Opinion ID: 792253
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The District's use of race

Text: 107 The dissent posits variables the District could use instead of race, for example, embracing the San Francisco school district's approach as a possible model for integration that would meet the dissent's criteria. Bea, J., dissenting, infra. at 1218, n. 26. Perhaps San Francisco has experienced success (however that school district defines it) in its multi-variable plan — the details and evaluations of which are not in the record. The District is free to consider the San Francisco model when it engages in the annual review of its own Plan. However, even assuming that San Francisco's plan is working, that does not mean that it must be used by other cities in other states. Much can be gained from the various states employing locally appropriate means to achieve desirable ends. In our system, where states are considered laboratories to be used to experiment with myriad approaches to resolving social problems, we certainly should not punish one school district for not adopting the approach of another. Justice Brandeis said it well, 108 There must be power in the States and the Nation to remould, through experimentation, our economic practices and institutions to meet changing social and economic needs. . . . To stay experimentation in things social and economic is a grave responsibility. Denial of the right to experiment may be fraught with serious consequences to the Nation. It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country. 109 New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U.S. 262, 311, 52 S.Ct. 371, 76 L.Ed. 747 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting). 110 In sum, the District made a good faith effort to consider feasible race-neutral alternatives and permissibly rejected them in favor of a system involving a sibling preference, a race-based tiebreaker and a proximity preference. Over the long history of the District's efforts to achieve desegregated schools, it has experimented with many alternatives, including magnet and other special-interest programs, which it continues to employ, and race-conscious districting. But when a racially diverse school system is the goal (or racial concentration or isolation is the problem), there is no more effective means than a consideration of race to achieve the solution. Even Parents' expert conceded that, if you don't consider race, it may not be possible to offer an integrated option to students. . . . [I]f you want to guarantee it you have to consider race. As Superintendent Olchefske stated, when diversity, meaning racial diversity, is part of the educational environment we wanted to create, I think our view was you took that issue head on and used — you used race as part of the structures you developed. The logic is self-evident: When racial diversity is a principal element of the school district's compelling interest, then a narrowly tailored plan may explicitly take race into account. 34 Cf. Hunter v. Regents of Univ. of Cal., 190 F.3d 1061, 1067 (9th Cir.1999) (upholding as narrowly tailored the admissions policy of an elementary school — operated as a research laboratory — that explicitly considered race in pursuit of a racially balanced research sample).