Thursday, 4:30 PM
Coakley urges federal court to reject new challenge to Lynn school desegregation
(Josh Reynolds for The Boston Globe/file 2007)
By Globe Staff
The state attorney general today filed a brief in federal court defending the race-based school assignment policy in Lynn public schools, saying the practice was still constitutional despite last month's ruling by the US Supreme Court that shot down similar programs in Seattle and Jefferson County, Ky.
The brief urged the US District Court in Boston to reject a request by a group of Lynn parents to revive an eight-year-old challenge to the city’s race-based school assignment policy. The district court had previously denied the parents' challenge, but that was before the US Supreme Court ruled on June 28 that the goal of racial balance cannot justify considering the race of students in school assignment.
"We believe that the District Court's judgment was correct at the time it was decided and remains so today," Coakley said in a statement. "...We believe Lynn's plan is constitutional and the evidence of its success is compelling."
The Supreme Court's 5-to-4 decision upended some of its own policies and could affect roughly 20 school systems in Massachusetts. That ruling reverberated loudly in Lynn, which in 2005 won a high-profile federal lawsuit over its policy to deny student transfers if the move would upset a school's racial balance.
