Anderson v. City of Boston

At the outset of its penultimate ruling in this protracted litigation, the district court observed: ""This case may possibly be the concluding chapter in thirty years of litigation over the effort to desegregate the Boston Public Schools."" Boston's Children First v. Boston School Comm., 260 F. Supp. 2d 318, 319 (D. Mass. 2003). That cautious prediction may be accurate. Boston's Children First, a non-profit advocacy group, and parents of several white students sued the City of Boston, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, Boston Public Schools (BPS) Superintendent Thomas Payzant, and members of the Boston School Committee (collectively, the defendants), claiming that BPS's now-defunct race-conscious assignment system violated their children's rights under the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 and 1983, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d (commonly known as Title VI), and Article 111 of the Amendments to the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. Prompted at least in part by the lawsuit against them, the Boston School Committee, at the recommendation of Superintendent Payzant, voted to remove the racial guidelines from the assignment system on July 14, 1999. After BPS adopted a facially race-neutral assignment plan in November 1999, the plaintiffs continued to press their suit, seeking declaratory relief, several forms of injunctive relief, compensatory damages, and nominal damages. Over the course of four rulings, the district court denied all of plaintiffs' claims save one: an award of nominal damages of $1.00 each to the two students who would have been assigned to the school of their choice under the old system but for their race. Plaintiffs appeal. Finding no error, we affirm the district court rulings in all respects.