Opinion ID: 201118
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Disproportionate effect

Text: 66 Having rejected plaintiffs' claims that the history of the New Plan's adoption, and its stated goal of diversity, require the application of strict scrutiny review, we now turn to their evidence regarding the impact of the New Plan. As we previously noted, a disproportionate racial effect of a policy can be evidence of an invidious discriminatory purpose. Although plaintiffs cite to individual examples of the racial effect of the 50% reduction in walk zone seats under the New Plan, they neither describe these examples as a disproportionate effect nor accept that any such disproportionate effect of the New Plan is relevant to establishing defendants' purportedly racially discriminatory purpose. Instead, they argue that their individual examples suffice to establish an equal protection violation. Before explaining how plaintiffs apparently misunderstand the relevant case law and their resultant evidentiary burden in this case, we first recount the evidence they presented on the racial effect of the New Plan. 67 To establish the allegedly discriminatory effect of the New Plan's reduction of the walk zone preference from 100% to 50% of available seats, plaintiffs relied exclusively on the testimony of Ann Walsh, president of Boston's Children First. 18 Although Walsh testified that she reviewed admissions data from every school in the city, she only presented data for the 2002-03 admission rounds for one class in each of three schools: a pre-kindergarten program at the Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Elementary School, and two kindergarten programs at the Richard J. Murphy Elementary School and the Mary Lyon Elementary School. Walsh testified that she selected these particular schools because she looked for schools with white walkers who were pushed aside by the [change to a] 50% [walk zone preference], and [these three schools were] an example of that. 68 Walsh prepared one-page charts for each of these schools, comparing the racial demographics of students who were admitted to the selected classes under the New Plan, with its 50% walk zone preference, to the racial demographics of students who would have been admitted if a full 100% of the seats had been reserved for students who lived within the walk zone. Walsh's testimony, and the charts she prepared for this litigation, show that in the three elementary schools — out of the 85 or so in the BPS system — a total of twenty white students who would have been admitted under a hypothetical 100% walk zone preference were not admitted under the actual 50% walk zone preference. In plaintiffs' view, with this showing of individual examples of the racial effect of the change in the walk zone preference, there was no need to engage in any systemwide analysis of the racial impact of the walk zone seat reduction. Indeed, Walsh did not attempt to project a systemwide impact from her three-school analysis. Walsh explicitly testified that she is opposed to the concept that the overall impact on the school system is the issue. 69 Plaintiffs erred in this minimalist approach to their evidentiary burden in this case. To be sure, the Equal Protection Clause protects individuals: rights created by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment are, by its terms, guaranteed to the individual. The rights established are personal rights. Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1, 22, 68 S.Ct. 836, 92 L.Ed. 1161 (1948). When a governmental policy employs overt racial classifications, the impact of race on an individual outcome is clear. As we have explained, courts will then apply strict scrutiny to determine whether the use of the racial classification is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest. See, e.g., Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244, 275-76, 123 S.Ct. 2411, 156 L.Ed.2d 257 (2003). As we discuss infra in Part III.D., the Old Plan used explicit racial guidelines, and two plaintiffs in this case — John Feeney and Kathleen McCoy — showed that they were denied seats at their schools of choice under the Old Plan because of their race and the imposition of racial caps in force at that time. Accordingly, they were awarded nominal damages in recognition of that injury. 70 In contrast, when evaluating a facially race-neutral policy, the impact of race on an individual outcome is not always immediately clear. Courts can only infer that an invidious racial purpose motivated a facially neutral policy when that policy creates disproportionate racial results. Sometimes a clear pattern, unexplainable on grounds other than race, emerges from the effect of the state action even when the governing legislation appears neutral on its face. Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Dev. Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 266, 97 S.Ct. 555, 50 L.Ed.2d 450 (1977) (emphasis added). See also Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229, 242, 96 S.Ct. 2040, 48 L.Ed.2d 597 (1976) (an invidious discriminatory purpose may often be inferred from the totality of the relevant facts, including the fact, if it is true, that the law bears more heavily on one race than another.). 71 In this context, showing only isolated instances of students not receiving assignments at their first choice schools is insufficient. Here, there is no clear pattern of disparate racial impact, much less the stark pattern contemplated by Arlington Heights. Id. (Absent a pattern as stark as that in Gomillion or Yick Wo, impact alone is not determinative ....) (footnotes omitted). At most, plaintiffs have established that in three schools the reduction from 100% to 50% of seats set aside for students in the walk zone resulted in twenty white students, out of the approximately 25,000 or so elementary (K-5) students in the BPS system, not being assigned to their first choice school. More relevantly, Walsh's own charts show that seven of the twenty students who actually were assigned to the disputed seats were white, meaning that the impact on whites as a group was a net loss of thirteen seats. 19 Isolated examples that only show a small net loss of seats to white students in selected schools is a far cry from showing that the New Plan disproportionately affects white students in the BPS system. In fact, as the district court emphasized, even with the reduction in walk zone seats, in the 2002-2003 school year, 80 percent of white applicants received their first choice of schools, as compared to 77 percent of black applicants. BCF IV, 260 F.Supp.2d at 332. 72 Even if this showing could be characterized as evidence of a disproportionate effect, a characterization which we reject, the individual examples of the racial effect cited by plaintiffs are explainable on grounds other than race. Arlington Heights, 429 U.S. at 266, 97 S.Ct. 555. As the district court found, plaintiffs have not been able to show [ ] that the loss was due to discrimination.... Rather, as defendants point out, white students have been denied admission to certain schools, not because they were forced to compete on a non-level playing field, but because their parents have tended to over-choose these same schools. BCF IV, 260 F.Supp.2d at 332. If plaintiffs had been able to show that the New Plan resulted in stark systemwide racial disparities regarding assignments to first choice schools, we might — depending on the circumstances — have reached the conclusion that intentional discrimination occurred and so adopt a stricter standard of scrutiny in assessing justification. Plaintiffs chose, however, to eschew such analysis. 73 The BCF IV court rightly concluded that plaintiffs' evidence fails to show any disproportionate effect of the New Policy. 74 [I]t was open to plaintiffs to show that the reduction in the walk zone preference has had a disproportionate impact on white children, that is, that a greater percentage of white students have found themselves shut out of their neighborhood schools. This plaintiffs have not done. 75 Id. at 331-32. With plaintiffs having shown no racial classification at play in the New Plan, no discriminatory purpose for its adoption, and no discriminatory effect of its application, we cannot conclude that the plan in some sense was designed to accord disparate treatment on the basis of racial considerations. Washington v. Seattle School Dist., 458 U.S. 457, 485, 102 S.Ct. 3187, 73 L.Ed.2d 896 (1982). Consequently, the district court correctly held that the New Plan was not subject to strict scrutiny. 20