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Higher-Education Groups Urge Supreme Court to Preserve Race-Based School Assignments By PETER SCHMIDT Washington The American Council on Education joined at least 19 other higher-education groups on Tuesday in urging the U.S. Supreme Court to preserve race-conscious public-school assignments in two cases seen as potentially affecting affirmative action at colleges. The amicus curiae, or "friend of the court," brief submitted by the council is one of several from higher-education groups and scholars urging the high court to uphold the power of schools to consider race in the two cases, which involve schools in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle. Among the others that have filed briefs in support of the school districts in recent days are the American Educational Research Association, the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, and 19 former chancellors of campuses of the University of California. In addition, more than 550 social scientists and researchers have signed on to a separate brief, submitted Tuesday, which argues that students and their communities benefit from integrated schools. On the other side of the issue, briefs opposing the two school systems' race-based assignment of students were filed last month by the U.S. Justice Department, the National Association of Scholars, and several other groups and individuals that have led the fight against race-conscious admissions at the college level. They include the American Civil Rights Institute, the Center for Equal Opportunity, the Center for Individual Rights, the Pacific Legal Foundation, and the scholars Abigail and Stephen Thernstrom. Most of those briefs challenge the view that race-conscious school-assignment policies offer clear educational benefits and argue that such policies violate the U.S. Constitution's equal-protection clause. The two cases are the first involving racial preferences at educational institutions taken up by the Supreme Court since its landmark 2003 rulings in two cases involving race-conscious admissions policies at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (The Chronicle, July 4, 2003). College lawyers are looking to the Supreme Court's rulings in the two cases for hints of how two new members of the court, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., might rule on any future disputes involving affirmative action at colleges. It is also possible that the Supreme Court's rulings in the public-school cases, involving lawsuits filed by parents who contend that using race as a factor in school assignments is unconstitutional, might provide colleges with guidance on how to apply the Supreme Court's 2003 decisions, or might suggest that the Supreme Court is open to revisiting its Michigan rulings sometime soon. The American Council on Education's brief argues that the Supreme Court should show the educational judgments of the Seattle and Jefferson County, Ky., school districts the same deference that it showed toward higher education in the University of Michigan cases and in its other landmark ruling on affirmative action in college admissions, the University of California Board of Regents v. Bakke decision of 1978. The council's brief asserts that students who attend diverse elementary and secondary schools "are better prepared for the demands of higher education and are more likely to attend desegregated colleges," in addition to being better able to understand the falsity of stereotypes and having "a greater sense of civic and political engagement." Among the 19 other higher-education groups that had signed on to the brief as of late Tuesday afternoon were the American Association of Community Colleges, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, the American Association of University Professors, the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, the College Board, and the National Association for College Admission Counseling. Officials at the council were seeking on Tuesday night to add to the brief a 20th group, the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, which had been left off the version submitted earlier in the day through a clerical error. In its separate brief, the American Educational Research Association argues that research supports the idea that diverse elementary and secondary schools provide enough educational benefits that the government has a compelling interest in allowing race-conscious school assignments. A similar argument was offered in the statement signed by more than 550 social scientists and submitted to the Supreme Court on Tuesday by scholars affiliated with the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University. The brief submitted by the former University of California chancellors argues that a Supreme Court decision striking down race-conscious school admissions policies would impede efforts to make enrollments more diverse at selective colleges. Briefs in support of the two school systems have also been submitted by several civil-rights groups, including the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.