Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
I. INTRODUCTION
Defendant Lower Merion School District (“District”) submits this trial brief to
summarize for the Court the principal legal issues in this case, and to explain the lack of merit to
Plaintiffs’ race discrimination claims under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment to the United States Constitution, 42 U.S.C. § 1981, and Title VI of the Civil Rights
On January 12, 2009, the Lower Merion School District Board of School Directors
(“Board”) adopted a redistricting plan known as Plan 3R to fulfill the goals of the District’s high
school modernization process and achieve equal student enrollment at the District’s two new
high schools. The District did not individually select students for assignment to either Lower
Merion High School or Harriton High School under Plan 3R; rather, student assignment under
Plan 3R was based on the District’s feeder patterns from the elementary schools to the middle
Specifically, Plan 3R utilized a 3-1-1 feeder system, which meant that three elementary
schools fed into one middle school, which in turn fed into one high school. This 3-1-1 system
preserved the elementary and middle school attendance zones in existence prior to redistricting.
Consequently, under Plan 3R, students living in geographic areas that were zoned to Belmont
Hills, Gladwyne, and Penn Valley Elementary Schools and on to Welsh Valley Middle School
were districted to Harriton High School. Students living in geographic areas that were zoned to
Penn Wynne, Cynwyd, and Merion Elementary Schools and on to Bala Cynwyd Middle School
were districted to Lower Merion High School. The only exceptions were that Penn Valley
Elementary and Belmont Hills Elementary School students who lived in the official, historic
Lower Merion High School walk zone, while zoned for Harriton High School, could choose
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between attending Harriton High School and walking to Lower Merion High School. In
addition, to boost the projected enrollment at Harriton High School and counterbalance the
choice provided to those students residing in the Lower Merion High School walk zone, as well
as to provide all students with access to Harriton High School’s unique curricular programs, all
students zoned for Lower Merion High School continued to have the opportunity to elect to
These feeder patterns assigned all students, irrespective of race or ethnicity, who lived
outside the official Lower Merion High School walk zone and who attended one of the three
elementary schools feeding into Welsh Valley Middle School (i.e., Penn Valley, Belmont Hills,
and Gladwyne Elementary Schools) to Harriton High School. Students Doe, along with all other
students in the Affected Area,1 attend Penn Valley Elementary School and Welsh Valley Middle
School and reside outside of the official Lower Merion High School walk zone; consequently,
they are districted to attend Harriton High School under Plan 3R.
Plaintiffs allege race discrimination in violation of: (1) the Equal Protection Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment; (2) Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d et seq.; and (3)
42 U.S.C. § 1981. Specifically, Plaintiffs contend that “Redistricting Plan Three Revised . . .
discriminates against Students Doe on the basis of race by mandating that said students attend
1
“Affected Area” means the area bounded by Athens Avenue, Wynnewood Road, County Line Road, and
Cricket Avenue in South Ardmore, Pennsylvania. See Compl., ¶ 8.
2
On March 19, 2010, the District submitted a number of motions in limine to exclude evidence in this case. By
presenting legal arguments here using evidence and contentions proffered by Plaintiffs that the District has
moved to exclude, the District is not conceding that such evidence is relevant or admissible.
2
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Harriton High School because they are minorities.” Compl., ¶¶ 70, 75, 82 (emphasis added).3 To
prove discrimination under any of these three provisions, Plaintiffs must show purposeful
Enforcement, 108 F. Supp. 2d 460, 471 (E.D. Pa. 2000) (citing Keenan v. City of Phila., 983
F.2d 459, 465 (3d Cir. 1992)); Andrews v. City of Phila., 895 F.2d 1469, 1478 (3d Cir. 1990)
(“The sine qua non of any successful Equal Protection claim under § 1983 is purposeful
discrimination.”); Alexander v. Sandoval, 532 U.S. 275, 280 (2001) (“[I]t is similarly beyond
dispute – and no party disagrees – that § 601 prohibits only intentional discrimination.”); Gen.
