The Boston Latin Case Back to Spotlight Issues Back to CTEST Home Page	Introduction to the issue
	Official Documents
	In the News
	Weblinks for further information

Introduction to the Issues

A 1995 lawsuit, filed by the father of Julia McLaughlin, prompted revisions in Boston's admissions policies in the city's three prestigious exam schools. Julia McLaughlin, who is white, was denied admission to the selective Boston Latin public school, although her grades and entrance-exam scores were higher than some minority candidates who were accepted.

The exam schools, which reserved 35 percent of the student slots for African-Americans and Hispanics agreed to revise their policies forcing a U.S. District Judge to dismiss the case in November 1996.

This year, the father/lawyer of Julia McLaughlin is suing Boston Latin again. This time he is representing another white student and challenging the newly revised admissions standards approved by the Boston school board last December.

Michael C. McLaughlin, is seeking an injunction in U.S. District Court in Boston that would allow Sarah Wessman to enter Boston Latin's 9th grade this fall. The girl is one of 10 white students who would have been admitted had the policy been based solely on test scores.

The revised policy reserves half of the seats in the district's three "exam schools" for students with the highest scores. The other slots are filled through a system that considers both test scores and race (Education Week, 1997).

Official Documents

Newspaper Articles

06/16/98; Boston Globe Online

By Beth Daley, Globe Staff

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/167_lr/Appeal_of_ruling_on_exam_school_adm.htm

• An appeal of a federal court decision upholding Boston's controversial, race-based exam-school admissions policy will be heard July 30, according to an order from the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Boston lawyer Michael McLaughlin filed the appeal for Sarah Wessmann, a white ninth-grader who claims she was unconstitutionally passed over for entrance in Boston Latin School, despite scoring better than 10 minority students who were admitted.

February 10, 1998; The Boston Globe
by William Doherty

http://www.boston.com:80/dailyglobe/globehtml/041/School_admissions_policy_defended.htm/

• A continuing achievement gap between black and white Boston public school students shows that teachers are not adequately preparing minority students for the city's exam schools and justifies admitting minorities on the basis of race, a desegregation specialist testified yesterday in federal court. William T. Trent, associate chancellor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, also said the lower scores for black and Hispanic students are ''probably a lingering effect of prior segregation.''

January 30, 1998;  The Boston Globe, Derrick Z. Jackson

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/030_lr/The_shameful_history_behind_McLaugh.htm

• EDITORIAL: Michael McLaughlin is on a selfish rampage. He was not content with forcing his daughter Julia into Boston Latin a year and a half ago. He obviously felt no quarter was given him when the city's three exam schools, bludgeoned by his lawsuit, scrapped their 35 percent quota for African-Americans and Latinos.

January 29, 1998; The Boston Globe, William Doherty

http://www.boston.com:80/dailyglobe/globehtml/029/Merits_of_diversity_debated_in_open.htm

• The trial of ninth-grader Sarah Wessmann's lawsuit against Boston Latin School opened yesterday [January 28th] with her lawyer contending she was denied admission because of an unconstitutional quota system, and the school department countering that Latin's admission process is not a quota system but a justifiable effort to promote diversity.

January 28, 1998;  The Boston Globe  
By Beth Daley

http://www.boston.com:80/dailyglobe/globehtml/028/Case_questions_the_price_of_diversi.htm

• In what could be a precedent-setting case for schools nationwide, the trial of a Dorchester girl who says she was denied entrance into Boston Latin School because she is white will begin today (January 28th, 1998) in federal court.

January 15, 1997;  The San Francisco Chronicle
By Louis Freedberg

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1997/12/11/MN66926.DTL

• The nation's oldest public school finds itself at the center of a very modern controversy: whether it will be able to maintain its 23-year-old affirmative action policy guaranteeing a certain number of spots for blacks and Latinos. Next month, the Boston school district will go to court to fend off a lawsuit filed by a ninth-grader whose parents claim she was denied admission because she is white. The suit is one of a growing number of legal challenges to the uses of racial categories and quotas in the nation's public schools, including those in San Francisco.

October 28, 1997; Boston Globe

http://www.boston.com:80/dailyglobe/globehtml/301/Most_pupils_who_tested_twice_admitt.htm

• Almost all of the 52 students who took an earlier, identical version of the entrance exam for Boston's three competitive high schools ultimately got into one of them this year, the School Department said on November 27, 1997. The School Department also disclosed that all but six of the 115 students who took some version of the test twice came from private schools. The announcement ignited long-simmering complaints by parents of public-school students that higher-income families who are able to send their children to rigorous private schools have an unfair advantage in the high-stakes test.

