Last November, 58 percent of Washington state voters passed Initiative 200. It is surprising, therefore, to find that the state’s largest public school district, Seattle, is continuing to use preferential treatment based on race for assigning students to schools.

The continued race-conscience admissions policy appears contrary to the direction laid out a few years ago by local education officials when they ended the district’s failed mandatory busing program. At the time, Superintendent of Seattle Schools John Stanford said, “I don’t have to sit next to someone of another color to learn.”

The Seattle School District now acknowledges that race-based busing proved to be a failure. Now is the time for the district to do the same with racial preferences. Yet the district continues to use the policy of “integration positive,” which gives preference to some students over others in school enrollment based on race. This Policy Note will assess the impact of this policy in relation to Washington’s newly enacted civil rights law.

Read the full Policy Note here