Bldg. Contractors Ass’n v. Pa., 458 U.S. 375, 391 (1982) (“We conclude, therefore, that § 1981,
like the Equal Protection Clause, can be violated only by purposeful discrimination.”).
Plaintiffs will not be able to meet their burden of proving that they were intentionally
subjected to race discrimination, as the evidence supporting the Board’s legitimate, non-
As a preliminary matter, the evidence will show that Plan 3R is a facially race-neutral
(1) Students attending Gladwyne, Belmont Hills, and Penn Valley Elementary Schools are
zoned to attend Welsh Valley Middle School and then Harriton High School (with those
3
The District has noted throughout this case that to the extent that Plaintiffs intend to assert disparate impact (as
opposed to disparate treatment) claims of discrimination through their vague allegations that Plan 3R “imposes
an undue burden on minority students,” see Compl., ¶¶ 71 76, 83, such claims must be dismissed as a matter of
law, as neither the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Section 1981, nor Title VI allows
disparate impact claims. See, e.g., Crawford v. Marion County Election Bd., 128 S. Ct. 1610, 1626 (2008)
(holding that disparate impact claims are not available under the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection clause);
Sandoval, 532 U.S. at 281 (holding that private parties may not invoke Title VI disparate impact regulations to
obtain redress for disparate impact discrimination because Title VI itself prohibits only intentional
discrimination); S. Camden Citizens in Action v. N.J. Dep’t of Envtl. Protection, 274 F.3d 771, 783, 791 (3d
Cir. 2001) (holding that disparate impact regulations adopted pursuant to § 602 of Title VI do not create a right
enforceable via § 1983); Pryor v. National Collegiate Athletic Ass’n, 288 F.3d 548, 562-63 (3d Cir. 2002)
(finding that both Section 1981 and Title VI provide a private cause of action for intentional discrimination
only).
3
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students living in the official, historic Lower Merion High School walk zone having
the option to choose between Harriton High School or walking to Lower Merion High
School);
(2) Students attending Penn Wynne, Cynwyd, and Merion Elementary Schools are zoned to
attend Bala Cynwyd Middle School, and then Lower Merion High School; and
(3) To better equalize student enrollments between the two high schools, all students zoned
for Lower Merion High School continue to have the opportunity to elect to attend
Harriton High School.
See Exhibit 7 to Defendant’s Statement of Undisputed Material Facts in Support of Motion for
Students may elect to stay with peers by following assigned feeder patterns K-12;
[The Plan] [p]rotects the official Walk Zones for Elementary, Middle and High School;
[The Plan] [f]ollows the current feeder patterns and creates disruption for fewer students;
and
[The Plan] [a]llows for a mixed high school population at each school through the option
area or the choice programs.4
By its very terms, Plan 3R assigns students to high schools based on elementary and
middle school feeder patterns. It does not classify or assign any individual students, let alone do
so on the basis of race. Indeed, as the Court already has recognized, nowhere does Plan 3R even
mention race or any item that could be deemed a proxy for race. See February 24, 2010 Opinion,
4
The “option area” is the geographic area within which students have the option to attend either Lower Merion
High School or Harriton High School. Under Plan 3R, the “option area” is the official Lower Merion High
School walk zone. Students residing in the official Lower Merion High School walk zone, although zoned to
attend Harriton High School due to the fact that they attend an elementary school that feeds into Welsh Valley
Middle School, are given the option to choose between Harriton High School or walking to Lower Merion
High School. “Choice programs” refers to the fact that Plan 3R, in an effort to better equalize the overall
student enrollment numbers at Harriton High School and Lower Merion High School, continued to allow
students zoned to attend Lower Merion High School the choice to attend Harriton High School. “Mixed” high
school population in this context means that each high school would be populated by students from both Bala
Cynwyd and Welsh Valley Middle Schools (as opposed to students from only one middle school).
