Opinion ID: 201292
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Federal Equal Protection Claims

Text: The main issue on appeal is the constitutionality of the Lynn Plan's race-conscious transfer restrictions. The plaintiffs contend that by mechanically taking race into account, the Plan violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and various federal civil rights statutes. The resolution of the federal statutory claims depends on the fate of the constitutional challenge. See infra Part III.D. Consequently, we focus on the equal protection issue.
We review the court's findings of fact for clear error and its legal conclusions, including its application of the law to the facts, de novo. See Wessmann v. Gittens, 160 F.3d 790, 795 (1st Cir. 1998). The Supreme Court has reviewed racial classifications under the strict scrutiny standard, which requires that the policy be narrowly tailored to a compelling state interest. Grutter, 539 U.S. at 326; Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena, 515 U.S. 200, 227 (1995). The defendants urge us to apply a more relaxed standard here. They emphasize that although the Plan is race-conscious, it is unlike affirmative action because it affects whites and nonwhites equally. This argument is foreclosed by the Supreme Court's recent decision in Johnson v. California, 125 S. Ct. 1141 (2005). There, -19- the Court considered an unwritten policy of the California Department of Corrections whereby inmates are segregated by race for up to sixty days after entering a new correctional facility. Rejecting the State's argument that its policy should be subjected to relaxed scrutiny because it neither benefits nor burdens one group or individual more than any other group or individual, id. at 1147, the Court explained that all racial classifications raise special fears that they are motivated by an invidious purpose. Thus, we have admonished time and again that, [a]bsent searching judicial inquiry into the justification for such race-based measures, there is simply no way of determining . . . what classifications are in fact motivated by illegitimate notions of racial inferiority or simple racial politics. Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469, 493 (1989) (plurality opinion). We therefore 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. Id. at 1146 (internal quotation marks omitted). This rule applies in the present context just as firmly. The Plan must be reviewed under strict scrutiny. This standard is not strict in theory, but fatal in fact. Id. at 1151; see also Grutter, 539 U.S. at 326-27 (Although all governmental uses of race are subject to strict scrutiny, not all are invalidated by it.). Strict scrutiny is designed to provide a framework for carefully examining the importance and the sincerity of the reasons advanced by the governmental decisionmaker for the use of race in that particular context. Grutter, 539 U.S. at 327. We therefore bear in mind the -20- court's admonition that [c]ontext matters when reviewing racebased governmental action under the Equal Protection Clause. Id.
Until recently, there was some question as to whether diversity could constitute a compelling interest in the educational context. See Wessmann, 160 F.3d at 795-96. The Supreme Court has now answered that question in the affirmative, holding in Grutter that a law school's interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body was compelling enough to justify the narrowly tailored use of race in admissions. 539 U.S. at 343. Grutter involved a challenge to the University of Michigan Law School's admissions policy, which took into account racial and ethnic background as one of several soft variables used in assessing applicants. Id. at 315. The Law School justified this strategy as furthering its goal of assembling a class that was both exceptionally . . . qualified and broadly diverse. Id. at 329. It also sought to enroll a critical mass of minority students, thereby enhancing its quest for broad diversity. Id. at 330. The Grutter Court stressed that the Law School's plan did not pursue a critical mass of minority students for its own sake, but rather for the sake of obtaining the educational benefits that flow from having a racially diverse student body. Id. at 329-30 -21- (acknowledging that racial balancing for its own sake is unconstitutional). These educational benefits include promoting cross-racial understanding, breaking down stereotypes, fostering livelier and better informed class discussions, and preparing students to succeed in an increasingly diverse society. Id. at 330. The Court largely deferred to the Law School's educational judgment not only in determining that diversity would produce these benefits, but also in determining that these benefits were critical to the school's educational mission. Id. at 328-33. The Court warned, however, that scrutiny of the interest asserted by the Law School is no less strict for taking into account complex educational judgments in an area that lies primarily within the expertise of the university. Id. at 328. Nevertheless, the Court concluded that the pursuit of these benefits