When Public Schools Aren't Color-Blind

The district fears that if the guidelines are overturned, the schools will quickly return to sorting themselves by race. PTA-board member Mary Myers is so concerned that she is organizing a bus trip to Washington so Louisville parents can protest outside the Supreme Court next week. "What in the world are we trying to go backward for?" she asks. In a sign of what might be coming, a judge in 2000 forced Jefferson County to stop applying the district's guidelines at an inner-city magnet school because the career academy offers unique programs--like legal services and veterinary science--that students can't get anywhere else. Since then, Central High, a historically black school, has seen its white population shrink from 51% to 18%. And this shift could mark the beginning of a vicious cycle. "The greater the racial isolation," says district administrator Pat Todd, "the more difficult it is to recruit children of different races."

Whatever the merits of Meredith's case, even her supporters can admit she is hardly the ideal plaintiff. She didn't attempt to sign her son up for kindergarten until August, despite numerous radio and TV announcements and signs posted in day-care centers and Laundromats reminding parents to apply for their choice of school by March. By the time Meredith (who declined to be interviewed for this article) did apply, most of the seats had been allocated. Cheryl Wirth, a waitress at Waffle House whose son attends a magnet school, thinks this alone ought to be enough to dispose of the case. "It's like life," she says. "You gotta stay on top of things." Myers, like many mystified locals, can't believe the suit has even gone this far. "In the end, [Meredith's] son is where she wants him to be," she says. "Would you dismantle a whole system over that?"