Rehearing sought in school case
on Jul 11, 2006 at 4:28 pm
Parents who have challenged a race-based student assignment plan in Lynn, Mass., have asked the Supreme Court to reopen their case, contending that the plan’s validity may depend upon the outcome of newly granted cases from Seattle and Louisville, Ky. Although the Court rarely grants rehearing petitions, and even more rarely does so when such a petition is filed outside the time specified in Court rules, this particular plea may have a somewhat better chance.
The case is Comfort v. Lynn School Committee (docket 05-348). The Court denied review of the parents’ appeal last Dec. 5. At that time, however, the Seattle and Louisville cases — dockets 05-908 and 05-915 — had not even arrived at the Court (both were filed on Jan. 18). The Court agreed to hear those cases on June 5, and they will be argued in the new Term starting Oct. 2.
In asking permission to file a rehearing petition, the Lynn parents argued that the assignment plan in their city’s schools “is remarkably similar” to the one in Seattle. Moreover, it said, the First Circuit ruling in their case upholding the Lynn plan was close to the rationale used by the Ninth Circuit in the Seattle litigation.
“Given the similarities between the assignment plans…,it would be manifestly unfair to the Lynn Petitioners for the Seattle Plan to be potentially stricken by this Court in its review of [the Seattle case], while the Lynn Plan remains undisturbed,” the motion to file argued.
The rehearing petition argued that, while there are distinctions between the specifics of the three cases, “the essence of all three plans is that they restrict school assignment options based on the race of the student in order to maintain racial diversity.”
When the Court hears the new cases, it will be hearing — for the first time — the question of whether its 2003 rulings allowing some use of race in college student admissions in order to promote racial diversity apply to student assignment at the public school elementary and secondary level.
The Court is expected to act upon the new Lynn plea during its summer recess. Typically, the Court acts on a long list of rehearing petitions while in the recess between Terms.
Under the Court’s Rule 44 (2), a petition for rehearing of a denial of a petition must be filed within 25 days after the denial, and must be limited to arguments about substantial intervening circumstances or substantial arguments not previously presented. The Lynn parents argued that they had no reason to seek rehearing within the required time period after the Dec. 5 denial, and the reasons arose only when the Court on June 5 agreed to review the legal questions in the other cases. The motion to file was submitted to the Court four days later, on June 9.
