boundaried) for which there were more applicants than spaces available.

When it appeared no substantial changes were going to be made in the proposal following the November 30 hearing, I made one final objection to the plan to be adopted in a “Viewpoint” entitled “Stop Racial Balancing,” published January 10, 2000 in the San Diego Daily Transcript. See Appendix 3. In Paragraphs 4 and 5, I illustrate the manner in which the plan retained racial considerations at the same time it proclaimed it was eliminating them:

On Jan. 11, the staff of the board of education of San Diego City Schools, is expected to present to it a proposal which would no longer require students to overtly specify their race on applications to participate in the magnet programs and Voluntary Ethnic Enrollment Program, or VEEP. Unfortunately, their applications under the new proposal will covertly indicate their likely race by their residence in racially gerrymandered school boundaries.

As to magnet eligibility, the proposed cluster formula is designed to advance race-balancing by the racial gerrymandering of the District into four clusters based upon the number of white students in them, with the highest number being in Cluster 1, declining in Clusters 2 and 3 to the lowest number in Cluster 4. Conversely, the lowest number of students classified as “minorities” is in Cluster 1, increasing in Clusters 2 and 3, to the highest number in Cluster 4. Priorities in applications to attend a Magnet school are assigned according the respective locations of the applicant and the school.

I then illustrate (para.5, app.3) that if a child of the same age, race and location as Kimberly were to apply under the proposed plan to the same magnet school, she would still have less priority to attend than a child living in a different cluster gerrymandered to promote racial balancing.

As to VEEP eligibility, Paragraphs 6 and 7, Appendix 3, I illustrate that under the proposed plan a child able to walk to a neighborhood school could again have less priority to attend that school than a VEEP child,