Ho v. San Francisco Unified School District facts for kids

Ho v. San Francisco Unified School District was an important lawsuit that happened in 1994. It was started by a group called the Asian American Legal Foundation. They challenged how the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) was assigning students to schools.

The lawsuit argued that the school district was using racial quotas. This meant there were limits on how many Chinese American students could enroll in certain schools. This system came from an earlier case called NAACP v. SFUSD. As a result of the Ho v. SFUSD case, the school district changed its system. They started using a "diversity index" instead of racial quotas.

This new "Diversity Index" system was created in 2001. It aimed to be fairer, but some people felt it led to schools becoming separated by race again. This was different from the system created in 1983.

The Lawsuit

Why the Lawsuit Started

In 1993, three students and their families had problems with the school system's rules.

• Brian Ho, a five-year-old Chinese American boy, could not get into his local kindergartens. This was because the schools had already accepted the maximum number of "Chinese" students allowed.
• Patrick Wong, who was fourteen, was turned away from Lowell High School. His score was high enough to get in if he had been from a different racial group. He was later rejected from four other schools too.
• Hillary Chen, eight years old, was not allowed to transfer to elementary schools near her new home. Again, this was because those schools had already reached their limit for Chinese American students.

These three students and their families sued the San Francisco Unified School District in 1994. They wanted to remove the racial quotas that stopped them from getting into schools. They argued these quotas went against the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. This part of the US Constitution says that everyone should be treated fairly by the government.

In 1995, the Ho families also added the NAACP as a defendant in the lawsuit. In 1996, the court decided that the Ho case could be a "class action." This meant it represented all Chinese children in San Francisco who wanted to attend public schools.

In 1997, a higher court, the Ninth Circuit, agreed that assigning students by race was a serious issue. They said that such rules could only be used if absolutely necessary to fix past unfair government actions. The school district had to prove why these racial rules were needed.

The two sides tried to settle the case, but they couldn't agree. So, the court set a new date for the trial in 1999. On the day the trial was supposed to start, the NAACP and the Ho families asked for a delay. They wanted more time to finalize a settlement agreement. The court agreed to this.

What Happened Next

Finally, US District Judge William Orrick III made a decision. He ordered the school district to make several changes:

• They had to remove the racial/ethnic limits on student enrollment. These limits were 40% at special schools and 45% at regular schools.
• They also had to remove a rule called "Priority 5" in their student selection process. This rule gave special consideration to African American, Hispanic/Latino, and other students.

This meant that race or ethnicity could no longer be the main reason for assigning students to schools. The judge also ordered a special monitor to watch over the school district. This was to make sure they followed the new rules.

The old agreement from the 1983 NAACP case was set to end by December 31, 2002. Because of the Ho case, a new agreement was created. This new agreement included the "Diversity Index" admissions system, which started in 2001.

The New System

The Diversity Index

After the Ho lawsuit, the school district created the "Diversity Index" system. This was the first time the district had a student assignment plan that did not directly use race. Instead, it used other factors to try and create diverse schools. These factors included:

• The mother's education level.
• The student's family income (socioeconomic status).
• Test scores.
• How well the student spoke English.

The idea was that these factors would naturally lead to schools with students from different backgrounds. The system was designed to give parents choices and make sure everyone had fair access to schools. It also aimed to promote diversity without using race directly. All the factors chosen were connected to how well students did in school.

However, the Diversity Index had some challenges in creating truly diverse schools. This was because the groups of students applying to individual schools were often already separated by race. Also, not all families participated in the choice process in the same way. White and Asian families were more likely to submit their school choices early. This meant that popular schools would often fill up before African American and Latinx families enrolled. This problem still exists today.

In 2010, the Diversity Index system was replaced with a different "full choice" system.

End of Court Oversight

In 1970, more than half of San Francisco schools had mostly one racial or ethnic group. This is called segregation.

Before the old 1983 agreement ended, only one school (less than 1%) had more than 50% of a single racial group. But six years later, this number jumped to 35% of schools.

By the 2001-02 school year, 30 schools had become "resegregated." This means they had gone back to having mostly one racial group. By the 2004-05 school year, this number rose to 43 schools. 27 of these schools were completely resegregated.

By 2005, more than one out of every three schools in the district had become resegregated. The person watching over the agreement said that the new student assignment plan had caused this resegregation.

Judge William Alsup made a final decision. He said that since the Ho lawsuit settlement, the agreement had not worked well. He said it had even made it harder to achieve diversity in San Francisco public schools.

Because of this, the court decided not to extend the agreement. It officially ended on December 31, 2005. For the first time in 22 years, the courts were no longer watching over how SFUSD assigned its students.