How stupid is that ...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Public schools can use race as a consideration to help balance the composition of public high schools, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Thursday.

In a 7-4 decision, an 11-judge en banc panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 2004 three-judge panel ruling on the controversial and long-debated issue.

The judges were considering whether race is a permissible factor in deciding which students will be admitted to oversubscribed high schools in Seattle, Washington.

"We conclude that the district has a compelling interest in securing the educational and social benefits of racial (and ethnic) diversity, and in ameliorating racial isolation or concentration in its high schools by ensuring that its assignments do not simply replicate Seattle's segregated housing patterns," Judge Raymond Fisher wrote for the majority.

Seattle, where about 60 percent of public school students are nonwhite and 40 percent white, lets pupils state their preferences from among the 10 high schools.

Since some schools are more popular and are oversubscribed, the process uses a "tiebreaker" system. At the time of the lawsuit, race was used as one of the tiebreaker criteria in an effort to balance school racial makeup.

Some parents objected in 2000 and kicked off what has become a long legal battle.

In 2002, the 9th Circuit reversed a lower court decision that upheld the law and barred the use of the tiebreaker, but then withdrew its decision for further review. In 2004, a three-judge panel also barred the tiebreaker system.

The Thursday ruling swung back in favor of the lower court's earlier decision.

"It is true that for some students their first choice of school, based on geographical proximity, will be denied because other students' choices are granted in order to advance the overall interest in maintaining racially diverse school enrollments," Fisher wrote for the majority.

But "the district's compelling interest is to avoid the harms of racial isolation for all students in the Seattle school district."

Four out of the 11 judges dissented.

"The district's use of the racial tiebreaker to achieve racial balance in its high schools infringes upon each student's right to equal protection and tramples upon the unique and valuable nature of each individual," Judge Carlos Bea wrote for the dissenters.

"Even if well-intentioned, the district's use of racial classifications in such a stark and compulsory fashion risks perpetuating the same racial divisions which have plagued this country since its founding."