Julie and Kevin Hunter’s son scored higher than black students on achievement tests, yet his application for admission to a magnet school was denied. Why? Because the boy was white. Skin color preference policies are alive and well, but judges are finally starting to call such policies what they are: unconstitutional.
“Based on the 1990 order, the 1981 consent decree is no longer applicable to [the magnet school] and cannot form the justification for the use of racial classifications in [its] admissions policy,” Judge William Lockhart Garwood wrote for the majority. “The school board cannot rely on the consent decree to establish a finding of current effects of past discrimination.” Cavalier v. Caddo Parish School Board, No. 03-30395 (March 1)….
According to Garwood, the school board loses because it failed to identify any other compelling interest in a race-based admissions policy aside from the enforcement of the consent decree. He added that even if there were some compelling interest, the board
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