By Linda Shaw
Seattle Times education reporter
The parents who challenged Seattle Public Schools' use of race in assigning students to schools won their seven-year legal battle Thursday in the nation's highest court.
In a closely watched case that will affect hundreds of school districts across the nation, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Seattle's racial tiebreaker and a similar policy in Jefferson County, Ky., violated the Constitution's right of equal protection.
The court's first ruling on race and education in many years was celebrated by those who favor race-blind policies, and sharply criticized by many civil-rights groups as a further erosion of Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 case that outlawed school segregation.
Kathleen Brose, one of the Seattle parents who filed the suit, said she was "relieved and vindicated" by the decision.
"It shouldn't matter what your skin color is, what your family income is, [or] if you have disabilities," she said. "If this nation is looking to move beyond race, we're going to have to stop using race as a decision on which school kids are going to get into."
But James Kelly, president of the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle, echoed the disappointment of many organizations and Democratic politicians such as presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
"It is a sad day for our Constitution, our country and our educational system," he said. "This kind of decision harkens back to the old law of separate but equal, which of course isn't equal."
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