October 16, 1997; Boston Globe

http://www.boston.com:80/cgi-bin/slwebcli_post.pl

• A second public hearing will be held in November to determine if some Boston Latin students had an unfair advantage in admission to the school because they saw its entrance exam twice. The City Council's education committee held a hearing on October 16, 1997 on reports that students applying to private schools saw the identical test used for entrance into Boston's three exam schools some six to nine months earlier.

October 9, 1997 Boston Globe Archive

http://www.boston.com:80/cgi-bin/slwebcli_post.pl

• City Councilor Charles C. Yancey yesterday called for a public hearing over concerns that some students taking the Boston Latin School entrance exam had previously taken an identical test. Yancey also wants to investigate why so many pupils at Latin come from parochial or private schools instead of Boston public schools. This year, 54 percent of Latin School's seventh-grade class and 74 percent of the ninth-grade class are from private schools.

May 21, 1997; Education week

http://www.edweek.org/ew/vol-16/34lowell.h16

• A group of Chinese-Americans in San Francisco, thwarted by a federal judge in their 3-year-old effort to abolish racial quotas in the city's public schools, have vowed to appeal. In a decision this month, U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick, who approved the district's desegregation plan 14 years ago, affirmed that it is constitutional but left open the possibility that it may be time to end it.

February 7, 1996; Education Week

http://www.edweek.org/ew/vol-15/20bouch.h15

• More than 40 years after Brown, with generations of students having attended schools under court orders, continued court oversight on a "desegregative" basis has become increasingly hard to justify according to this present-day analysis of issues affecting school desegregation efforts in the U.S.

January 15, 1997 - Education Week

http://www.edweek.org/htbin/fastweb?getdoc+view4+ew1997+3+6+wAAA+%26%28boston%26latin%29%26AND%26%28boston%26latin%29%3AKEYWORDS%26OR%26%28boston%26latin%29

• Beginning with the 1997-98 freshman class, half the seats in the schools will be awarded to students with the highest composite scores, based on grade-point averages and entrance-exam scores. The remaining half will be filled through a system that considers composite scores in rank order and is based on the proportion of racial and ethnic groups left in the pool of applicants.

November 27, 1996 - Education Week

http://www.edweek.org/htbin/fastweb?getdoc+view4+ew1996+1770+1+wAAA+%26%28boston%26latin%29%26AND%26%28boston%26latin%29%3AKEYWORDS%26OR%26%28boston%26latin%29

• A school district task force has proposed broad changes in the controversial admissions policies at the three exam schools. The task force offered its recommendations to the school board last week. Under its proposals, 50 percent of students who apply to the exam schools would be admitted strictly on merit. The remaining 50 percent would be admitted based on the proportion of all racial groups in the remaining pool of applicants, according to Elizabeth Reilinger, who co-chairs the task force.

September 25, 1996 - Education Week

http://www.edweek.org/htbin/fastweb?getdoc+view4+ew1996+1390+2+wAAA+%26%28boston%26latin%29%26AND%26%28boston%26latin%29%3AKEYWORDS%26OR%26%28boston%26latin%29

• The Boston school board resisted abandoning the system outright. Instead of dropping its defense of the quota system altogether, the board asked Judge Garrity on Sept. 12 to postpone a trial in the McLaughlin case until at least February while it considers alternatives. "This decision by the [school] committee should not be understood as an admission that the 35 percent set-aside is unconstitutional," Henry C. Dinger, a lawyer for the school board, wrote to Judge Garrity. "However, the committee has never taken the position that the current system is the best or only way to achieve its fundamental educational objectives."

September 4, 1996 - Education Week

http://www.edweek.org/htbin/fastweb?getdoc+view4+ew1996+1251+0+wAAA+%26%28boston%26latin%29%26AND%26%28boston%26latin%29%3AKEYWORDS%26OR%26%28boston%26latin%29

• Getting into Boston Latin School, the most prestigious of the city's three selective public high schools, has never been a cakewalk. For Julia McLaughlin, though, it took a court order to get her through the door. She had hoped to enter the nation's oldest public school last fall, but was denied admission because of a policy that reserves 35 percent of the student slots for African-Americans and Hispanics. The McLaughlin family sued in federal court, in a case that is being widely followed as part of the national debate over racial quotas and preferences. Julia, who is white, had posted higher grades and entrance-exam scores than many minority candidates who were accepted.

Websites Relevant to the Boston Latin Case

Federick D. Patterson Reaserch Institute of the College Fund /UNCF

The African American Education Data Book

http://www.patterson-uncf.org/dbook.html

• The information in the 1997 African American Education Databook were compiled from numerous databases and reveals the status, performance, progress, and financial support of African Americans in higher education. Altogether, the data and information presented in this volume represent the mostcomprehensive description ever compiled about African Americans in postsecondary education.

Back to CTEST Home Page

Back to Spotlight Issues

Back to top