Opinion ID: 201118
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Applicability of Strict Scrutiny Review

Text: 35 The central purpose of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is the prevention of official conduct discriminating on the basis of race. Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229, 239, 96 S.Ct. 2040, 48 L.Ed.2d 597 (1976). Accordingly, [p]roof of racially discriminatory intent or purpose is required to show a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Dev. Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 265, 97 S.Ct. 555, 50 L.Ed.2d 450 (1977). When the government uses explicit racial classifications for the distribution of benefits, discriminatory intent is presumed, and those policies are always subjected to strict scrutiny. See, e.g., Pers. Adm'r of Mass. v. Feeney, 442 U.S. 256, 272, 99 S.Ct. 2282, 60 L.Ed.2d 870 (1979) (A racial classification, regardless of purported motivation, is presumptively invalid and can be upheld only upon an extraordinary justification.); Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306, 326, 123 S.Ct. 2325, 156 L.Ed.2d 304 (2003) ([A]ll racial classifications imposed by government must be analyzed by a reviewing court under strict scrutiny.) (internal quotations and citation omitted). We apply strict scrutiny to all racial classifications to `smoke out' illegitimate uses of race by assuring that [government] is pursuing a goal important enough to warrant use of a highly suspect tool. Grutter, 539 U.S. at 326, 123 S.Ct. 2325 (quoting City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469, 493, 109 S.Ct. 706, 102 L.Ed.2d 854 (1989) (plurality opinion).) The term racial classification normally refers to a governmental standard, preferentially favorable to one race or another, for the distribution of benefits. Raso v. Lago, 135 F.3d 11, 16 (1st Cir. 1998). 36 Here, though, the New Plan does not employ racial classifications. Indeed, plaintiffs concede, as they must, that the New Plan is facially race-neutral. In contrast, then, to the automatic application of strict scrutiny to overt racial classifications, when facially neutral legislation is subjected to equal protection attack, an inquiry into intent is necessary to determine whether the legislation in some sense was designed to accord disparate treatment on the basis of racial considerations. Washington v. Seattle School Dist., 458 U.S. 457, 484-85, 102 S.Ct. 3187, 73 L.Ed.2d 896 (1982) (emphasis added). Although plaintiffs may also invoke strict scrutiny review by showing that the facially neutral policy is applied in a discriminatory manner, Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 373-74, 6 S.Ct. 1064, 30 L.Ed. 220 (1886), plaintiffs have pointed to no evidence that the New Plan is applied in a discriminatory manner, nor do we see any in the record. 13 37 In reviewing a uniformly applied facially neutral statute, [d]etermining whether invidious discriminatory purpose was a motivating factor [in its adoption] demands a sensitive inquiry into such circumstantial and direct evidence of intent as may be available. Arlington Heights, 429 U.S. at 266, 97 S.Ct. 555. The Supreme Court nonexhaustively enumerated several factors relevant to the inquiry: the degree of disproportionate racial effect, if any, of the policy; the justification, or lack thereof, for any disproportionate racial effect that may exist; and the legislative or administrative historical background of the decision. Id. at 266-68, 97 S.Ct. 555. We will evaluate plaintiffs' various theories supporting strict scrutiny review through the lens provided by Arlington Heights, although we take the factors in a different order to better track plaintiffs' arguments. 38
39 Plaintiffs claim that because the Old Plan was unconstitutional, and the New Plan perpetuates the Old Plan's effects in violation of defendants' alleged duty to eliminate their duel [sic] assignment system of the Old Plan, we should infer that the New Plan was adopted with a discriminatory intent. To support this contention, plaintiffs quote two bedrock Supreme Court desegregation cases from the 1970s: Dayton Bd. of Educ. v. Brinkman, 443 U.S. 526, 99 S.Ct. 2971, 61 L.Ed.2d 720 (1979) ( Dayton II ); and Keyes v. School Dist., 413 U.S. 189, 93 S.Ct. 2686, 37 L.Ed.2d 548 (1973). The very language plaintiffs quote from these cases, as well as their significantly different facts, demonstrate the inaptness of these cases. 