Supreme Court to rule in public school affirmative action cases

Jet, June 19, 2006

The U.S. Supreme Court said it will decide the extent to which public schools can use race in deciding school assignments, setting the stage for a landmark affirmative action ruling.

The court will hear appeals this fall from a Seattle, WA, parents group and a Kentucky parent, ruling for the first time on diversity plans used by a host of school districts around the country.

In one of the cases, an appeals court had upheld Seattle's system, which allows students to pick among high schools and then relies on tiebreakers, including race, to decide who gets into schools that have more applicants than openings.

The Supreme Court will also consider a school desegregation policy in Kentucky. That case is somewhat different because the school district had long been under a federal court decree to end segregation in its schools. After the decree ended, the district in 2001 began to use a plan that includes race guidelines.