4
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When official action taken pursuant to a facially neutral policy is challenged under the
Equal Protection Clause,5 rational basis scrutiny will apply unless the plaintiff can show that the
policy was enacted as a proxy for race or was applied on the basis of race, which would then
trigger strict scrutiny. Barnes Found. v. Township of Lower Merion, 982 F. Supp. 970, 983
(E.D. Pa. 1997). To show that Plan 3R was enacted on the basis of race, Plaintiffs must show
that the Board adopted Plan 3R with the purpose or intent to discriminate on the basis of race.
See id. (citing Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229, 239-42 (1976); Village of Arlington Heights
v. Metro. Hous. Dev. Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 265 (1977); Personnel Admin. v. Feeney, 442 U.S.
Personnel Admin. v. Feeney, 442 U.S. 256 (1979). Discriminatory purpose “implies more than
intentional discrimination by a facially neutral policy, a plaintiff must show that the relevant
decisionmaker – here, the Board – adopted the policy at issue “because of,” not merely “in spite
of,” its adverse effects upon an identifiable group. Id. at 279; see also Antonelli v. New Jersey,
419 F.3d 267, 273-74 (3d Cir. 2005). “A mere awareness of the consequences of an otherwise
neutral policy will not suffice.” Pryor, 288 F.3d at 562 (citing Feeney, 442 U.S. at 277-78).
5
Plaintiffs’ claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 and Title VI are coextensive with their Equal Protection claim and,
therefore, the same analysis applies to all three claims. See Sandoval, 532 U.S. at 581 (explaining that Title VI
“proscribe[s] only those racial classifications that would violate the Equal Protection Clause”) (internal
citations omitted); Gen. Bldg. Contractors Ass’n v. Pa., 458 U.S. 375, 391 (1982) (applying same analysis for
Equal Protection and § 1981). Therefore, Plaintiffs’ claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 and Title VI fail for the
same reasons as analyzed herein consistent under the Equal Protection Clause. See also Yelverton v. Lehman,
No. CIV.A. 94-6114, 1996 WL 296551, at *7 (E.D. Pa. June 3, 1996) (noting that to establish claim under §
1981, plaintiff must allege facts showing intent to discriminate on basis of race, and finding that because all of
plaintiff’s equal protection claims were dismissed, he could not establish that defendants intended to
discriminate on basis of race).
5
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Consequently, the crucial inquiry under the Equal Protection Clause is whether the
District treated Plaintiffs differently than it treated similarly situated non-African American
students, and if it did, whether the District did so specifically because Plaintiffs are African
American. Barnes Found., 982 F. Supp. at 985. Plaintiffs will not be able to show that they
were treated differently from similarly situated students outside their protected class, nor will
they be able to demonstrate that the Board adopted Plan 3R because of their race.
To assert a viable Equal Protection claim, Plaintiffs must first make a threshold showing
that they were treated differently from others who were similarly situated to them. See
Nordlinger v. Hahn, 505 U.S. 1, 10 (1992). Plaintiffs will be unable to do so. The District
submits that for purposes of Plaintiffs’ allegations, “all persons similarly situated” should
encompass school-age children who are registered to attend public school and who reside within
the Affected Area, i.e., the South Ardmore “neighborhood” described by Plaintiffs. See Compl.,
¶ 8. The evidence will show that all of the students who reside within the Affected Area –
African American, White, Asian, and Hispanic students – were districted in Plan 3R to attend
Harriton High School, irrespective of their race. All of these similarly situated children together
attend Penn Valley Elementary School and Welsh Valley Middle School, and, now, Harriton
High School.