40 As plaintiffs point out, the Keyes Court held that there is a high probability that where school authorities have effectuated an intentionally segregative policy in a meaningful portion of the school system, similar impermissible considerations have motivated their actions in other areas of the system. Keyes, 413 U.S. at 208, 93 S.Ct. 2686. Plaintiffs quote Dayton II for the proposition that such a system is under a continuing duty to eradicate the effects of that system, and [ ] the systemwide nature of the violation furnished prima facie proof that current segregation in the [ ] schools was caused at least in part by prior intentionally segregative official acts. Dayton II, 443 U.S. at 536, 99 S.Ct. 2971 (internal citation omitted). 41 Keyes and Dayton II were ongoing school desegregation cases that involved purposeful discrimination by school systems attempting to avoid their affirmative obligation to undo systemic discrimination under Brown v. Bd. of Educ., 347 U.S. 483, 495, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954) ( Brown I ) (holding that the concept of separate but equal has no place in public education) and Brown v. Bd. of Educ., 349 U.S. 294, 301, 75 S.Ct. 753, 99 L.Ed. 1083 (1955) ( Brown II ) (ordering an end to segregated public education with all deliberate speed.). That was the status of the Boston school desegregation case at the time of the initial liability findings in 1974 and the remedial plan in 1976. See Morgan v. Kerrigan, 509 F.2d 580, 593-94 (1st Cir.1974)(relying in part on Keyes in upholding liability); Morgan v. Kerrigan, 530 F.2d 401, 425 (1st Cir.1976)(relying in part on Keyes in upholding the remedial plan). 42 This case arises in a completely different context. After going through school desegregation, Boston was found in 1987 to have achieved a unitary school assignment system. See Morgan, 831 F.2d at 318. The defendants here acted not with the intent to maintain a system of de jure segregation, but with the purpose of maintaining the post-segregation unitary system. Indeed, the Old Plan, toward this end, incorporated aspects of the Boston school desegregation plan that were constitutionally compelled. 14 Additionally, when the school committee adopted the Old Plan for the 1989 school year, the questionable constitutionality of such race-conscious efforts to minimize the tendency to resegregate was far from clear. 43 In essence, plaintiffs would like to limit the relevant history of this case to the period following the adoption of the Old Plan. However, there is also a relevant history of de jure discrimination against minorities that predates 1989, as the long history of the BPS desegregation litigation shows. In consequence, the present-day Boston school system really faces two legacies — the system it administered for decades that intentionally discriminated against minorities to maintain an unequal and segregated system, and the system it administered for ten years that subjected seat assignments to racial guidelines to maintain the racial integration achieved during the intervening twelve years of court-ordered desegregation. 44 There is no gainsaying that the system still must confront the fallout from its days of over-serving what were traditionally white communities and under-serving what were traditionally minority, then mostly black, communities. As the BCF IV court stated: Any assignment plan in the Boston School system is, and will be for the foreseeable future, constrained by the mismatch between school capacity and neighborhood demand, due in part to demographic shifts, and in part to the dual system's legacy of over-serving what were historically white neighborhoods. BCF IV, 260 F.Supp.2d at 325. 45 We decline to adopt plaintiffs' circumscribed view of history. Likewise, we decline to find that plaintiffs have established a prima facie case of discriminatory intent in the adoption of the New Plan simply because the Old Plan was constitutionally unsound. Over forty years ago, the Supreme Court advised federal courts that context matters: 46 [I]n dealing with claims under broad provisions of the Constitution, which derive content by an interpretive process of inclusion and exclusion, it is imperative that generalizations, based on and qualified by the concrete situations that gave rise to them, must not be applied out of context in disregard of variant controlling facts. 47 Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339, 343-44, 81 S.Ct. 125, 5 L.Ed.2d 110 (1960) (evaluating the validity of a redistricting plan under, inter alia, the Equal Protection Clause). Here, BPS voluntarily discontinued use of the Old Plan once it concluded that the plan was constitutionally suspect — in fact, within eight months of our decision in Wessmann — and replaced it with a racially neutral assignment system that was designed to maximize, not minimize, the equitable distribution of seats in the public schools. 48 We recognize that [b]enign intentions do not immunize government action, Raso, 135 F.3d at 16, and we do not suggest otherwise. There is no doubt that governmental policies that employ racial classifications for the distribution of benefits, or otherwise evince racial discrimination, should be subjected to strict scrutiny review. If plaintiffs could make such a showing, we would not hesitate to apply strict scrutiny to the New Plan. However, by declining to extend the reach of Keyes, Dayton II, and similar cases beyond their facts to create a presumption of racially discriminatory purpose in the adoption of the New Plan, we simply refuse to conflate vastly dissimilar cases. 49
