Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education

In Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education (1986) 476 U.S. 267, court invalidated a public school layoff scheme under which nonminority teachers were laid off while minority teachers with less seniority, including probationary teachers, were retained. In Wygant, it was asserted that a school board's interest in providing role models for its minority students could justify a race-based layoff scheme. The plurality opinion noted that nondiscriminatory hiring practices would in time achieve the desired result, while discriminatory practices based upon the role model theory would have no logical stopping point and could even lead to the thoroughly discredited separate-but-equal educational system. (Wygant, supra, at pp. 274-276 (plur. opn.).)