Asian Americans value racially diverse public schools

This Op-Ed from Khin Mai Aung, a staff attorney with the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and co-counsel to 16 amici groups in the Louisville and Seattle cases - in the San Francisco Chroncle.
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When the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions on Seattle's and Louisville's school integration cases came down, our offices received a flurry of calls inquiring how the rulings impact Asian Pacific Americans. Without a doubt, the court should have found these integration plans to be constitutional and legal efforts to diversify classrooms. In that regard, these decisions were dead wrong.

However, it should be noted that the court did not prohibit all consideration of race in school assignment plans. Justice Anthony Kennedy clearly states that "A compelling interest exists in avoiding racial isolation, an interest that a school district, in its discretion and expertise, may choose to pursue... . Race may be one component of [student] diversity, but other demographic factors ... should also be considered."

One of the court's primary criticisms of the Seattle and Louisville plans was their lumping of various races into two categories...

...Some would argue that race-conscious school assignment plans harm Asian Pacific Americans, but this is false. Asian-American students, like all others, benefit from diverse learning environments. The court's decisions leave room for school districts to address the very concerns described in our amicus brief in these cases, where we show that Asian-American parents greatly value racially integrated schools...

...Now, because the Supreme Court has continued to hold racial diversity as a compelling government interest, school districts such as San Francisco can hope to design a process that ensures racial integration. San Francisco already uses race-neutral factors such as extreme poverty, socioeconomic status, home language, academic rank of the school and student academic achievement. San Francisco should explore ways to add race to these factors within the confines of the court's decision.

While it is unfortunate that these decisions further constrain school districts' ability to consider race in school integration plans, they also present a valuable opportunity to fine-tune these plans to better reflect our diverse communities. These decisions create an opening to refashion school assignment plans to include a broader array of diversity factors -- uch as specific races and other demographic characteristics. This aspect of the rulings could ultimately benefit Asian Pacific Americans, who previously were not considered a separate category in many integration plans, including those in Louisville and Seattle.