Even assuming, arguendo, that all persons “similarly situated” should include a broader
geographic area, Plaintiffs’ claims must still fail, as the evidence will show that Plaintiffs’
neighborhood is not the only geographic area redistricted to Harriton High School under Plan
3R. For example, for the 2009-2010 school year, 44 ninth grade students, of all races, were
redistricted to Harriton High School as a result of Plan 3R, including 23 students from the
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Narberth and Penn Valley areas, 19 of whom are White, three of whom are Asian, and one of
whom is Indian. All of these students, like Plaintiffs and the other students in the Affected Area,
live outside the official Lower Merion High School walk zone and attend an elementary school
(Penn Valley, Gladwyne, or Belmont Hills Elementary School) that feeds into Welsh Valley
Middle School. Consequently, they are districted to Harriton High School under Plan 3R.
In sum, the overwhelming evidence will show that similarly situated African American
and non-African American students are treated the same under Plan 3R.
The evidence will show that the Board’s objective in adopting Plan 3R was to balance the
overall student enrollment levels at the two new high schools, in accordance with the
Community Advisory Committee’s (“CAC”) recommendations in 2004, and as set forth in the
Board’s Non-Negotiables adopted on April 21, 2008. At the same time, consistent with the
themes elicited from the Community Values study conducted by Dr. Sokoloff and Ms. Petersen,
and ongoing community input throughout the redistricting process, the District Administration
chose to present Plan 3R to the Board for its consideration because it:
Provided the greatest amount of continuity by allowing students to stay with peers by
following assigned feeder patterns in kindergarten through grade 12;
Preserved the historic walk zones for elementary, middle and high schools;
Created disruption for fewer students by following the feeder patterns in place prior to
redistricting;
Made it probable, through the option area and choice programs, that each high school
population would consist of a mix of students from each middle school (i.e., from Welsh
Valley and Bala Cynwyd Middle Schools);
Maintained grandfathering of all current high school students; and
Maintained elementary school attendance zones.
Plaintiffs will be unable to show that it was because of their race – and not the above enumerated
considerations – that the Board adopted Plan 3R. Indeed, the evidence will show that the Board
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Members did not take race into account in voting to adopt Plan 3R, and their public statements,
made contemporaneously with the Board’s adoption of Plan 3R and providing the reasons for
their decisions, make no mention of race. See Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229, 239 (1976)
(“The central purpose of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is the
Moreover, the evidence will show that in developing Plan 3R (as well as the other plans
and scenarios prior to Plan 3R), the District did not select individual students for assignments to
either high school. Rather, under Plan 3R students were assigned to high school attendance
zones based on the feeder patterns from the elementary schools to the middle schools and on to
high school. These feeder patterns assigned all students outside the official Lower Merion High
School Walk Zone who attend Penn Valley, Gladwyne, and Belmont Hills Elementary Schools,
which each feed into Welsh Valley Middle School, to Harriton High School. Which students
were districted to Lower Merion High School and which students were districted to Harriton
High School as a result of the adoption of Plan 3R was not the result of individual selections by
the Board. The evidence will show that there was no difference in the treatment of students in
During the course of this case, Plaintiffs have cobbled together facts and “evidence” that
are, in fact, quite innocent, but which paint an incendiary picture of the District’s redistricting
6
Pursuant to the District’s Policy Handbook, Local Board Procedures and Goals – 005 School Board
Organization and Responsibility provides that Board “policy” is “those actions, agreed to by formal majority
vote of Board of School Directors, that establish goals and objectives for the school district.” See Exhibit D to
Defendant’s Memorandum of Law in Support of Motion for Summary Judgment. Therefore, the official action
at issue here is the Board’s adoption, by 6-2 vote, of Plan 3R. The initial investigatory and drafting process by
the Administration and even the open meeting structure set up by the Board was not Board “policy” and
therefore should not be considered as part of the official conduct by this Court.
8
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process, particularly when misconstrued and mischaracterized as they have been by Plaintiffs.
