Opinion ID: 145702
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: conclusion

Text: To show that the school assignment plans here meet the requirements of the Constitution, I have written at exceptional length. But that length is necessary. I cannot refer to the history of the plans in these cases to justify the use of race-conscious criteria without describing that history in full. I cannot rely upon Swann 's statement that the use of race-conscious limits is permissible without showing, rather than simply asserting, that the statement represents a constitutional principle firmly rooted in federal and state law. Nor can I explain my disagreement with the Court's holding and the plurality's opinion, without offering a detailed account of the arguments they propound and the consequences they risk. Thus, the opinion's reasoning is long. But its conclusion is short: The plans before us satisfy the requirements of the Equal Protection Clause. And it is the plurality's opinion, not this dissent that fails to ground the result it would reach in law. Ante, at 28. Four basic considerations have led me to this view. First, the histories of Louisville and Seattle reveal complex circumstances and a long tradition of conscientious efforts by local school boards to resist racial segregation in public schools. Segregation at the time of Brown gave way to expansive remedies that included busing, which in turn gave rise to fears of white flight and resegregation. For decades now, these school boards have considered and adopted and revised assignment plans that sought to rely less upon race, to emphasize greater student choice, and to improve the conditions of all schools for all students, no matter the color of their skin, no matter where they happen to reside. The plans under reviewwhich are less burdensome, more egalitarian, and more effective than prior planscontinue in that tradition. And their history reveals school district goals whose remedial, educational, and democratic elements are inextricably intertwined each with the others. See Part I, supra, at 2-21. Second, since this Court's decision in Brown, the law has consistently and unequivocally approved of both voluntary and compulsory race-conscious measures to combat segregated schools. The Equal Protection Clause, ratified following the Civil War, has always distinguished in practice between state action that excludes and thereby subordinates racial minorities and state action that seeks to bring together people of all races. From Swann to Grutter, this Court's decisions have emphasized this distinction, recognizing that the fate of race relations in this country depends upon unity among our children, for unless our children begin to learn together, there is little hope that our people will ever learn to live together. Milliken, 418 U. S., at 783 (Marshall, J., dissenting). See also C. Sumner, Equality Before the Law: Unconstitutionality of Separate Colored Schools in Massachusetts, in 2 The Works of Charles Sumner 327, 371 (1849) (The law contemplates not only that all be taught, but that all shall be taught together). See Part II, supra, at 21-37. Third, the plans before us, subjected to rigorous judicial review, are supported by compelling state interests and are narrowly tailored to accomplish those goals. Just as diversity in higher education was deemed compelling in Grutter, diversity in public primary and secondary schoolswhere there is even more to gainmust be, a fortiori, a compelling state interest. Even apart from Grutter, five Members of this Court agree that avoiding racial isolation and achiev[ing] a diverse student population remain today compelling interests. Ante, at 17-18 (opinion of KENNEDY, J.). These interests combine remedial, educational, and democratic objectives. For the reasons discussed above, however, I disagree with JUSTICE KENNEDY that Seattle and Louisville have not done enough to demonstrate that their present plans are necessary to continue upon the path set by Brown. These plans are more narrowly tailored than the race-conscious law school admissions criteria at issue in Grutter. Hence, their lawfulness follows a fortiori from this Court's prior decisions. See Parts III-IV, supra, at 37-57. Fourth, the plurality's approach risks serious harm to the law and for the Nation. Its view of the law rests either upon a denial of the distinction between exclusionary and inclusive use of race-conscious criteria in the context of the Equal Protection Clause, or upon such a rigid application of its test that the distinction loses practical significance. Consequently, the Court's decision today slows down and sets back the work of local school boards to bring about racially diverse schools. See Part V, supra, at 57-63. Indeed, the consequences of the approach the Court takes today are serious. Yesterday, the plans under review were lawful. Today, they are not. Yesterday, the citizens of this Nation could look for guidance to this Court's unanimous pronouncements concerning desegregation. Today, they cannot. Yesterday, school boards had available to them a full range of means to combat segregated schools. Today, they do not. The Court's decision undermines other basic institutional principles as well. What has happened to stare decisis? The history of the plans before us, their educational importance, their highly limited use of raceall these and moremake clear that the compelling interest here is stronger than in Grutter. The plans here are more narrowly tailored than the law school admissions program there at issue. Hence, applying Grutter 's strict test, their lawfulness follows a fortiori. To hold to the contrary is to transform that test from strict to fatal in factthe very opposite of what Grutter said. And what has happened to Swann? To McDaniel? To Crawford? To Harris? To School Committee of Boston? To Seattle School Dist. No. 1? After decades of vibrant life, they would all, under the plurality's logic, be written out of the law. And what of respect for democratic local decisionmaking by States and school boards? For several decades this Court has rested its public school decisions upon Swann 's basic view that the Constitution grants local school districts a significant degree of leeway where the inclusive use of race-conscious criteria is at issue. Now localities will have to cope with the difficult problems they face (including resegregation) deprived of one means they may find necessary. And what of law's concern to diminish and peacefully settle conflict among the Nation's people? Instead of accommodating different good-faith visions of our country and our Constitution, today's holding upsets settled expectations, creates legal uncertainty, and threatens to produce considerable further litigation, aggravating racerelated conflict. And what of the long history and moral vision that the Fourteenth Amendment itself embodies? The plurality cites in support those who argued in Brown against segregation, and JUSTICE THOMAS likens the approach that I have taken to that of segregation's defenders. See ante, at 39-41 (plurality opinion) (comparing Jim Crow segregation to Seattle and Louisville's integration polices); ante, at 28-32 (THOMAS, J., concurring). But segregation policies did not simply tell schoolchildren where they could and could not go to school based on the color of their skin, ante, at 40 (plurality opinion); they perpetuated a caste system rooted in the institutions of slavery and 80 years of legalized subordination. The lesson of history, see ante, at 39 (plurality opinion), is not that efforts to continue racial segregation are constitutionally indistinguishable from efforts to achieve racial integration. Indeed, it is a cruel distortion of history to compare Topeka, Kansas, in the 1950's to Louisville and Seattle in the modern dayto equate the plight of Linda Brown (who was ordered to attend a Jim Crow school) to the circumstances of Joshua McDonald (whose request to transfer to a school closer to home was initially declined). This is not to deny that there is a cost in applying a state-mandated racial label. Ante, at 17 (KENNEDY, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). But that cost does not approach, in degree or in kind, the terrible harms of slavery, the resulting caste system, and 80 years of legal racial segregation.