The Supreme Court’s 5-to-4 decision on the cases of Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education (KY) and Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District appeared, on their face, to spell the end of the use of race in school admissions and transfer decisions. But, did it?

The dissenting justices and proponents of affirmative action in school admissions decried the June 28th decision on the grounds that it effectively reversed the Court’s earlier decision in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, the case that established equality in education. Basically, this case allowed the use of race in school admissions, placement and allocation decisions as long as the use served the government’s interest, namely remedied past intentional discrimination.

In both the recent cases, schools in Seattle and Louisville, KY used race to determine which schools students could attend, to make transfer decisions, and as “tie-breakers” when they needed to make choices between White and Nonwhite students once schools were over-booked.

The Supreme Court found that the use of race in the schools’ admissions and transfer processes served neither government interest–since the Seattle schools had never been legally segregated and the Kentucky schools had had their court-ordered desegregation lifted in 2000. Further, the schools failed to demonstrate that their policies benefitted the students or improved the quality of education in any legally acceptable way; the policies, according to the court, amounted to “racial balancing”.

Chief Justice John G. Stephens Jr. wrote that such policies only “promote the notion of racial inferiority and the politics of racial division”.

In the end, the justices’ decision did not do make use of race as an admission criteria illegal in all secondary school admissions; schools may use race so long as the goal is narrowly defined and serve to remedy past intentional discrimination. Race may not be used as the sole criteria, and must be shown to markedly improve the quality of education at the school (as determined by more than higher test scores or mere racial diversity).

The Court’s decision also did not really impact the use of race in college admissions where the court acknowledges that it may be appropriate to use race in college admissions where the use can be shown to improve the quality of education, as long as it is part of a broader set of criteria designed to create that diversity.