While these facts and “evidence” may incite emotions when viewed out of context, they do not
demonstrate intentional race discrimination. For example, Plaintiffs have pointed to the
presentation of slides at the Board meetings concerning the anticipated diversity make-up of the
high school students under proposed Plans 1, 2, and 3 (none of which was ever acted upon or
adopted by the Board). In addition to these slides, Plaintiffs rely on: (1) discussions and
documents concerning proposed non-negotiables that never were adopted by the Board; (2) the
fact that Dr. Ross Haber, the outside consultant retained by the District to conduct an enrollment
projection study and assist in the redistricting process, requested student file data from the
District, which included race and ethnicity (as well as student ID, last name, first name, address,
town, zip code, current grade level, current school attending, special needs category or
classification, and socioeconomic status); (3) documents generated by Dr. Haber that noted the
diversity implications for various redistricting scenarios; and (4) mere references to “diversity,”
even community members, oftentimes in connection with proposed plans that never were
officially acted upon by the Board. While the District has acknowledged that among the
volumes of information and data generated during the redistricting process, there are data
concerning diversity issues, including racial diversity, Plaintiffs will be unable to show that this
“evidence” supports their conclusory allegations that they were intentionally discriminated
First, the evidence will show that the District’s decision to keep track of the many factors
that encompass the diversity of its student population does not demonstrate discriminatory intent.
The District is required by law to maintain, review, and track student enrollment and
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performance data by race and ethnicity. See, e.g., No Child Left Behind Act, 20 U.S.C. §
6311(b)(2)(C)(v)(II) (requiring disaggregation of data regarding “students from major racial and
ethnic groups,” among other groups). Furthermore, the compilation and review of diversity data,
which includes special needs and socioeconomic status in addition to race, serves valuable
educational purposes, as it enables the District to anticipate what the learning environment will
Moreover, as the evidence will show, the inclusion of race and ethnicity data in Dr.
Haber’s request for student file data was by no means unusual or inappropriate. The District
retained Dr. Haber, an educational consultant with years of experience as an educator and
projection study and a redistricting project. As part of his engagement, and as he does for all
such projects, Dr. Haber requested standard student file data from the District, which included
race and ethnicity, as well special needs status, socioeconomic status, and a number of other
categories.
Second, the evidence will show that race data were not used as inputs to create any of the
redistricting scenarios or Plans actually presented to the Board. The diversity data – which
included race, as well as socioeconomic status and special needs status – reported in the
PowerPoint slides presented at the public Board meetings concerning Plans 1, 2, and 3 were
generated and presented simply to inform the public what the outcomes of the proposed Plans
would be, given that the community had expressed that it valued “diversity.”
Additionally, the evidence will show that Dr. Haber was never given a guideline as to
either a desirable, or, in the alternative, an unacceptable, racial distribution. Indeed, had
diversity or race actually been used as an input, there would have been no reason to note the
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diversity outcomes, as Dr. Haber could have used the race data to generate a scenario that created
a desired diversity outcome. In generating documents that contained data regarding the
prospective racial make-up of the students who would be attending the two high schools under a
particular proposed scenario, Dr. Haber merely reported on the after-the-fact outcomes of the
Plaintiffs attempt to make much out of Dr. Haber’s notations indicating that Scenario 1
was “eliminated due to inequitable racial balancing,” and that Scenario 4A was not selected, in
part, because it did not support the community value of diversity as did other scenarios.
