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What can schools do to add racial diversity to their student bodies? |
"School districts can still place students according to family income, academic achievement, or even neighborhood poverty rates—all assumed to bear at least some correlation with race," says an article on www.time.com. However, "these alternatives...could still be vulnerable to constitutional attack."
The case came about when two public school districts—one in Seattle and one in a region of Kentucky—used race in deciding where students went to school.
However, according to the same article, "three justices joined Chief Justice John Robert's opinion saying that, in schools not intentionally segregated, the desire for racial balance isn't enough to trump the Constitution's general ban on treating people differently because of race."
Another justice, Anthony Kennedy, agreed but also thought schools could consider race if they did it in a way that would boost diversity.
What can schools do then to add racial diversity to their student bodies? One idea is to let parents choose where their children go to school. "The parents who successfully challenged the Seattle plan favored a pure choice approach, with a lottery to handle assignments at oversubscribed schools," says the www.time.com article.
Another way is by using students' socio-economic status. The article goes on to say that "in 2000, Wake County, NC, stopped considering race and started making assignments so that, among other things, no more than 40% of any public school's students qualified for free or reduced-price meals."
Some schools are creating flashy advertisements so students will choose their schools. The advertisements have helped "maintain diversity at Montgomery County, MD, Lee County, FL and Duval County, FL, schools."
However, some are saying that students learn better in a racially diverse classroom setting.
Three of the Justices—Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Clarence Thomas, and Justice Breyer—believed that "the evidence is mixed at best," says the article on www.time.com. "Scholars have different opinions as to whether educational benefits arise from racial balancing," wrote Thomas.
"Despite the uncertainty," continues the article, "Breyer argues that the 'Constitution allows democratically elected school boards to make up their own minds as to how best to include people of all races in one America.'"
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