Supreme Court to Consider Use of Race in K-12 School Assignments

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed today to consider the constitutionality of weighing race as a factor in assigning students to public schools, combining appeals from two cases involving voluntary racial-diversity plans in urban school districts.

The court accepted the appeals for its term that begins in October. The justices had been weighing for several weeks whether to grant review of the appeals.

One of the appeals is from is from the 47,000-student Seattle district. A parents’ group, Parents Involved in Community Schools, is challenging the school district’s assignment policy for high schools that allows entering 9th graders to select any of its 10 high schools. However, if a student’s first choice is oversubscribed, the district uses a variety of factors to make the assignment, including whether the student will help bring racial...