The Chicago Sun Times editorial board weighed in today calling on Chicago Public Schools to reintroduce race as a factor when determining admissions to the City's select enrollment high schools. Recent data shows that the enrollment level of African American students has decreased since a long-time federal consent decree to assure racial integration of Chicago public schools was vacated by the courts several years ago.
At the time that the provisions of the consent decree was lifted, the ACLU of Illinois warned that if CPS failed to use race as just one factor -- an approach clearly permissible under several Supreme Court rulings -- in the admissions' process, then the number of African American students in the City's best schools (the select enrollment high schools) would fall. A City Council Committee held a hearing on this subject last week, urging CPS to heed this warning from the ACLU.