constituted a compelling state interest. Id. In so ruling, it recognized the overriding importance of [education in] preparing students for work and citizenship. Id. at 331. Against this background, we consider the interest that Lynn's race-conscious Plan seeks to advance. This is not a case where the racial classification is aimed at remedying past segregation. See Comfort IV, 283 F. Supp. 2d at 390 n.101. Rather, the parties stipulated that Lynn's interests include fostering integrated public schools and what Lynn believes are [their] positive effects; reducing minority isolation and avoiding segregation and what Lynn believes are their negative effects; promoting a positive racial -22- climate at schools and a safe and healthy school environment; fostering a cohesive and tolerant community in Lynn; promoting diversity; ensuring equal education and life opportunities and increasing the quality of education for all students. The district court grouped these interests into two categories: (i) reaping the educational benefits that flow from having a racially diverse student body in each of Lynn's public schools, and (ii) avoiding the negative educational consequences that accompany racial isolation. Although there are some differences between these interests, we conclude that they are essentially two sides of the same coin. The negative consequences of racial isolation that Lynn seeks to avoid and the benefits of diversity that it hopes to achieve are rooted in the same central idea: that all students are better off in racially diverse schools. We therefore restate the interests at stake here as obtaining the educational benefits of a racially diverse student body. Lynn maintains that ensuring a racially diverse student body in its schools has produced, and will continue to produce, many of the same benefits cited by the Grutter Court: disarming racial stereotypes, increasing racial tolerance, and preparing students to live and work in an increasingly multi-racial society. The defendants' expert evidence also suggests that racially isolated students often feel psychological burdens that can lead to poor attendance and academic woes, and that these effects can be -23- combated by racial integration. Consistent with these assertions, Lynn's schools have indeed experienced many positive developments -- including higher attendance rates, declining suspension rates, a safer environment, and improved standardized test scores -- since the Plan's inception. In Lynn's view, these developments can be explained by the intergroup contact theory. This theory holds that under certain conditions, interaction between students of different races promotes empathy, understanding, positive racial attitudes[,] and the disarming of stereotypes. Comfort IV, 283 F. Supp. 2d at 356. Under the intergroup contact theory, there are four basic conditions for success: (1) equal status among racial groups, (2) the presence of teachers and staff trained to facilitate interactions between members of different groups, (3) common goals and cooperative activities, and (4) opportunities for personalized contact with a sufficient number of children from different racial groups to disrupt stereotypes. Id. at 356-57. Lynn's experts explained that meaningful intergroup contact (the fourth condition of intergroup contact theory) requires that a school have a critical mass of students of each group, i.e., white and nonwhite. Id. at 357. Lynn's experts also testified, and the district court found, that the benefits of intergroup contact continue to accrue as a school becomes increasingly diverse. Id. Citing this theory and crediting the -24- defense experts who explained its application in Lynn, the district court agreed that there was a causal link between improvements in the school system and increased racial diversity. Id. at 353-54. While acknowledging improvements in the Lynn schools since the Plan's inception, the plaintiffs disagree that these changes can be attributed to the race-conscious aspect of the Lynn Plan. More significantly, they also contend that regardless of whether there are educational benefits to racial diversity, Lynn does not have a compelling interest in achieving those benefits. We disagree. Lynn's transfer policy expressly aims at attaining racial diversity in the city's schools. Where a community does not seek racial diversity for its own sake, but rather to advance a compelling interest in the educational benefits that diversity provides, there is no absolute bar to pursuing racial diversity. See Grutter, 539 U.S. at 330. The district court found that this was Lynn's purpose, Comfort IV, 283 F. Supp. 2d at 375-76, and the record supports that finding. We see no reason to second-guess it. Cf. Grutter, 539 U.S. at 328 (stating that, typically, a school's educational judgment that . . . diversity is essential to its educational mission is one to which we defer). The plaintiffs assert that, unlike Grutter, this case does not implicate a compelling interest that would justify the pursuit of racial diversity. The admissions plan at issue in -25- Grutter strove for diversity along many axes, including race, in an