By Joan Crigger

On July 15, the Boston school committee voted to abandon race as a factor in public school assignments under threat of a federal lawsuit alleging the current system discriminates against white children. This decision has raised concern that this will turn back the clock on a quarter century of desegregation efforts that began with mandatory busing.

School committee members voted 5 to 2 to exclude race from assignment considerations rather than risk court intervention. Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino stated, "Every time we’ve gone up to the courts, we’ve lost." Menino was referring to a federal court decision last year that struck down racial preferences at Boston Latin, one of three exam schools, where students are admitted based on academic merit, where they live, where their siblings go to school and lottery number.

Agreeing with the mayor, Boston school superintendent Thomas W. Payzant stated, "There was little probability that we would prevail on the continued use of race as a component of the controlled choice student assignment plan."

Many disagreed and predicted an eventual return to the days of racially imbalanced schools, but in a city with only 16 percent white students that appears impossible. Because of immigration trends, Boston’s current student population is 16 percent white, 49 percent black, 26 percent Hispanic and 9 percent Asian. In addition, many neighborhoods have become more racially mixed, according to city officials. At the time busing began, the city’s public school population was 52 percent white, 37 percent black, 8 percent Hispanic and 3 percent Asian.

When Boston Latin School was forced to drop race as a selection factor, the number of black and Hispanic students admitted to the school fell by only 2 percent from the previous year. According to a study conducted by the city, if race had not been considered for admissions this past year, fewer than 1,000 students new to the system or moving into the transition grades of kindergarten, 1, 6, and 9 would have been affected. Of those, about half the students would have received their higher choice school.

Mayor Menino has stated that his goal is to allow every student to walk to school within the next six years. To meet this goal, plans to build five new neighborhood-based schools are underway.