In the same week that US News & World Report solidified Boston Latin School’s educational prowess by ranking it Massachusetts’ number one public school and in the top fifty in the nation, the First Circuit opened access to the highly coveted exam school to students across the city, across racial lines, and across socioeconomic status. Last Wednesday, the appeals court denied the emergency injunction requests by the plaintiffs in the Boston Parent Coalition for Academic Excellence Corp. vs. Boston Public Schools Committee case thereby allowing Boston Public Schools to send out invitations to the exam schools using their temporary Covid-19 admissions plan.

The court gave a green light to admissions policies that address inequities and promote diversity. Hopefully, more school districts and government agencies will follow the Boston School Committee (BSC)’s lead and take concrete and creative steps to address long-standing racial inequities, systemic racism, and discrimination omnipresent throughout our policies.

Today’s educational achievement and wealth gaps are the direct and intended result of discriminatory housing and educational decisions from the inception of this country. With the same intentionality, we must redress how our country continuously wrongs Black, Latinx, Asian, and Native Americans. In that vein, BSC crafted an admissions plan with the conscious awareness of the intersectionality of race and income and of the history of discriminatory practices in Boston public schools and public and private housing. The district and appeals federal court found that BSC designed the plan within the confines of the law and refuted the plaintiff’s claim that motivation to improve racial diversity and to decrease the overrepresentation of a racial group through race-neutral means is tantamount to racial discrimination.

Equity must become a core value in policies and practices throughout education and all of society. The recent First Circuit decision affirmed equity as a constitutionally permissible goal.

BSC’s temporary plan is a step in the right direction — the plan will undoubtedly improve access to students across the city. However, whether the plan achieves more racial and socioeconomic diversity remains unclear. The court noted that even under this temporary plan, BSC projected that Black and Latinx students would receive fewer admissions invitations and remain underrepresented.

So there is still more work to be done. Nonetheless, these opinions provide reassurance that Massachusetts school districts can seek to increase socioeconomic, racial, and geographical diversity using race-neutral criteria. MLRI is proud to support that decision, as we believe that diversity is our strength and know that collective success and opportunity benefit everyone.