Opinion ID: 792253
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Race-neutral alternatives

Text: 96 In Grutter, the Court explained that narrow tailoring require[s] serious, good faith consideration of workable race-neutral alternatives that will achieve the diversity the university seeks.  539 U.S. at 339, 123 S.Ct. 2325 (emphasis added). On the other hand, [n]arrow tailoring does not require exhaustion of every conceivable race-neutral alternative. Id. Furthermore, the Court made clear that the university was not required to adopt race-neutral measures that would have forced it to sacrifice other educational values central to its mission. Id. at 340, 123 S.Ct. 2325. Implicit in the Court's analysis was a measure of deference toward the university's identification of those values. 33 See id. at 328, 340, 123 S.Ct. 2325. Here, the record reflects that the District reasonably concluded that a race-neutral alternative would not meet its goals. 97
98 The record demonstrates that the School Board considered using a poverty tiebreaker in place of the race-based tiebreaker. It concluded, however, that this proxy device would not achieve its compelling interest in achieving racial diversity, and had other adverse effects. Although there was no formal study of the proposal by District staff, Board members' testimony revealed two legitimate reasons why the Board rejected the use of poverty to reach its goal of racial diversity. First, the Board concluded that it is insulting to minorities and often inaccurate to assume that poverty correlates with minority status. Second, for the group of students for whom poverty would correlate with minority status, the implementation would have been thwarted by high school students' understandable reluctance to reveal their socioeconomic status to their peers. 99 Because racial diversity is a compelling interest, the District may permissibly seek it if it does so in a narrowly tailored manner. We do not require the District to conceal its compelling interest of achieving racial diversity and avoiding racial concentration or isolation through the use of some clumsier proxy device such as poverty. See Comfort, 418 F.3d at 29 (Boudin, C.J., concurring). 100
101 Parents also assert that the District should have more formally considered an Urban League proposal, which did not eliminate the integration tiebreaker but merely considered it after other factors. The Urban League plan was a comprehensive plan seeking to enhance the quality of education in Seattle's schools by focusing on educational organization, teacher quality, parent-teacher interaction, raising curricular standards, substantially broadening the availability of specialized and magnet programs (which could attract a broader cross-section of students to undersubscribed schools) and supporting extra-curricular development. The plan proposed decreasing the School District's reliance on race in the assignment process by pairing neighborhoods with particular schools and creating a type of neighborhood/regional school model. Under the Urban League plan, preference initially would be given to students choosing a school in their paired region, and the existing racial tiebreaker would be demoted from second to third in the process of resolving any remaining oversubscription. The plan also suggested adding an eleventh high school. 102 Board members testified that they rejected the plan because of the high value the District places on parental and student choice. Moreover, given Seattle's segregated housing patterns, by prioritizing a neighborhood/regional school model where students are assigned to schools close to their homes, the Urban League plan did not sufficiently ensure the achievement of the District's compelling interests in racial diversity and avoidance of racial concentration or isolation. As one member of the School Board testified, [it] would become Controlled Choice all over again. That's basically what Controlled Choice was, [] a regional plan; it controlled your options by using regions or geography. It was therefore permissible for the District to reject a plan that neither comported with its priorities nor achieved its compelling interests. 103
104 Parents additionally contend in this court that the District should have considered using a lottery to assign students to the oversubscribed high schools. As an initial matter, we note that Parents did not argue before the district court that a lottery was a workable race-neutral alternative that would achieve the Districts' compelling interests. Parents now argue on appeal, however, that a lottery would achieve the District's compelling interests without having to resort to the race-based tiebreaker. They ask us to assume that because approximately 82 percent of all students want to attend one of Seattle's oversubscribed schools, the makeup of this 82 percent, as well as that of the applicant pool for each school, mirrors the demographics of the District (60 percent white and 40 percent nonwhite). Employing this assumption, Parents also ask us to assume that a random lottery drawing from this pool would produce a student body in each of the oversubscribed schools that falls within the District's 15 percent plus or minus variance. These assumptions, however, are not supported — indeed, are undercut —by the factual record. For example, Superintendent Olchefske explained that District patterns indicate that more people choose schools close to home. That would mean that the pool of applicants would be skewed in favor of the demographic of the surrounding residential area. That is, the applicant pool for the north area oversubscribed high schools would have a higher concentration of white students and the applicant pool for the south area oversubscribed high school would have a higher concentration of nonwhite students. Thus, random sampling from such a racially skewed pool would produce a racially skewed student body. As one Board member testified, a lottery was not a viable alternative because [i]f applicants are overwhelmingly majority and you have a lottery, then your lottery — the pool of your lottery kids are going to be overwhelmingly majority. We have a diversity goal. 105 Although the District has the burden of demonstrating that its Plan is narrowly tailored, see Gratz, 539 U.S. at 270, 123 S.Ct. 2411, it need not exhaust[] every conceivable race-neutral alternative. Grutter, 539 U.S. at 339, 123 S.Ct. 2325. Parents' belated and bald assertion that a lottery could achieve the District's compelling interests, without any evidence to support their claim, fails to demonstrate that a lottery is a viable race-neutral alternative. See id. at 340, 123 S.Ct. 2325 (dismissing the race-neutral alternative of percentage plans, advocated by the United States in an amicus brief, because the United States [did] not . . . explain how such plans could work for graduate and professional schools); Comfort, 418 F.3d at 23 (noting that Lynn rejected the use of a lottery in place of the race-based tiebreaker and holding that Lynn must keep abreast of possible alternatives as they develop . . . but it need not prove the impracticability of every conceivable model for racial integration) (internal citation omitted). 106