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

Heading: Differences in compelling interests

Text: 69 The Court's requirement of individualized, holistic review in Grutter is also more relevant to the compelling interest advanced by the law school (the robust exchange of ideas fostered by viewpoint diversity) than it is to the District's (racial diversity and avoiding racially concentrated or isolated schools). See Grutter, 539 U.S. at 337, 123 S.Ct. 2325. The Court noted that the law school did not limit in any way . . . the broad range of qualities and experiences that may be considered valuable contributions to student body diversity. Id. at 338, 123 S.Ct. 2325. To this end, the law school's policy made clear that [t]here are many possible bases for diversity admissions, and provide[d] examples of admittees who have lived or traveled widely abroad, are fluent in several languages, have overcome personal adversity and family hardship, have exceptional records of extensive community service, and had successful careers in other fields. Id. (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). These multiple bases for diversity ensure the classroom discussion is livelier, more spirited, and simply more enlightening and interesting when the students have the greatest possible variety of backgrounds. Id. at 330, 123 S.Ct. 2325 (internal citations omitted). 70 Although the District's Plan, like the plan in Grutter, is designed to achieve the educational and social benefits of diversity, including bringing different viewpoints and experiences to classroom discussions, see Statement Reaffirming Diversity Rationale, viewpoint diversity in the law school and high school contexts serves different albeit overlapping ends. In the law school setting, viewpoint diversity fosters the robust exchange of ideas. Grutter, 539 U.S. at 324, 123 S.Ct. 2325; see Comfort, 418 F.3d at 16 ([L]ively classroom discussion is a more central form of learning in law schools (which prefer the Socratic method) than in a K-12 setting.). In the high school context, viewpoint diversity fosters racial and civic understanding. 23 For example, Eric Benson, the principal of Nathan Hale High School, one of the District's most popular schools, testified that as a result of racial diversity in the classroom, students of different races and backgrounds tend to have significant interactions both in class, and outside of class. When I came to Nathan Hale, there were racial tensions in the school, reflected in fighting and disciplinary problems. These kind of problems have, to a large extent, disappeared. 71 In addition, the law school takes other diversity factors, besides race and ethnicity, into consideration in order to achieve its other compelling interest — cultivating a group of national leaders. For example, extensive travel, fluency in foreign languages, extensive community service and successful careers in other fields demonstrate that a candidate is somehow exceptional or out of the ordinary. cf. Gratz, 539 U.S. at 273, 123 S.Ct. 2411 (disapproving of the undergraduate admissions plan, in part, because of its failure to consider whether an applicant was extraordinary and noting that [e]ven if [a] student['s] `extraordinary artistic talent' rivaled that of Monet or Picasso, the applicant would receive, at most, five points as opposed to the automatic 20 points given to an applicant from an underrepresented minority). In contrast, the District is required to educate all high school age children, both the average and the extraordinary, regardless of individual leadership potential. 72 The District also has a second compelling interest that is absent from the university context — ensuring that its school assignments do not replicate Seattle's segregated housing patterns. The holistic review necessary to achieve viewpoint diversity in the university context, across a broad range of factors (of which race may be but one), is not germane to the District's compelling interest in preventing racial concentration or racial isolation. Because race itself is the relevant consideration when attempting to ameliorate de facto segregation, the District's tiebreaker must necessarily focus on the race of its students. See Comfort, 418 F.3d at 18 (holding that when racial diversity is the compelling interest — [t]he only relevant criterion, then, is a student's race; individualized consideration beyond that is irrelevant to the compelling interest); Brewer v. W. Irondequoit Cent. Sch. Dist., 212 F.3d at 752 (If reducing racial isolation is — standing alone — a constitutionally permissible goal, . . . then there is no more effective means of achieving that goal than to base decisions on race.). We therefore conclude that if a noncompetitive, voluntary student assignment plan is otherwise narrowly tailored, a district need not consider each student in a individualized, holistic manner. 24 73 The dissent insists that absent such individualized consideration, the District's plan cannot serve a compelling interest and is not narrowly tailored to protect individuals from group classifications by race. Bea, J., dissenting, infra. at 1209. This is a flawed reading of the Fourteenth Amendment. 25 The District's compelling interest is to avoid the harms of racial isolation for all students in the Seattle school district. As we have explained, to accomplish that objective the District may look to the racial consequences of honoring the preferred choices of individual students (and their parents). It is true that for some students their first choice of school, based on geographical proximity, will be denied because other students' choices are granted in order to advance the overall interest in maintaining racially diverse school enrollments. The Fourteenth Amendment in this context does not preclude the District from honoring racial diversity at the expense of geographical proximity. We must not forget that race unfortunately still matters, Grutter, 539 U.S. at 333, 123 S.Ct. 2325, and it is race that is the relevant consideration here. 74 In sum, the contextual differences between public high schools and selective institutions of higher learning make the first of the Grutter hallmarks ill-suited for our narrow tailoring inquiry. 26 The remaining hallmarks, however, are relevant and control our analysis.