All Topics  
Ho v. San Francisco Unified School District

 

   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link






 

Ho v. San Francisco Unified School District



 
 
Ho v. San Francisco Unified School District was a 1994 lawsuit by the Asian American Legal Foundation challenging the use of racial quotas limiting the enrollment of Chinese American
Chinese American

Chinese Americans are United States of Han Chinese descent. Chinese Americans constitute one group of Overseas Chinese and also a subgroup of East Asian Americans, which is further a subgroup of Asian Americans....
s by the San Francisco Unified School District
San Francisco Unified School District

The San Francisco Unified School District is the only public school school district in San Francisco, California. It is managed by the San Francisco Board of Education....
. As a result of the case, San Francisco Unified school district switched to a system using a "diversity index" that excluded race as an alternative to the quota system.

Ho case ended express use of race in San Francisco public school assignment.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Ho v. San Francisco Unified School District'
Start a new discussion about 'Ho v. San Francisco Unified School District'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


Ho v. San Francisco Unified School District was a 1994 lawsuit by the Asian American Legal Foundation challenging the use of racial quotas limiting the enrollment of Chinese American
Chinese American

Chinese Americans are United States of Han Chinese descent. Chinese Americans constitute one group of Overseas Chinese and also a subgroup of East Asian Americans, which is further a subgroup of Asian Americans....
s by the San Francisco Unified School District
San Francisco Unified School District

The San Francisco Unified School District is the only public school school district in San Francisco, California. It is managed by the San Francisco Board of Education....
. As a result of the case, San Francisco Unified school district switched to a system using a "diversity index" that excluded race as an alternative to the quota system.

Ten years later

The Ho case ended express use of race in San Francisco public school assignment. The parties to the original desegregation agreement (NAACP v. SFUSD) failed to respond to the challenge to justify the use of race as a factor in admissions. The Ho case was not an adjudication of the merits. The school district was not prepared to make its case and, hence, settled. In the new Consent Decree, the Diversity Index did not use race. Substitues for race, such as language of the mother and income were used. Nevertheless, the subjective purpose of using a Diversity Index was racial, as the success or failure of the Diversity Index is always discussed in terms of its racial impact. The Diversity Index can be argued to be discriminatory as applied.

Yet all parties agreed to it. The Diversity Index has been less effective in producing racial integration than express use of race. The HO case has brought more fairness to school assignment in that racial caps were eliminated.