However, they fail to make the important distinction between deciding to forego a particular
affirmative choice by the Board to adopt a particular redistricting plan because it would result in
a “racial balance.” Even assuming, arguendo, that the Board Members did not choose a
proposed plan because of its diversity outcome, Plaintiffs will not be able to show that the Board
adopted Plan 3R, the redistricting plan at issue here, because of its diversity outcome.7
In short, the Administration’s and/or the Board’s general awareness of the effect of
various redistricting scenarios or plans on the racial and ethnic composition of its high schools
does not constitute evidence that race was a motivating factor in selecting particular geographic
areas to be drawn into different attendance zones. See, e.g., Concerned Citizens for
Neighborhood Schools v. Pastel, No. 5:05-1070, 2007 WL 1220542, at *1 (N.D.N.Y. Apr. 24,
2007) (granting defendants’ motion for judgment on the pleadings and denying plaintiff’s motion
7
Significantly, the evidence will show that the Board Members never saw, or do not recall having seen, the
scenario documents with Dr. Haber’s notations regarding “racial balance.” Even if the Board Members had
seen these documents, they have no bearing on the official action at issue here, i.e., the Board’s adoption of
Plan 3R, and are insufficient to demonstrate discriminatory intent.
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to amend complaint, in case where plaintiff asserted that elementary school students were
selected by defendants because of their race to be districted out of their academically successful
neighborhood school and placed into a more distant school that was failing academically, noting
that plaintiff’s evidence that school board reviewed information about redistricting plan’s effect
was insufficient to establish impermissible use of race as motivating factor in board’s conduct).
Finally, to find liability based on what Plaintiffs proffer as evidence of intentional race
discrimination, one would have to believe: (1) that communications, discussions, references, and
even mere thoughts by the Administration and/or Board Members regarding race, “diversity,” or
“racial isolation” are alone inappropriate, and (2) even if the Board took no affirmative, official
the process and made the Board’s action in adopting Plan 3R illegal. Plaintiffs have the burden
of proving that the Board adopted Plan 3R because of its adverse effects on Students Doe as
African American students. They will be unable to do so by relying on mere references to race,
While Plaintiffs have proffered an expert report from Dr. Pavel Greenfield purporting to
show statistical evidence that race was a factor in the redistricting process, the evidence will
demonstrate otherwise. Dr. Greenfield’s own statements in his report, and the analysis provided
by the District’s expert in rebuttal, conclusively demonstrate that Dr. Greenfield’s data and his
own analysis are inconsistent with a conclusion that race was a factor. For example, Dr.
Greenfield’s analysis assumed that if race were not a factor in the decision process, on average,
African American and non-African American students initially districted to Lower Merion High
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School would have the same probability of being redistricted to Harriton High School. As will
be demonstrated through the expert testimony of Dr. Bernard Siskin, this assumption ignores the
actual decision-making process utilized by the District in this matter, i.e., (1) that any
redistricting plan had to adhere to the five non-negotiables, (2) that students were not
individually selected for assignment to Harriton High School under the redistricting plan, and (3)
that all students in a given geographic area were zoned to attend a specific set of schools, with
those residing in a defined walking area around Lower Merion High School (the official Lower
Merion High School walk zone) being given a choice of high schools, and all students zoned to
Lower Merion High School having the option of choosing to attend Harriton High School. The
final plan adopted, Plan 3R, maintains the pre-existing elementary and middle school feeder
patterns and the pre-existing Lower Merion High School walk zone, and simply assigns all
students going to one middle school to one high school and all students going to the other middle
school to the other high school, but Dr. Greenfield’s analysis completely ignores this fact.