effort to create a student body with diverse viewpoints, thereby enriching classroom discussion and academic experiences. See 539 U.S. at 329 (As part of its goal of assembling a class that is . . . broadly diverse, the Law School seeks to enroll a critical mass of minority students. (internal quotation marks omitted)). The plaintiffs contend that Grutter's recognition of a compelling interest in the educational benefits that flow from student body diversity, 539 U.S. at 330, is thus limited to the benefits that flow from viewpoint diversity in the higher education context and does not extend to the benefits that flow from racial diversity in the K-12 context. Again, we disagree. Lynn's asserted interests bear a strong familial resemblance to those that the Grutter Court found compelling. There is no reason to believe that these interests are advanced by viewpoint diversity but not racial diversity, or that they are substantially stronger in the context of higher education than in the context of elementary and secondary education. See McFarland v. Jefferson Cty. Pub. Schs., 330 F. Supp. 2d 834, 852-53 (W.D. Ky. 2004) (reasoning that the benefits recognized in Grutter also accrue to students in racially integrated public schools); cf. Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 221 (1982) (emphasizing the importance of K-12 education in maintaining the fabric of our society). In fact, there is significant evidence in the record -26- that the benefits of a racially diverse school are more compelling at younger ages. See, e.g., Comfort IV, 283 F. Supp. 2d at 356 (summarizing expert's testimony that [i]t is more difficult to teach racial tolerance to college-age students; the time to do it is when the students are still young, before they are locked into racialized thinking). The plaintiffs correctly point out that the benefits attributed to the Lynn Plan are not identical to those described in Grutter. But Grutter teaches that the compelling state interest in diversity should be judged in relation to the educational benefits that it seeks to produce. 539 U.S. at 330. The Lynn Plan uses race in pursuit of many of the same benefits that were cited approvingly by the Grutter Court, including breaking down racial barriers, promoting cross-racial understanding, and preparing students for a world in which race unfortunately still matters. Id. at 333.8 There are, of course, some variances between the benefits sought. For example, the law school plan at issue in Grutter focused on the advantages of viewpoint diversity in the classroom, while Lynn emphasizes the positive impact of racial diversity on student safety and attendance. But it is natural that safety and attendance issues will loom larger in elementary and secondary schools than in graduate schools. Conversely, lively 8 Notably, one of the studies that the Supreme Court cited as demonstrating that diversity produces educational benefits was authored by the defendants' expert in this case, Dr. Gary Orfield. -27- classroom discussion is a more central form of learning in law schools (which prefer the Socratic method) than in a K-12 setting. These differences do not negate a compelling interest in racial diversity in a K-12 setting. Instead, they are the logical result of context. We are persuaded by the extensive expert testimony in the record, rooted in observations specific to Lynn, that there are significant educational benefits to be derived from a racially diverse student body in the K-12 context. Lynn has a compelling interest in obtaining those benefits. See Brewer v. W. Irondequoit Cent. Sch. Dist., 212 F.3d 738, 752 (2d Cir. 2000); McFarland, 330 F. Supp. 2d at 855.
Recognizing that public schools have a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits of racial diversity does not give schools a blank check to adopt race-conscious policies. Rather, the government's use of race must be narrowly tailored to achieve its compelling interest. See Grutter, 539 U.S. at 333. The purpose of the narrow tailoring requirement is to ensure that 'the means chosen 'fit' . . . th[e] compelling goal so closely that there is little or no possibility that the motive for the classification was illegitimate racial prejudice or stereotype.' Id. (quoting Richmond, 488 U.S. at 493). -28- Narrow tailoring generally requires the proponent to show that a plan or practice is (i) necessary to the declared purpose, (ii) proportional to the declared purpose, and (iii) not more burdensome than necessary on third parties. See United States v. Paradise, 480 U.S. 149, 171 (1987) (plurality opinion). It is a context-specific inquiry that must be calibrated to fit the distinct issues raised in a given case, taking relevant differences into account. Grutter, 539 U.S. at 334 (internal quotation marks omitted). Although the Supreme Court has not yet considered a constitutional challenge to a voluntary race-based transfer policy for elementary and secondary schools, its recent opinions in Grutter and Gratz provide some guidance for our narrow tailoring inquiry into the use of race to obtain the educational benefits of diversity. Thus we consider these cases further.
