Justices Cast Doubt on School Race Balancing

The Supreme Court on Monday cast doubt on the future of voluntary moves to integrate the nation’s public schools, as it let stand a ruling that bars “racial balancing” by school officials.

Under this decision, which arose in a Maryland case, officials may not consider a student’s race as a factor in transfers between schools.

Since 1980, many large school districts, including Los Angeles Unified, have tried to bring about racial integration through magnet schools and other programs that encourage students to look outside their neighborhoods.

Typically, more students apply to magnet schools than can be accommodated, and race usually figures into deciding who is admitted.

Those integration policies recently have come under attack by parents upset that their child’s rejection was based on his or her race.

The high court, in a series of rulings, has said that the Constitution bars public officials from using race as a decision-making factor, whether in awarding government contracts, drawing electoral boundaries or awarding state scholarships.

Relying on those decisions, federal judges across the country have said that school officials cannot use a student’s race or ethnicity as a factor in admissions or transfers.

Last month, for example, a federal judge in Los Angeles chided the Pasadena district for using race and ethnicity as factors for deciding who was admitted to three special schools. Officials said they used the factors only when the schools were in danger of becoming segregated, but U.S. District Judge Dickran Tevrizian Jr. ruled the policy unconstitutional.

By turning down an appeal Monday in the Maryland case, the high court did not make an official ruling--so school officials elsewhere are free to ignore it. But the consistent pattern of decisions leaves most school districts’ integration policies in legal jeopardy.

The first major ruling on the use of racial preferences in public schools came two years ago. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston ruled that the “good intentions” of school officials were not enough to save a race-based admissions policy at the prestigious Latin School.

The parents of Sarah Wessman, a white student, had sued when she was turned down by the Latin School. Boston school officials admitted they considered race in deciding who was accepted but said they did so only to maintain an integrated student body.

Unswayed, the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that this “policy of racial balancing” was unconstitutional.

Civil rights lawyers helped persuade Boston officials not to appeal to the Supreme Court, fearing they would lose and that a ruling from the high court would affect public schools across the country.

Then, in October, the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., handed down a nearly identical decision rejecting racial balancing.

This case arose when Jacob Eisenberg, a first-grader in suburban Washington, D.C., was blocked from enrolling in a math and science magnet school. The Montgomery County, Md., school board used the magnet schools to encourage integration and transfer requests were judged based on their “impact on diversity.”

Jacob, who is white, wanted to transfer from a neighborhood school that had a majority of black and Latino students. School officials said he could not transfer because his move would cause “racial isolation” in his neighborhood school.

His parents sued, contending that their son was discriminated against because of his race.

The appeals court agreed and ruled the race-based transfer policy violated the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection of the law.

Officials Cite Integration as Goal

This time, the Maryland school board appealed the issue to the Supreme Court, and it was joined by national education groups, including the National School Boards Assn., the American Assn. of School Administrators and the California School Boards Assn. They maintained that officials should be permitted to consider the race of students to maintain integration. They also said school boards will be vulnerable to lawsuits from parents if these lower court decisions are allowed to stand.

Nonetheless, without comment or dissent, the high court turned down the appeal Monday in Montgomery County vs. Eisenberg, 99-1069.

Education officials said they were disappointed.

“We encourage the schools to achieve diversity, and it is a very common practice to use race to achieve some kind of balance. We don’t want all-white academies,” said Julie Underwood, general counsel for the National School Boards Assn.

White students are not the only ones who are affected by the transfer policies. Officials in urban districts, including Los Angeles Unified, say parents of Asian, Latino and African American children have complained when their sons and daughters are turned down by magnet schools. Sometimes, those schools say they have too many minority students and not enough white students.

The recent rulings come as no surprise to Terence J. Pell, a lawyer for the Washington-based conservative Center for Individual Rights. He has represented parents and college students who have challenged affirmative action policies.

“The courts have been quite consistent in saying you can’t use race just to get a racial mix of students,” he said. “The exception is that you can use race as part of a court-ordered desegregation program.”

It is not clear what impact, if any, Monday’s action and the earlier federal court rulings will have on the LAUSD.

In 1981, after California voters approved an initiative banning mandatory busing, the huge Los Angeles school district ended its court-ordered program. It agreed, however, to implement a voluntary desegregation program that included magnet schools.

But “we don’t have enough magnet seats for everyone who wants to attend,” said Shel Erlich, a district spokesman. Last year, the district had more than 55,000 applications for fewer than 12,000 vacancies in the magnet programs.

Applications are decided on a series of factors, one of which includes the student’s race and ethnicity. School lawyers maintain that they are shielded from legal challenges because they are implementing a desegregation program.

But because no federal court has ruled that Los Angeles segregated its students in the past, such a program may not be shielded from legal attack.

Central Valley Water Case Accepted by Court

In other actions, the court:

* Took up a case from California’s Central Valley to decide whether the government is shielded from paying damages caused by an irrigation canal.

A 1928 law protects the government from being sued over its flood- control projects. But the owners of a pistachio farm say they deserve compensation for damage caused by leaks from an irrigation canal. (Central Green Co. vs. U.S., 99-859)

* Agreed to decide whether arbitrators can overrule a company and reinstate a worker who tested positive for drug use. (Eastern Associated Coal Corp. vs. United Mine Workers, 99-1038)

* Agreed to review Washington state’s policy of locking up sexually violent predators after they have served their prison terms.

Three years ago, the high court upheld such a policy in Kansas, but the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said Washington failed to provide treatment for the inmates. In Seling vs. Young, 99-1185, the justices will hear the state’s appeal.

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Times staff writer Doug Smith in Los Angeles contributed to this story.