Supreme Court Rejects Lower Merion Racial Bias Case

The U.S. Supreme Court decided Monday not to hear arguments in a lawsuit claiming the Lower Merion School District discriminated against black students, according to Education Week.

The class action suit, Allston v. Lower Merion School District, accused the school district of disproportionately placing black students into special education classes and classified them with learning disabilities. The families of seven students were joined in the suit by the NAACP and Concerned Black Parents of Mainline.

According to reports, only 8 percent of Lower Merion students in a five year period were black, but made up 16 percent of special education students. There were also no black students in advanced placement courses between 2005 and 2010.

A three-jduge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled 2-1 in favor of the school district in September 2014, the Courthouse News Service reports. The 127-page opinion said that the school district used the same criteria for all students and there was no evidence of intent. However, a sharply worded dissent opinion by Chief Judge Theodore McKee said there was enough evidence to warrant a trial, and that the racial allegations were “not pretty.”