Gratz involved a challenge to the University of Michigan's undergraduate admissions program. The University automatically assigned twenty points -- one-fifth of the 100 points necessary to guarantee admission -- to an applicant from an underrepresented racial or ethnic minority group. Gratz, 539 U.S. at 255. This twenty-point bonus effectively made race/ethnicity determinative for minimally qualified minority applicants. Id. at 272. Grutter involved a challenge to the University of Michigan -29- Law School's admissions policy. The Law School took race into account as one of several variables in an individual's application. Grutter, 539 U.S. at 340. It assigned no mechanical score based on an applicant's race; instead, it considered race only as one of several possible ways in which an applicant could enrich the diversity of the student body. Id. at 315-16. The Supreme Court struck down the undergraduate admissions plan in Gratz while upholding the law school admissions policy in Grutter. In arriving at these decisions, the Court followed a four-part narrow tailoring inquiry. First, a raceconscious program cannot institutionalize a quota system or otherwise insulate one category of applicants from competition with another solely because of race. Id.; Gratz, 539 U.S. at 334. Second, the government must consider whether there are any workable, race-neutral alternatives. Grutter, 539 U.S. at 339. Third, the plan must not unduly harm members of any racial group. Id. at 341. Fourth, the use of racial distinctions must be limited in time. Id. at 342. Much of this inquiry is relevant here despite significant differences between the competitive admissions plans at issue in Gratz and Grutter and the Lynn Plan, which is non-competitive and governs only student transfers, not initial assignments. The requirement that the court consider race-neutral alternatives addresses whether the Plan is necessary; if there were a race- -30- neutral way to achieve the benefits of diversity and reduced racial isolation, the use of race would be unnecessary and therefore not narrowly tailored. The requirements that a race-conscious policy not unduly harm members of any racial group and that it be limited in time minimize the scope of the Plan, ensuring that its use of race is no broader than necessary. The weight of these considerations may vary somewhat from the Grutter setting to ours, but they remain applicable and we will return to them shortly. The first Grutter criterion relating to competition, however, is less useful to our narrow tailoring inquiry. The University of Michigan admissions policies were designed to assemble a student body that is diverse in ways broader than race. Grutter, 539 U.S. at 340. Individualized assessments, in which race was only one consideration among many, were the most narrowly tailored way to achieve such diversity. The mechanical use of race, by contrast, would preclude an admissions committee from considering students' background, experiences, and characteristics to assess [their] individual 'potential contribution to diversity.' Gratz, 539 U.S. at 274 (quoting Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 317 (1978) (opinion of Powell, J.)). Unlike the Gratz and Grutter policies, the Lynn Plan is designed to achieve racial diversity rather than viewpoint -31- diversity.9 The only relevant criterion, then, is a student's race; individualized consideration beyond that is irrelevant to the compelling interest. Cf. Brewer, 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.) The concerns motivating the individualized consideration requirement in a competitive, race-preferential admissions context that focuses on diversity along a number of axes (e.g., the Gratz and Grutter policies) are simply not present in a non-competitive K-12 transfer policy aimed at racial diversity. Because transfers 9 As we have already discussed, see supra Part III.B., the Lynn Plan's focus on racial diversity rather than viewpoint diversity is the result of contextual differences between higher education, where the emphasis is on the exchange of ideas, and primary education, where the emphasis is on fostering interracial cooperation. The district court explained this point in distinguishing Grutter, which was then pending before the Supreme Court: In contrast [to Grutter], the critical mass sought by the Lynn Plan is different, because Lynn's goal is not viewpoint diversity. As I have said, at the elementary, middle, and high school level, the goal