50 Plaintiffs also argue that the New Plan was adopted for racially discriminatory reasons and should be subject to strict scrutiny because Superintendent Payzant and the Boston School Committee identified diversity as one of the several goals of the student assignment system. Plaintiffs equate this commitment to racial diversity with an illegitimate commitment to racial balancing. See Wessmann, 160 F.3d at 800 (noting the Constitution's general prohibition against racial balancing). To prove their point, plaintiffs cite the testimony of Superintendent Payzant elicited on cross-examination during this litigation: 51 Q. So this 50% walk-to plan actually preserved the racial balance gained by the Old Plan; isn't that correct? 52 A. Right, which is precisely why I didn't want to keep 100% walk-zone preference in the New Plan after racial guidelines were withdrawn. 53 In addition, plaintiffs cite communications from defendants trying to convince the Racial Imbalance Advisory Council (RIAC) 15 and the Board of Education that after the adoption of the New Plan, BPS should still qualify for funds under the Racial Imbalance Law, M.G.L. c. 71, § 37C, et seq. (RIL). 16 Essentially, Superintendent Payzant argued that (1) BPS qualified for funds under the Old Plan, (2) the New Plan maintained approximately the same racial balance within the schools as the Old Plan, so (3) BPS should still qualify for RIL funds, even though the New Plan lacked the explicit racial guidelines of the Old Plan. 54 Plaintiffs' reliance on selected excerpts ignores the totality of the evidence. As already noted, BPS's statistical analyses showed that, even with the elimination of the racial guidelines and a 100% walk zone preference in place, there was only a very, very small racial result. Superintendent Payzant testified at trial that BPS compared the results of a 100% walk zone preference applied both with and without the use of the racial guidelines called for in the Old Plan 55 to let the data speak for themselves and show to the Commissioner, and ultimately the State Board of Education, that the impact of the change in the student assignment plan by removing racial guidelines but keeping the other elements of the controlled choice would enable us to come very close to the same circumstances that we had that qualified us for ... meeting the standards of the Racial Imbalance Law before the policy was changed. 56 The data are indeed telling. According to Superintendent Payzant's testimony to the Board of Education, when BPS simulated the first-round transition grade assignments for the 1999-2000 year using actual parent choices but eliminating only the use of the racial guidelines, it found that just three additional schools would have one or more transitional grades falling outside the racial guidelines. Using the parental choice data to analyze the effect on individual student placements without the use of the racial guidelines revealed that only 938 out of 13,057 (or seven percent) of students would have been assigned to different schools. About fifty-three percent of those 938 individual changed assignments would have resulted in the student being assigned to a school which she had ranked higher, and, correspondingly, forty-seven percent would have been assigned to a school which she had ranked lower. Whites, Asians, and Hispanics fared slightly better as groups, while blacks and Native Americans fared slightly worse. 57 In sum, BPS's analyses showed that, even after removing the racial guidelines of the Old Plan, the BPS school assignment system did not need further modification to maintain the racial balance required to be eligible for RIL funds. Although defendants were pressured by RIAC to continue explicit racial balancing, they refused to comply, despite the substantial RIL funds at stake. 