Opinion ID: 6328916
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Effect on the Coalition and the public interest

Text: The Coalition does not represent a class or putative class of applicants; rather, it is a group of interested parents and community members. Based on the record, it appears the Coalition has identified only two children of its members who are even eligible for whatever needs to be corrected.” CA4 ECF 17 at 9. But the district court did not reach a decision in January—instead, it granted summary judgment during the last week of February and did not deny the Board’s motion to stay until mid-March. 4 The Coalition suggests the Board could simply excise the two aspects of the current plan that the Coalition finds most objectionable. CA4 ECF 17 at 22. But if the Coalition is right that the current plan was adopted with discriminatory intent, it is not clear how these surgical alterations would remedy the constitutional problem. And, regardless, the Coalition offers zero analysis of how the current plan would function without those components. 13 admission to TJ this year, and those children may yet be admitted. See A-106; A-210; CA4 ECF 8-1 at 21. For that reason, it appears that the impact of a stay on the Coalition, if any, would be significantly less severe than the lack of a stay would be on the Board. See Nken, 556 U.S. at 435 (balance of the harms “assess[es] the harm to the opposing party” (emphasis added)). Likewise—even factoring in potential harms to similarly situated Asian American students whose parents are neither Coalition members nor otherwise parties—I think the public interest favors a stay given the timing and logistical constraints associated with scrapping the current admissions policy and creating a new one so close to the end of the current admissions cycle. If the district court’s order is not stayed, thousands of students and their families will be thrown into disarray for the next several months. By contrast, undisputed data presented to the district court show that a higher percentage of Asian American students were admitted than applied even under the current plan. Taking all this into account, it seems the more prudent course is to allow the current admissions cycle to proceed according to settled expectations and require a change, if any, beginning with the next class. 14