of teaching socialization is at least as important as the subject matter of instruction. The value of a diverse classroom setting at these ages does not inhere in the range of perspectives and experience that students can offer in discussions; rather, diversity is valuable because it enables students to learn racial tolerance by building cross-racial relationships. In this context a meaningful presence of racial minorities -- and of whites at minority-dominated schools -- is crucial not only to reducing feelings of tokenism, but also to disarming stereotypes that students in the classroom majority might harbor about students of other races. Comfort IV, 283 F. Supp. 2d at 381 n.90. -32- under the Lynn Plan are not tied to merit, the Plan's use of race does not risk imposing stigmatic harm by fueling the stereotype that certain groups are unable to achieve success without special protection. Bakke, 438 U.S. at 298 (opinion of Powell, J.) (raising the possibility of stigmatic harm in the affirmative action context). There is also little chance that the decisive use of race in a plan concerned strictly with racial diversity creates the unwarranted presumption that race is a proxy for viewpoint. See Gratz, 539 U.S. at 271 (recognizing this as a risk when members of a group are favored based on a presumption that persons think in a manner associated with their race). Indeed, the Plan strives for exactly the opposite result -- that is, to preempt racial stereotypes through intergroup contact. The plaintiffs emphasize that the Supreme Court has also criticized the mechanical use of race on the ground that it may breed cross-racial tension. As the Court recently explained in considering a prison policy of segregating prison inmates by race, racial classifications threaten to . . . incite racial hostility. Indeed, by insisting that inmates be housed only with other inmates of the same race, it is possible that prison officials will breed further hostility among prisoners and reinforce racial and ethnic divisions. By perpetuating the notion that race matters most, racial segregation of inmates may exacerbate the very patterns of [violence that it is] said to counteract. Johnson, 125 S. Ct. at 1147 (internal quotation marks, citations, and emphasis omitted). These concerns, however, are not applicable to the Lynn Plan, which takes race into account to foster -33- intergroup contact rather than to segregate. As the Johnson Court acknowledged, racial integration . . . tends to diffuse racial tensions and thus diminish interracial violence. Id. (citing the opinion of former corrections officials and a study finding that the rate of violence between inmates segregated by race . . . surpassed the rate among those racially integrated). The Lynn Plan validates this conclusion: by reducing racial isolation and increasing intergroup contact, it has ameliorated racial and ethnic tension and bred interracial tolerance. Comfort, 283 F. Supp. 2d at 376. We therefore see no reason to impose a blanket prohibition on the use of race as a decisive factor in a student transfer plan to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits of racial diversity. If a non-competitive, voluntary student transfer plan is otherwise narrowly tailored, individualized consideration of each student is unnecessary.10
The district court determined, and we agree, that the Plan's use of transfer limits to achieve racial diversity has produced benefits central to Lynn's educational mission.11 Under 10 We note that this conclusion in no way rests on the administrative difficulties that would be inherent in individually considering each of the thousands of transfer requests that Lynn receives each year. Administrative difficulty does not render constitutional an otherwise problematic system. Gratz, 539 U.S. at 275. 11 Plaintiffs argue that improvements in Lynn schools cannot be attributable to racial diversity. They emphasize (i) that levels -34- the general narrow tailoring framework, however, we must also consider whether the Plan's use of race is no broader than necessary and whether race-neutral alternatives are available. See Grutter, 539 U.S. at 339-42; see also Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Educ., 476 U.S. 267, 280 n.6 (1986) (noting that the term narrowly tailored requires consideration of whether lawful alternative and less restrictive means could have been used or that the classification at issue must 'fit' with greater precision than any alternative means).
