PHILADELPHIA – A trio of Philadelphia parents have brought a class action lawsuit against the School District of Philadelphia and numerous officials in its employ, charging that their children were denied admission to criteria-based schools due to the District’s allegedly discriminatory policies centered on race.
Sherice Sargent, Fallon Girini and Michele Sheridan (individually, as next friend to their minor children and on behalf of those similarly-situated) filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on April 19 versus The School District of Philadelphia, its Superintendent William R. Hite, its Board of Education, its Board Members Joyce Wilkerson, Leticia Egea-Hinton, Julia Danzy, Mallory Fix Lopez, Maria McColgan, Lisa Salley and Reginald Streater, its Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Sabriya Jubilee, and Chief of Student Support Services Karyn Lynch, all of Philadelphia.
“While discriminatory racial preferences might find favor in modern academia, they find no comfort in the Constitution. But this has not stopped the School District of Philadelphia from adopting a blatantly unconstitutional race-based system for admission to its criteria-based public schools. In 2021, in the name of ‘antiracism’ and ‘equity,’ the school district announced that, starting with the 2022–23 school year, it was changing its selection process for criteria-based schools from a race-neutral process to a racially discriminatory process. The School District did so despite 62 percent of the students attending those schools identifying as Black or Latino and no schools having a white majority,” the suit says.
“Before 2021, admissions to these select schools was highly individualized with the principal of each school having the final say on admission. But the School District was concerned about the racial distribution this system generated, even though the schools were already quite diverse with no school having a white majority. The School District believed some select schools, in particular a science and technology school, had an underrepresentation of non-Black students (in other words ‘too Black’) and that non-Black and non-Latino students were ‘overrepresented’ in other schools (in other words ‘not Black enough.’) So it overhauled the admissions process to these schools in a conscious and intentional effort to rebalance the racial makeup of the student body.”
The suit continues that the District did so by “moving from a highly-individualized and criteria-based complaint process to a gerrymandered lottery system where Black and Latino students were given preferential treatment” – specifically, while all students participate in the lottery, students who reside in certain “underrepresented ZIP codes” are given preference for admission over students “who do not reside in those ZIP codes.”
“The plaintiffs are parents of students who have applied or will apply to the School District’s criteria-based schools and who have been or will be harmed by the School District’s discriminatory practices. They seek a preliminary and permanent injunction to restrain the school district from using a racial discriminatory system for admission to criteria-based schools,” the suit states.
The named plaintiffs each had a child who was denied admission to a criteria-based school, despite having sterling credentials, allegedly due to the policies complained of in the litigation.
On May 10, the plaintiffs filed a follow-up motion to certify the class in their lawsuit.
“These questions affect all class members because each of them is subject to the School District’s new selection criteria for access to special-enrollment schools. Each of them faces the prospect of applying to a school with the grades and attendance records that would have ensured a strong candidacy – and yet being turned away because of the School District’s racial-balancing efforts. Each class member will ‘suffer the same injury’ on account of the School District’s policies, and that is all that needed to satisfy Rule 23(a)(2)’s commonality requirement,” per the certification motion, in part.
For counts of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and violating Sections 26 and 29 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, the plaintiffs are seeking the following reliefs:
• Certification of the class described in Paragraph 58;
• A declaration that the defendants are violating 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, Title VI, the Equal Protection Clause, and Article I, Sections 26 and 29 of the Pennsylvania Constitution by establishing, maintaining, and using racially discriminatory standards for selection and admission to the school district’s criteria-based schools;
• Entrance of a preliminary and permanent injunction that restrains the defendants from denying admission to the school district’s criteria-based schools on the basis of race or on the basis of residence in ZIP codes that were selected because of their racial composition;
• Entrance of a preliminary and permanent injunction that restrains the defendants from maintaining a system that gives preference to students for admission into the school district’s criteria-based schools on the basis of their race or on the basis of their residence in ZIP codes that were selected because of their racial composition;
• Permanent enjoinment of the defendants from establishing, using or maintaining racially discriminatory criteria for admission to the school district criteria-based schools;
• Awarding the plaintiffs and the class members nominal, compensatory and punitive damages;
• Costs and attorneys’ fees under 42 U.S.C. Section 1988 and awarding all other relief that the Court deems just, proper or equitable.
The plaintiff is represented by Gene P. Hamilton of America First Legal Foundation in Washington, D.C., Jonathan F. Mitchell of Mitchell Law in Austin, Texas and Walter Stephen Zimolong of Zimolong, LLC in Villanova.
The defendants are represented by William K. Kennedy of Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads, in Philadelphia.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania case 2:22-cv-01509
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com