Notably, even Dr. Greenfield himself recognized the inappropriateness of his assumption
of complete randomness, and in doing so conceded its unreliability by stating that “this is quite a
strong and ‘blanket’ assumption: complete randomness is not possible to achieve due to many
practical considerations (such as the need to arrange efficient bus routes) and other basic
realities, such as the fact that ethnic groups may tend to cluster geographically. For example, if
random with regard to ethnicity, those students’ neighbors (who are more likely to be African-
American than another randomly selected group of students) would also be redistricted out of
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To study the statistical evidence as to whether race was a factor in the decision to select
Plan 1 to present to the Board, the District’s expert, Dr. Bernard Siskin, compared the number of
African-American students who would be redistricted to Harriton in all the alternative scenarios
created by Dr. Haber and the Administration, as the total universe of possible plans to be
Law in Support of Motion for Summary Judgment. In 15 of the 32 alternative scenarios, at least
redistricted to Harriton High School in Plan 1; thus, the likelihood of choosing an initial plan that
would yield as many African American students redistricted to Harriton High School purely by
chance was 15 out of 32, or 46.9 percent. Id. at ¶ 18. Consequently, the selection of Plan 1 from
among all the alternative plans considered clearly was not inconsistent with a decision making
process which did not consider race as a factor in selecting a plan. Id. Moreover, as Dr. Siskin
noted, Plans 2 and 3 actually lowered the number of African American students redistricted to
Harriton, and Plan 3R, because it differed from Plan 3 only by increasing the Lower Merion
High School walk zone distance back to the official walk zone parameters, could only further
In sum, Plaintiffs have no valid statistical evidence that race was a factor in the selection
of a redistricting plan. It is particularly telling that Dr. Greenfield expressly conceded in his
report that he was unable to conclude whether the redistricting process was based explicitly on
race or other factors strongly correlated with race. Ex. E to Defendant’s Motion for Summary
Judgment, at p. 4. While he ultimately concluded that “the disproportionate effect on the African
American students is statistically evident,” see id., the fact remains that, in order to prevail on
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their claims, Plaintiffs must show intentional discrimination on the basis of race, not mere
disproportionate impact, and they will be unable to do so. See Village of Arlington Heights v.
Metro. Hous. Dev. Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 264-265 (1977) (“Official action will not be held
Plaintiffs have repeatedly compared the instant action to Parents Involved in Cmty.
Schools v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1, 55 U.S. 701, 127 S. Ct. 2738 (2007), yet the evidence will
show that Plan 3R is factually inapposite to the student assignment plans at issue in Seattle, and
that Plan 3R is not unconstitutional under the Supreme Court’s holding in that case.
In contrast to the race-based Seattle plan, where the district selected individual students
for assignments, and where selection hinged on a numeric value set by the district’s overall racial
composition, the District’s Redistricting Plan did not select individual students for assignments
to high school. Rather, it modified its high school attendance zones to equally divide its high
imbalanced high school enrollment. The new attendance zones were based on the feeder patterns
from the elementary schools to the middle schools and on to a high school. These feeder
patterns assigned all students outside the official Lower Merion High School Walk Zone who
attended Penn Valley, Gladwyne, and Belmont Hills Elementary Schools, and Welsh Valley
Even if this Court were to find race-conscious action during the redistricting process from
the mere fact that Administration officials, Board Members, and/or the District’s consultants
discussed the community’s concerns regarding the potential effect of various redistricting
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emphasized in Seattle, do not demand strict scrutiny because they “do not lead to different
treatment based on a classification that tells each student he or she is to be defined by race.” 127
S. Ct. at 2792.
School boards may pursue the goal of bringing together students of diverse
backgrounds and races through other means, including strategic site selection
of new schools; drawing attendance zones with general recognition of the
demographics of neighborhoods; allocating resources for special programs;
recruiting students and faculty in a targeted fashion; and tracking enrollments,
performance, and other statistics by race. These mechanisms are race conscious
but do not lead to different treatment based on a classification that tells each
student he or she is to be defined by race, so it is unlikely any of them would
demand strict scrutiny to be found permissible.
Id. at 2792 (emphasis added) (citing Bush v. Vera, 517 U.S. 952, 958 (1996) (plurality opinion)
(“Strict scrutiny does not apply merely because redistricting is performed with consciousness of
race …. Electoral district lines are ‘facially race neutral’ so a more searching inquiry is necessary
before strict scrutiny can be found applicable in redistricting cases than in cases of
‘classifications based explicitly on race.’” (quoting Adarand Construction, Inc. v. U.S., 515 U.S.
