is Used To Assign Students To Public Schools

(CBS/AP) 
The Seattle school district said it used race as one among many factors, relied on it only in some instances and then only at the end of a lengthy process in allocating students among the city's high schools. Seattle suspended its program after parents sued.

The opinion was the first on the issue since 2003, when a 5-4 ruling upheld the limited consideration of race in college admissions to attain a diverse student body. Since then, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who approved of the limited use of race, retired. Her replacement, Justice Samuel Alito was in the majority that struck down the school system plans in Kentucky and Washington.

The cases are Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, 05-908, and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 05-915.

Decisions so far in cases on abortion, discrimination and the rights of defendants have put the court on a more conservative footing with the addition of President Bush's two appointees, Roberts and Alito.

The court last tackled the topic of race and education in 2003, upholding the consideration of race in admissions to the University of Michigan law school.

Since then, however, the author of that opinion, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, has retired. Alito took her place.

When the court heard challenges to school assignment plans in Louisville and Seattle in December, a majority of the justices appeared inclined to strike down one or both plans.

Roberts was among the justices critical of taking race into account. He commented that the legacy of the court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954 outlawing state-sponsored segregated schools should be race-blind programs.

"The purpose of the Equal Protection Clause is to ensure that people are treated as individuals rather than based on the color of their skin," Roberts said in December.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of four liberal justices, put the matter differently when she addressed a conference of judges and lawyers recently in Bolton Landing, N.Y. She suggested that the purpose of the plans is to keep schools from looking as they did before the Brown ruling and subsequent decisions requiring desegregation.

In remarks aired by the C-SPAN cable network, Ginsburg said the justices "will determine whether the Equal Protection Clause prohibits race-conscious efforts by school districts to prevent resegregation."

Also Thursday, the court blocked the execution of a Texas killer whose lawyers argued he should not be put to death because he is mentally ill. Scott Louis Panetti shot his in-laws to death 15 years ago in front of his wife and young daughter.

Panetti knows what he did, but believes that he is on death row because he preaches the word of God, his lawyers say. The court voted 5-4 to stop his execution.

The court also abandoned a 96-year-old ban on manufacturers and retailers setting price floors for products. In a 5-4 decision, the court said that agreements on minimum prices are legal if they promote competition.

The ruling means that accusations of minimum pricing pacts will be evaluated case by case.

Thursday's session will likely be the justices' last until October.