58 However, the Superintendent and the School Committee were also concerned about equity of choice and access across the system, particularly for students who lived in neighborhoods with inadequate capacity or underperforming schools. In his July 14, 1999 memo to the School Committee, Superintendent Payzant commented that it is important to note that this is not an issue of returning to neighborhood schools. That can happen in an equitable way only when new quality schools are built in neighborhoods that now have an insufficient number of schools to serve resident school age children.... This concern is further reflected in the summary description of the New Plan provided to the Commissioner of Education as part of BPS's RIL compliance presentation. That document stated that the Superintendent and the School Committee 59 are confident that the [New Plan] continues to ensure both choice and access beyond a student's particular neighborhood in order to preserve racial and ethnic diversity and reduce the likelihood of racial isolation within its schools. In addition, the [New Plan] retains all of the educational benefits of the original Controlled Choice Student Assignment Plan, including the promotion of school improvement, continuity and stability of placement, and equitable distribution of resources and educational opportunity district-wide. 60 The defendants' public confidence that the New Plan preserved racial diversity while advancing the other values that they identified was not an admission that the New Plan was a suspect device to achieve the numerically precise racial balancing of the Old Plan. 61 Contrary to plaintiffs' arguments, the mere invocation of racial diversity as a goal is insufficient to subject the New Plan to strict scrutiny. In those cases where the Supreme Court inquired whether diversity is a compelling state interest and whether the program at issue could survive strict scrutiny, the programs were all subjected to strict scrutiny because they used explicit racial classifications to achieve the goal of diversity. 17 None of these cases, nor any other case to which our attention has been drawn, has subjected a governmental program to strict scrutiny simply because the state mentioned diversity as a goal. As the district court succinctly put it: Motive, in other words, is not always suspect. Means, however, may be. BCF IV, 260 F.Supp.2d at 330. The Supreme Court has explained that the motive of increasing minority participation and access is not suspect. See, e.g., City of Richmond v. JA Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469, 507, 109 S.Ct. 706, 102 L.Ed.2d 854 (1989) (approving the use of race-neutral means to increase minority participation in governmental programs). 62 We said as much in Raso v. Lago, 135 F.3d 11 (1998), where we considered an equal protection and § 1983 challenge to a facially race-neutral policy change regarding the award of housing units that, at the end of the day, resulted in fewer white residents receiving a preference for the units to which they would have otherwise been entitled because of their prior residency. After acknowledging that the change in policy was motivated by a desire to ensure that all races had equal access to the new housing, we stated that plaintiffs are mistaken in treating `racial motive' as a synonym for a constitutional violation. Raso, 135 F.3d at 16. 63 Employing de novo review and placing Superintendent Payzant's cited testimony in the context of the entire record, we find that the plaintiffs have not shown that the defendants' use of the word diversity was simply a subterfuge for racial balancing. While defendants frankly acknowledged that they valued the degree of integration BPS had attained since it came under federal court order thirty years ago, their analyses using actual parental choice patterns showed that removing the racial guidelines of the Old Plan and the maintenance of a 100% walk-zone preference would not significantly erode those integration gains. BPS then resisted pressure to adhere to strict racial balancing, even with RIL funds potentially on the table, and adopted the race-neutral New Plan. To increase the likelihood of a favorable outcome on diversity and to promote school improvement, continuity and stability of placement, and equitable distribution of resources and educational opportunity district-wide, as well as the system's ongoing goals of excellence, equity and diversity, the defendants opted for the 50% walk-zone preference. 64 As the district court put it, Superintendent Payzant's reference to diversity simply restated his more convincing point that the revised assignment plan is intended to address issues of equity by giving parents in under-served neighborhoods fairer access to the school system's resources. BCF IV, 260 F.Supp.2d at 332. To the extent that the School Committee's adoption of the New Plan promoted choice and equitable access to BPS resources for all students in the BPS system, as well as diversity, there is nothing in that mix of goals or the means of achieving them that triggers strict scrutiny under our own precedents or those of the Supreme Court. 65
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