San Diegans Challenge Perpetual
Court Assignment of Pupils,
Emanating from Carlin v. Board of Education,
To Restore Local Control
According to the Constitution

should Not be treated according to our skin color, or where we live, or what Ethnic group we are. Why do you treat children according to their skin color, or where they live, or what Ethnic group they are. I don't understand why you are treating children like this?

Enstrom recommended a race-neutral plan in which the Board's objective should be to provide the best quality of education to all the students with its top priority being the quality of the local schools. The plan adopted should eliminate both race / ethnicity and residence of applicants in their selection, by a random drawing process, to any school (legitimately boundaried and appropriately available) for which there were more applicants than spaces available.

When it appeared racial gerrymandering would continue, albeit subtly, in the plan to be adopted, the author made one final objection in a “Viewpoint” entitled “Stop Racial Balancing,” published January 10, 2000 in the San Diego Daily Transcript. Appendix 3 to Liberate Public Schools. In it, he illustrated the manner in which the plan retained racial considerations in both the Magnet Program and Voluntary Ethnic Enrollment Program (VEEP) while stating it was eliminating them.

In Paragraph 5, he referred to the Magnet Program:

As to magnet eligibility, the proposed cluster formula is designed to advance race-balancing by the racial gerrymandering of the District into four clusters based upon the number of white students in them, with the highest number being in Cluster 1, declining in Clusters 2 and 3 to the lowest number in Cluster 4. Conversely, the lowest number of students classified as “minorities” is in Cluster 1, increasing in Clusters 2 and 3 to the highest number in Cluster 4. Priorities in applications to attend a Magnet school are assigned according the respective locations of the applicant and the school.

In Paragraph 6, he then illustrated that if a child of the same age, race and location as Kimberly were to apply under the proposed plan to the same magnet school, she would still have less priority to attend than a child living in a different cluster gerrymandered to promote racial balancing.

As to VEEP eligibility, Paragraphs 6 and 7, Id., Appendix 3, it was
 

Carlin v. Board of Education, San Diego Unified School District,
San Diego Superior Court No. 303800 (1967-1998)
San Diego, California
 

Board of Education v. Superior Court, 61 Cal.App.4th 411 (Feb.1998)
[conclusion of Carlin v. Board of Education]
San Diego, California
 

— Handbook: Challenge Five, pages 65 - 74 —