The defendants maintain that the Plan's use of race is minimally invasive. First, it governs only voluntary transfers, rather than initial student assignments. Instead of forcing children to attend schools far from their homes, as might be the of diversity vary at schools in the district; (ii) that at least one school slipped below critical mass during the 2000-01 academic year; and (iii) that defense experts testified that all schools they visited -- including schools that had slipped below critical mass -- demonstrated the benefits that intergroup contact theory attributes to racial diversity. Plaintiffs reason that the experts' uniformly positive testimony is inconsistent with a theory that increased diversity produces increased benefits, and that the benefits must be attributable instead to race-neutral factors present in equal measure throughout the district. We do not find this argument persuasive. The defendants point out that although some of Lynn's schools occasionally fall below critical mass, those deviations are small and temporary. Students do not automatically forfeit the lessons learned from integration when they attend a school with relatively short-term or marginal deviation from critical mass. -35- result of a controlled choice plan,12 the Lynn Plan preserves the traditional neighborhood school model. Second, the Plan allows students to transfer freely between racially balanced schools and provides an appeals process for students whose transfer requests are denied on racial grounds.13 The Plan is also less burdensome on third parties here than in other contexts because of the nature of the benefit at issue, namely the grant of a transfer request. Every child in Lynn is guaranteed a seat in a district where, as the parties have stipulated, every school provides a comparable education. The denial of a transfer under the Plan is therefore markedly different from the denial of a spot at a unique or selective educational institution. See, e.g., Gratz, 539 U.S. at 251 (University of Michigan); Wessmann, 160 F.3d at 793 (Boston Latin School); cf. 12 Controlled choice plans are an alternative to neighborhood school assignments. See, e.g., Anderson, 375 F.3d at 74-77 (describing controlled choice plans used by the Boston Public Schools). Under such programs, parents can choose among a select number of schools, but their choices and their likelihood of getting their choice are controlled to help ensure a particular racial balance. Wendy Parker, The Legal Cost of the Split Double Header of Gratz and Grutter, 31 Hastings Const. L.Q. 587, 603 n.76 (2003). 13 Appeals are granted to unite siblings or when parents can show a medical, safety, or other hardship, including one based on daycare arrangements. The district court found that the Parent Information Center (Lynn's central registration office) goes out of its way to make the appeals process accessible to everyone. Comfort IV, 283 F. Supp. 2d at 349. Additionally, a student whose appeal is denied will be presented with alternative placement options. -36- Wygant, 476 U.S. at 282-83 (Though hiring goals may burden some innocent individuals, they simply do not impose the same kind of injury that layoffs impose. Denial of a future employment opportunity is not as intrusive as loss of an existing job.). This is not to say that the denial imposes no harm at all; the transfer request itself indicates that despite the availability of a comparable education at any school in Lynn, students (or their parents) do not view the schools as fungible. But in construing the narrow tailoring requirement that a race-conscious plan not unduly harm members of any racial group, we view the diminished nature of any harm here as significant.
Despite the minimally invasive nature of the Plan, the plaintiffs contend that it imposes undue harm because of its calibration. Emphasizing the defense experts' testimony that the educational benefits of diversity are predicated on the presence of a critical mass of white and nonwhite students, a figure that social science literature approximates at 20%, the plaintiffs assert that the Plan's numerical guidelines are substantially more restrictive than necessary. In their view, a plan narrowly tailored to the defendants' compelling interest in the benefits of educational diversity would prohibit only those transfers that would upset critical mass. They point out that because the Plan is calibrated around district demographics rather than around critical -37- mass, it prohibits some transfers that do not bring a school population below 20% white. For example, because nonwhites made up 58% of Lynn's student population at the time of trial, an elementary school with a 40% nonwhite enrollment qualified as racially isolated, and therefore subject to transfer limits, even though it contained a critical mass of white and nonwhite students.14 In response, the defendants rely on expert testimony that while critical mass is the point at which educational benefits begin to accrue, those benefits increase as a school nears an even balance between white and nonwhite students. Relying on this evidence, the district court found that gains occur along a continuum: as the racial composition of school populations creeps closer to balanced, racial stereotyping and tension is [sic] reduced and racial harmony and understanding increase. Comfort IV, 283 F. Supp. 2d at 357. It thus concluded that the Plan was narrowly tailored, despite its orientation around district