Diverse Views Offered on Supreme Court Race Cases

Education organizations, civil rights groups, and scholars were among those filing a total of 57 friend-of-the-court briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court by the Oct. 10 deadline in support of race-conscious policies of the Seattle and Jefferson County, Ky., school districts.

In a pair of nationally watched cases that the court is scheduled to hear Dec. 4, the districts are defending their voluntary school assignment plans that use race as a tool to promote diversity.

“The locally elected board, steeped in the history of Seattle’s integration measures, made a careful and realistic judgment about the benefits and burdens of various student-assignment plans and determined that for the 2001-02 school year, race-neutral plans could not effectively achieve its three compelling interests and also accommodate its other important educational goals,” said the district’s brief, which was...