Teacher transfers by race approved by high court - Supreme Court approves desegregation policy of school system in Prince Georges County, Maryland - Brief Article

Jet, Feb 1, 1993

The U.S. Supreme Court recently allowed a Prince George's (Md.) school system to continue its policy of involuntarily transferring teachers from one school to another among its public schools to satisfy desegregation standards.

The High Court refused to consider an appeal which was brought by 12 local teachers who had presented the argument that assigning teachers based on race rather than seniority violated their Constitutional rights to equal protection.

By refusing to hear the case, the Supreme Court let stand a September 1992 ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the teacher transfer policy, which the public school system maintained was a very integral part of its school desegregation efforts.

The school system occasionally would reassign teachers so Blacks compose neither less than 19 percent nor more than 50 percent of the faculty of each school. About 31 percent of the county's teachers and almost 68 percent of its public school students are Black.