UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

OFFIC E FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY 

The Office for Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education issues this guidance to provide 

elementary and secondary schools with information on how OCR assesses the use of race in 

assigning students to schools , consistent with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 

2000d (Title VI). This guidance sets out the applicable Title VI principles, including standards 

enunciated by the U.S. Supreme Court in the past five years. 

This guidance represents the Department's current thinking on this topic. It does not create or 

confer any rights for or on any person. This guidance does not impose any requirements 

beyond those required under applicable law and regulations. 

If you are interested in commenting on this guidance , please email us your comment at 

OCR@ed.gov or write to us at the following address: Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, 

400 Maryland Avenue, SW, Potomac Center Plaza, Washington, D.C. 20202-1100. 

AUG 28 2008 

Dear Co lleague: 

On behalf ofthe Office for Civil Rights (OCR) ofthe United States Department of Education, 

I write to explain how the Supreme Court's decision in Parents Involv ed in Community Schools 

v. Seattle Schoo l Dist. No. 1,127 S.Ct . 2738 (2007) (Parents Involv ed), will guide OCR's 

assessment of whether a school district's use of race is consistent with Title VI of the Civil 

Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.c. 2000d (Title VI). OC R is respon sible for enforcing Title VI, 

wh ich prohibits discrimi nation based on race, co lor, or nation al origin by rec ipients of Federal 

financial assistance, including public eleme nta ry and secondary school districts. 

In Parents Involved, the Supreme Court con solidated cases invol ving the Seattle, Washington, 

and Louisv ille, Kentucky, public school districts. Both had po licies that de nied a student's 

req ues t to atte nd a school if that student's enro llme nt wo uld ca use the sc hool's racial enro llment 

to exceed a predeterm ined percentage that was based on district- wide racial averages. 

The Co urt reviewed the assignme nt plan s under a " strict sc rutiny" standard -- that is, the use of 

individ ual racial classifications had to be narrowly tai lored to achieve a compelling 

governmental interest. The Co urt has previou sly held that a government interest is compelling 

for equal protection purposes in the school context in only two instances: to remedy the effects 

of intentional dis crimi nation and to obtain a diverse student body in higher education . In those 

circ ums tances, a narrowl y tailored use ofrace to remedy past intentiona l discri mination may 

include usin g race as an eligibi lity criterion, and a narr owl y tailored use of race to achieve 

diversity may on ly use race as one factor amo ng many, and each student must receive 

individua lized co ns ide ration. However, compliance with the narrow tailoring standard also 

req uires seri ous, good-fai th cons ideration of workable race-n eutral alternatives. 

40 0 M ARYLAND AVE.• S.W ., WA SHI NGTON , D .C . 202 02 -1100 

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Our mission is to ensure equal access to ed ucation and to promote ed ucational excellence throughout th e nation . 
Page 2 - Dear Colleague Letter: Title VI Elementary and Secondary Education Student Assignment 

Neither Seattle nor Louis ville had elected to use race in the school admission programs in 

question in order to remedy past discrimination or as just one factor among many to admit a 

diverse student body. Moreover, the school districts failed to show that they ever considered 

serious, good faith, and workable race-neutral alternatives to their explicit racial classification 

methods. Instead, the districts used race as a required factor in order to keep each school 's racial 

enrollments within a predetermined range reflecting the district-wide averages and, thus, were 

using quotas to ensure a "racial balance" between school and district-wide enrollments. 

Therefore, the Court invalidated the plans. The Court reiterated its holding in Grutter v. 

Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003) that the use of such measures simply to achieve racial balance is 

"patently unconstitutional," and it stressed that to be constitutional a program must "focus[] on 

each applicant as an individual, and not simply as a member of a particular racial group. " 

Parents Involved, 127 S.Ct. at 2753. 

The Court' s response to the approaches used by the Seattle and Louisville school districts 

provides parameters to guide school districts through the constitutional and Title VI issues that 

arise when race is used in admissions to district schools. The Department of Education strongly 

encourages the use ofrace-n eutral methods for assigning students to elementary and secondary 

schools. Unlike the assignment plans in Parents Involved, genuinely race-neutral measures-for 

instance, those truly based on socio-economic status--do not trigger strict scrutiny and are instead 

subject to the rational-basis standard applicable to general social and economic legislation. 

When developing student assignment approaches, districts must comply with the constitutional 

principles of equal protection. OCR is available to provide more detailed technical assistance to 

individual districts on a case-by-case basis. 

Thank you for your efforts on behalf of America's students. 

Sincerely, 

Stephanie J. Monroe 

Assistant Secretary 

for Civil Rights