Orders: Court to rule on race in K-12 education

UPDATE 11:28 a.m.

The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to consider the use of race in student assignments in two urban school districts — the first time it will take up the affirmative action issue since its rulings in 2003 on college admissions. The cases are from Seattle and Louisville, Ky. The Court had examined the two cases six times before deciding to hear them. Argument will be held in the new Term opening in October. The cases are Parents Involved v . Seattle School District (05-908) and Meredith v. Jefferson City Board of Education (05-915).

The Court has never ruled on whether the pursuit of a racially diverse student body is a constitutionally valid goal when used in public elementary or high schools. It found in 2003 that this could be a valid goal in college student admissions. The new cases test whether that approach applies also at the K-12 level. In the Seattle case, parents are challenging any use of race in student assignments in a school system that has not been officially segregated by race. In the Louisville case, parents are challenging a 2001 plan adopted by the school system to maintain desegregation, after the district had emerged from federal court supervision of a mandated desegregation plan.

The Court also agreed on Monday to hear a case on the retroactivity of its ruling in Blakely v. Washington, one of a series of rulings limiting criminal sentences when facts have not been found by a jury, but by a judge. The new case is Burton v. Waddington (05-9222). The case tests whether Blakely established a new rule and, if it did, whether it applies retroactively. The Court’s grant of review of these issues was something of a surprise, since the Court has repeatedly refused to hear retroactivity claims on the Apprendi line of cases on sentencing law.

These were the only grants Monday.

In a highly unusual development, the Court denied review of two reporters’ appeals seeking a right to protect their news sources from forced disclosure in a civil lawsuit. The Court had been told that settlement negotiations were ongoing — a fact that normally leads the Court simply to sit on a case until it gets word on the outcome of those discussions. Here, the Court did not wait for formal notification of the settlement that occurred last week; rather, it denied review without comment — an action that perhaps should be interpreted as a desire not to hear the underlying claim of a “reporters’ privilege.” The action leaves intact a federal appeals court ruling that there is no such privilege under the First Amendment or federal common law.

The reporters and their legal adversaries had been expected to ask the Court’s clerk to simply dismiss their appeals, in the wake of the settlement. The Court acted before that step could be taken. (Justice Stephen G. Breyer was recused; there was no explanation.) The cases were Drogin v. Lee (05-969) and Thomas v. Lee (05-1114).

Among cases denied review on Monday were three appeals of interest to the business community: Cingular Wireless v. Mendoza (05-1119), on state authority to carve out exceptions to compelled arbitration of disputes over consumer contracts; U.S. Steel Mining v. Helton (05-1268), on state taxing power over coal mined within the state but destined for export to overseas buyers, and Tokyo Kikai Seisakusho v. Goss International Corp. (05-1358), on penalties imposed on foreign companies for “dumping” their goods in the U.S. at below-market prices.