Massachusetts' voluntary desegregation program should be able to continue its mission
METCO, Massachusetts’ voluntary 41-year-old program in which inner city minorities are bused to wealthier suburban school districts, should be able to pursue its original mission despite a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that appeared to jeopardize school integration efforts across the country, a state Department of Education attorney has said. The Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity, according to her interpretation of the ruling, will not have to change its admissions practices and accept white students. "We believe the METCO program is constitutional and could survive a constitutional challenge if it were brought," Rhoda Schneider, general counsel for the Massachusetts Department of Education (MED) told a gathering of superintendents, school committee members, and legislators at Westwood High School. Governor Deval Patrick also said he is confident that the program passes legal muster. Ms. Schneider's statements have reassured educators and parents about METCO's future after months of uncertainty triggered by the Supreme Court decision that barred Seattle and Louisville, Ky., from using race in school assignments. The Court did not prohibit using race as an integration tool, leaving it open as a last resort. But the decision prompted some white parents and an Andover lawyer to press METCO over the summer to admit students by income instead of race, a change that METCO leaders and suburban superintendents feared would lead to the program's demise. Changing the admissions criteria, Ms. Schneider said, "is an option, perhaps a political consideration, but we don't see it as necessary." The state is prepared to defend METCO's existence and admissions practices, if challenged in court, because the program serves a "compelling state interest," Ms. Schneider said, given that Massachusetts suburbs remain racially isolated. The program, she said, is clearly aimed at diversifying the suburbs and giving urban minority students better opportunities without resorting to a quota system—a method that the high court found problematic. John C. Anderson, a Dorchester resident who is white and who tried signing up his son for Metco 20 years ago but was denied, said he is disappointed by the state's decision not to push Metco to admit white students. "Why you would defend a program that discriminates on the basis of race is beyond me," Anderson said. "It's a travesty." Jean McGuire, executive director of METCO Inc., said opening the program to poor white students would defeat the program's purpose of racial integration.
Boston Globe By Tracy Jan
[Editor’s Note: Information on the reactions of school districts in Massachusetts and elsewhere to the Supreme Court decision is available starting below. See also METCO’s website.]
NSBA School Law pages on Milton, MA
METCO website