Judge May Give Students a Voice in Magnet School Case

Hundreds of students, dressed in denim and carrying backpacks, jammed into a downtown Los Angeles courtroom Tuesday to lend their voices to a case that could decide the future of their magnet schools.

Most are members of a group -- the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigrant Rights, and Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary -- that is expected to join school district and civil rights lawyers in defending voluntary busing and race-based admissions in the L.A. district’s magnet schools.

Students cheered when Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Paul Gutman said he was inclined to let them intervene in the case. He said he would rule by Monday.

“We think magnets should stay how they are and not be divided by race,” said Lilian Peper, 12, a Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies student who lives in the Hollywood Hills.

The school district was sued in October by the American Civil Rights Foundation, an anti-affirmative action group that is asking the court to ban the use of racial and ethnic criteria in school admissions.

“We are by no means trying to get rid of the programs,” the foundation’s attorney Paul Beard told the court Tuesday.

The Los Angeles Unified School District defends the programs, created by a 1981 court-ordered desegregation plan. Opponents, however, say the court order has expired and the programs are unconstitutional under Proposition 209, the 1996 statewide initiative that bars preferential treatment by race.

The only issue Tuesday was whether the students could join the case. One of their attorneys, Shanta Driver, argued that students must be represented because if they are returned to their home schools, “they would lose all hope and all prospect of going to college. For them, it’s a matter of life and death.”