demographics rather than critical mass. See id. at 384 (The Plan effectively generates integration in Lynn's schools in such quantity as to catalyze intergroup contact while still respecting 14 Under the Plan, an elementary school is racially isolated if its nonwhite enrollment falls more than 15% below the percentage of Lynn's total student population that is nonwhite. If Lynn's student population was 58% nonwhite, as it was during the 2001-02 academic year, a school whose student body was less than 43% nonwhite (i.e., more than 15% below 58%) was racially isolated. -38- the neighborhood school principle and Lynn's ever-changing demographics.). We agree with the district court's reasoning. The Plan does not seek racial balancing for its own sake, nor does it use rigid quotas to ensure a pre-determined level of diversity at each of Lynn's schools. See Grutter, 539 U.S. at 335-36 (The . . . goal of attaining a critical mass of [nonwhite] students does not transform [a] program into a quota.). Rather, the transfer policy conditioned on district demographics (+/- 10-15%) reflects the defendants' efforts to obtain the benefits of diversity in a stable learning environment.15 The Plan thus provides a sufficiently close fit to the defendants' compelling interest to ensure that 'the motive for the classification was [not] illegitimate racial prejudice or stereotype.' Id. at 333 (quoting Croson, 488 U.S. at 493 (plurality op.)). The plaintiffs launch a second attack at the Plan's calibration on the grounds that it is inconsistent with the defendants' statements that the benefits they seek maximize as a school moves closer to 50% white/nonwhite. They point out that as of December 2004, Lynn's student population was more than 61.9% 15 This conclusion is bolstered by the testimony of Dr. Orfield, a nationally recognized expert on school desegregation, who concluded that the Plan used race no more than was necessary to allow Lynn to meet its educational goal of preparing students to live in a multiracial society. Comfort IV, 283 F. Supp. 2d at 355. -39- minority. A middle school that is 50% minority (the proportion that the defendants have described as ideal) would now fall outside of the +/- 10% range for racial balance and would instead be considered racially isolated, resulting in transfer limitations. This argument misses the mark. The Lynn Plan's goal is to improve the racial balance not of any particular school, but across the school system as a whole. The optimal balance for each school might well be 50%, but Lynn's 61.9% minority population means that for every school closer to that ideal, another will be further away from it. Evaluating schools by reference to the racial composition of the city's population is a sensible way for Lynn to strive for the best racial balance attainable across its entire school system, while acknowledging that practical constraints make it impossible for Lynn to have an equal population of minority and non-minority students in every individual school.
In addition to challenging the Plan's numerical ranges, the plaintiffs also argue that the Plan is not narrowly tailored to advance a compelling interest in racial diversity because it paints with too broad a brush by distinguishing only between white and nonwhite students, thereby blurring the many subgroups within each category. However, this white/nonwhite distinction reflects the reality of Lynn's experience. As the district court found, before the Plan, racial divisions and ethnic conflict between students -40- occurred predominantly along a white/nonwhite axis. The growing gap in understanding between these groups burdened the schools in ways that more precise shades of racial and ethnic difference did not. Comfort IV, 283 F. Supp. 2d at 379. By increasing diversity along the white/nonwhite axis, the Plan reduced racial tensions and produced positive educational benefits. Narrow tailoring does not require that Lynn ensure diversity among every racial and ethnic subgroup as well. See Grutter, 539 U.S. at 316 (noting that the Law School sought to enroll a critical mass of minority students, a category that included African-Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans).
A narrowly tailored plan must be limited not only in scope, but also in time. See id. at 342. The Court held in Grutter that this durational requirement can be met by periodic reviews to determine whether racial preferences are still necessary to achieve student body diversity. Id. The Lynn Plan includes such review. The PIC continuously monitors the schools' demographics, gathering data on racial composition and transfers. Under the Plan, transfer limits are suspended among schools that are racially balanced. Comfort IV, 283 F. Supp. 2d at 377. This feature is not merely theoretical. Students may now transfer freely among all three Lynn high schools. Lynn has also periodically reevaluated the calibration of its Plan with an eye -41- toward maximizing the availability of transfers while maintaining diverse schools. Id. at 348 n.38 (noting that the Plan's original 10% range was expanded to 15% for elementary schools to permit more choice and that Lynn considered a 20% range in 1994 but determined that it would compromise student body diversity). We expect that Lynn will continue to do so, presuming, as did the Grutter Court, that school officials will demonstrate a good faith commitment to monitoring the continued need for racial restrictions. See 539 U.S. at 343.
