Education Law

Schools Fret Over Race-Based Assignments

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Schools throughout the country are having to parse a June Supreme Court decision to decide if they will continue to assign students to schools based on race.

While the high court struck down race-based assignments in Seattle in Louisville, Ky., National Public Radio reports that other districts are counting on local support to keep court challenges to desegregation plans at bay.

NPR focuses its coverage on Boston, the scene of violent school busing protests in the 1970s. Some 20 school systems in Massachusetts use race in student school assignment. And Mass. Attorney General Martha Coakley isn’t too keen on tampering with integration practices, especially in Lynn, Mass., where a court challenge is being revived by lawyer Chester Darling.

Darling told NPR that race-based assignment is wrong: “You just don’t sort kids by color and deny benefits to them because of the color of their skin.”

Hat tip to SCOTUSblog.

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