Justice Kennedy further stated that executive and legislative branches, which for
generations now have considered these types of policies and procedures, should be permitted to
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employ them with candor and with confidence that a constitutional violation does not occur
whenever a decisionmaker considers the impact a given approach might have on students
Consistent with Justice Kennedy’s concurring opinion, the District did nothing more than
what it was permitted to do. The evidence will show that in presenting data concerning the
projected racial composition, as well as the special needs status and socioeconomic status of the
students under proposed Plans, the District was cognizant of what the racial composition of the
student populations would be under Plans 1, 2, and 3 in recognition of the value of diversity
expressed by the community, and in order to anticipate what the learning environment would be
like at each high school. The evidence also will show that the District did not treat students
differently on the basis of racial classifications and, consequently, that – consistent with both the
majority holding and Justice Kennedy’s concurring opinion in Seattle – Plan 3R does not violate
Because Plan 3R is facially neutral, it is subject to strict scrutiny review “only if it can be
proved that the law was ‘motivated by a racial purpose or object,’ or is unexplainable on grounds
other than race.” Hunt v. Cromartie, 526 U.S. 541, 546 (1999). As explained above, Plaintiffs
will not be able to demonstrate that the Board adopted Plan 3R because of their race; therefore,
Plan 3R will be subject to simple “rational basis” equal protection review. Id. See also 127 S.
Ct. at 2792 (noting that “drawing attendance zones with general recognition of the demographics
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of neighborhoods,” while race conscious, “does not lead to different treatment based on a
classification defining by race,” and therefore does not require strict scrutiny).8
The evidence will show that Plan 3R clearly is rationally related to a legitimate state
interest. See, e.g., Lavia v. Pennsylvania Dept. of Corrections, 224 F.3d 190, 199 (3d Cir. 2000)
(“Under rational basis scrutiny, state action will survive as long as it merely furthers a legitimate
state interest.”). The Pennsylvania Public School Code of 1949 imposes on school districts and,
specifically, their operating boards, mandatory duties and discretionary powers in order to
maintain and support a thorough and effective system of public schools in accordance with
Article X, Section I of the Pennsylvania Constitution. To this end, the board of school directors
for each district is explicitly vested with the duty to provide the grounds and buildings upon
which to accommodate their students, as well as the attendant duty to assign pupils to those
various schools. See 24 P.S. §§ 7-701; 13-1310. In particular, Section 13-1310(a) provides, in
The board of school directors of every school district [ ] shall, for the purposes of
designating the schools to be attended by the several pupils in the district [ ]
subdivide the district [ ] in such manner that all the pupils in the district shall be
assigned to, and reasonably accommodated in, one of the public schools in the
district [ ]. The board of school directors may...classify and assign the pupils in
the district to any school or schools therein as it may deem best, in order to
properly educate them.
24 P.S. § 13-1310(a). As explained by this statute, it is well within a local school board’s
purview and discretion to promulgate and implement redistricting directives to serve the
educational interests of the district and, consequently, the Board here had a legitimate interest in
redistricting the District’s high school students to achieve equalized student enrollments at its
two new high schools in accordance with the CAC’s recommendations. The evidence will show
8
Should the Court find that strict scrutiny applies, the District reserves the right to show that it had a compelling
interest in redistricting the way that it did, and that Plan 3R was narrowly tailored to that interest.
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that Plan 3R was rationally related to that interest, as it furthered the District’s objective of
IV. CONCLUSION
For all of the foregoing reasons, the District respectfully submits that the Court, after
hearing all of the evidence, will deem it appropriate to enter judgment in the District’s favor and
Respectfully submitted,
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CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I hereby certify that on this 23rd day of March, 2010, a true and correct copy of the
foregoing Lower Merion School District’s Trial Brief was filed electronically and is available for
viewing and downloading from the ECF system of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District
of Pennsylvania, and that I served the same via electronic filing upon the following:
David G. C. Arnold
Suite 106, 920 Matsonford Road
West Conshohocken, PA 19428
20