Opinion ID: 792253
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Lottery

Text: 104 Parents additionally contend in this court that the District should have considered using a lottery to assign students to the oversubscribed high schools. As an initial matter, we note that Parents did not argue before the district court that a lottery was a workable race-neutral alternative that would achieve the Districts' compelling interests. Parents now argue on appeal, however, that a lottery would achieve the District's compelling interests without having to resort to the race-based tiebreaker. They ask us to assume that because approximately 82 percent of all students want to attend one of Seattle's oversubscribed schools, the makeup of this 82 percent, as well as that of the applicant pool for each school, mirrors the demographics of the District (60 percent white and 40 percent nonwhite). Employing this assumption, Parents also ask us to assume that a random lottery drawing from this pool would produce a student body in each of the oversubscribed schools that falls within the District's 15 percent plus or minus variance. These assumptions, however, are not supported — indeed, are undercut —by the factual record. For example, Superintendent Olchefske explained that District patterns indicate that more people choose schools close to home. That would mean that the pool of applicants would be skewed in favor of the demographic of the surrounding residential area. That is, the applicant pool for the north area oversubscribed high schools would have a higher concentration of white students and the applicant pool for the south area oversubscribed high school would have a higher concentration of nonwhite students. Thus, random sampling from such a racially skewed pool would produce a racially skewed student body. As one Board member testified, a lottery was not a viable alternative because [i]f applicants are overwhelmingly majority and you have a lottery, then your lottery — the pool of your lottery kids are going to be overwhelmingly majority. We have a diversity goal. 105 Although the District has the burden of demonstrating that its Plan is narrowly tailored, see Gratz, 539 U.S. at 270, 123 S.Ct. 2411, it need not exhaust[] every conceivable race-neutral alternative. Grutter, 539 U.S. at 339, 123 S.Ct. 2325. Parents' belated and bald assertion that a lottery could achieve the District's compelling interests, without any evidence to support their claim, fails to demonstrate that a lottery is a viable race-neutral alternative. See id. at 340, 123 S.Ct. 2325 (dismissing the race-neutral alternative of percentage plans, advocated by the United States in an amicus brief, because the United States [did] not . . . explain how such plans could work for graduate and professional schools); Comfort, 418 F.3d at 23 (noting that Lynn rejected the use of a lottery in place of the race-based tiebreaker and holding that Lynn must keep abreast of possible alternatives as they develop . . . but it need not prove the impracticability of every conceivable model for racial integration) (internal citation omitted). 106