Because narrow tailoring dictates that the government use race only when necessary to achieve a compelling interest, it requires serious, good-faith consideration of workable raceneutral alternatives that will achieve the diversity [the government actor] seeks. Grutter, 539 U.S. at 339; see also Wygant, 476 U.S. at 280 n.6. Here, the defendants have met their burden. The record reflects that they seriously considered, and plausibly rejected, a number of race-neutral alternatives. These included (i) a no-transfer policy, see Comfort IV, 283 F. Supp. 2d at 387-88 (crediting evidence from a demographics expert that instituting such a policy would throw several elementary schools into racial imbalance); (ii) a policy of unrestricted transfers, see id. at 388 (crediting evidence that instituting such a policy would result in 500 to 800 segregative transfers per year); (iii) -42- a redrawing of district lines, see id. at 387-88 (noting that this would be impractical); (iv) forced busing, see id. at 387-88 (concluding that the problems that accompany forced busing justified Lynn's rejection of a controlled choice scheme); (v) a lottery system, see id. at 389 (finding that demographic and scheduling factors made this impracticable); and (vi) a plan conditioning transfers on socioeconomic status, rather than race, see id. at 389 n.100 (noting that because of residential patterns, this system would exacerbate existing racial imbalance). The plaintiffs argue that there are several other alternatives that the defendants failed to consider. They point specifically to a Department of Education study reviewing successful race-neutral programs based on socioeconomic status or a lottery, see U.S. Dep't of Educ., Achieving Diversity: RaceNeutral Alternatives in American Education (Feb. 2004), available at http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/raceneutral.html, and to the race-neutral student assignment plan adopted in Boston, see Anderson, 375 F.3d at 76-77. As noted, Lynn has already considered, and rejected, the possibility of basing student assignments on socioeconomic status or a lottery. While the record does not reflect whether Lynn has considered the Boston plan in depth, we note that the Boston plan is specific to the residential patterns in Boston, which differ from those in Lynn. Lynn must keep abreast of possible alternatives as they develop, see Grutter, -43- 539 U.S. at 342-43, but it need not prove the impracticability of every conceivable model for racial integration. It is sufficient that it demonstrate a good faith effort to consider feasible raceneutral alternatives, as it has done here. We therefore hold that the Lynn Plan is narrowly tailored to the defendants' compelling interest in obtaining the benefits of racial diversity.
The plaintiffs also advance several statutory equal protection claims, contending that the Lynn Plan violates, inter alia, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 and 1983,16 and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d.17 Our resolution of the constitutional equal protection challenge controls those claims. Title VI 'proscribe[s] only those racial classifications that would violate the Equal Protection Clause.' Alexander v. Sandoval 532 U.S. 275, 280-281 (2001) (quoting Bakke, 438 U.S. at 287 (Powell, J.)). Courts have also treated the bar on racial discrimination imposed by § 1981 and § 1983 as coextensive with the protections of the Equal Protection Clause. See Mescall v. Burrus, 16 42 U.S.C. § 1981 provides that [a]ll persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right . . . to the full and equal benefit of all laws. 42 U.S.C. § 1983 provides a cause of action based on the deprivation of constitutional rights under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State. 17 Title VI forbids racial discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. 42 U.S.C. § 2000d. -44- 603 F.2d 1266, 1271 (7th Cir. 1979) (The relationships of §§ 1981 and 1983 to the Fourteenth Amendment are so close . . . that we believe the use of each section must be guided by the principles announced by the Supreme Court for application of the Fourteenth Amendment to discrimination cases.); see also Anderson, 375 F.3d at 77 n.7 (concluding that plaintiffs' claims under Title VI, § 1981 and § 1983 turn on the resolution of the equal protection claim). The district court was therefore correct in holding that the plaintiffs are not entitled to federal statutory relief.