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Authors: Marcia Coyle
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maintain racial diversity in their schools.
CHAPTER 3
“In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race.”
—Justice Harry A. Blackmun, 1978
B y the time her daughter graduated from middle school in June 2000, Kathleen Brose and the other parents in her group knew that despite their intense lobbying efforts, the Seattle school board was not going to change the assignment plan.
“When we started talking about a lawsuit, a lot of people got scared,” remembered Brose. “That’s a pejorative term, a real negative. But we just didn’t know what else to do. Nobody wants to go into a lawsuit. We weren’t thinking national at all; we were just thinking local. It was just about our city.” 1
But a lawsuit meant finding a lawyer, and for this particular type of lawsuit, that could be a difficult task in one of the most liberal and Democratic cities in the country.
Conservative libertarian lawyers in Washington, D.C., like to joke that because their numbers are so small, they can meet in a phone booth. Conservative Republican lawyers in Seattle, chuckled one member, need a little more space—perhaps a closet.
Word went out through the right channels, however, that the PICS group was thinking about a lawsuit. Dick Deran, a well-known advocate of conservative political causes and a retired attorney from Seattle’s Davis Wright Tremaine, contacted a young, energetic fellow believer, Harry Korrell III, a Davis Wright partner who focused on litigationand employment law. At about the same time, Sharon Browne of the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation in Sacramento, California, also was approached by some of the parents.
Korrell eventually took the lead, along with Davis Wright partner Dan Ritter, on the Seattle lawsuit, with Browne and her foundation providing support at each stage of the case. Browne also would become deeply involved in the Louisville litigation.
The Pacific Legal Foundation, the oldest conservative public interest litigating organization, was established in 1973 and describes itself as “devoted to a vision of individual freedom, responsible government, and color-blind justice.” Its founders, Ronald Zumbrun and Raymond Momboisse, had been advisers to California governor Ronald Reagan during Reagan’s campaign in the state legislature for welfare reforms. They looked for a way to counter liberal public interest groups who challenged those reforms in the courts. 2
With advice from another Reagan adviser at the time—Edwin Meese, who would become attorney general of the United States after Reagan’s election as president—and with funding from the California Chamber of Commerce and other groups, Zumbrun and Momboisse launched the foundation. Today, it has four offices and nearly twenty attorneys on staff who work in three main areas: defending private property rights, challenging environmental and governmental regulations, and fighting racial preferences.
Browne, a senior attorney skilled in trial and appellate work, joined in 1985. She made her reputation in California defending Proposition 209 (the California Civil Rights Initiative), which state voters approved in November 1996. The initiative amended the state constitution to prohibit race- and gender-based preferences in public contracting, public employment, and public education. The initiative was funded by the California Civil Rights Initiative Campaign, led by the University of California regent at the time, Ward Connerly. Connerly subsequently took his successful anti–affirmative action campaign to Washington State, which approved Initiative 200 in 1998, and to Michigan.
Fifteen years after the adoption of Proposition 209, it is still the subject of litigation in state and federal courts, as is the Michigan initiative adopted in the same year.
Korrell’s conservative bona fides were firmly established before the Seattle lawsuit reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Although his law practice focused on employment law,
CHAPTER 3
“In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race.”
—Justice Harry A. Blackmun, 1978
B y the time her daughter graduated from middle school in June 2000, Kathleen Brose and the other parents in her group knew that despite their intense lobbying efforts, the Seattle school board was not going to change the assignment plan.
“When we started talking about a lawsuit, a lot of people got scared,” remembered Brose. “That’s a pejorative term, a real negative. But we just didn’t know what else to do. Nobody wants to go into a lawsuit. We weren’t thinking national at all; we were just thinking local. It was just about our city.” 1
But a lawsuit meant finding a lawyer, and for this particular type of lawsuit, that could be a difficult task in one of the most liberal and Democratic cities in the country.
Conservative libertarian lawyers in Washington, D.C., like to joke that because their numbers are so small, they can meet in a phone booth. Conservative Republican lawyers in Seattle, chuckled one member, need a little more space—perhaps a closet.
Word went out through the right channels, however, that the PICS group was thinking about a lawsuit. Dick Deran, a well-known advocate of conservative political causes and a retired attorney from Seattle’s Davis Wright Tremaine, contacted a young, energetic fellow believer, Harry Korrell III, a Davis Wright partner who focused on litigationand employment law. At about the same time, Sharon Browne of the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation in Sacramento, California, also was approached by some of the parents.
Korrell eventually took the lead, along with Davis Wright partner Dan Ritter, on the Seattle lawsuit, with Browne and her foundation providing support at each stage of the case. Browne also would become deeply involved in the Louisville litigation.
The Pacific Legal Foundation, the oldest conservative public interest litigating organization, was established in 1973 and describes itself as “devoted to a vision of individual freedom, responsible government, and color-blind justice.” Its founders, Ronald Zumbrun and Raymond Momboisse, had been advisers to California governor Ronald Reagan during Reagan’s campaign in the state legislature for welfare reforms. They looked for a way to counter liberal public interest groups who challenged those reforms in the courts. 2
With advice from another Reagan adviser at the time—Edwin Meese, who would become attorney general of the United States after Reagan’s election as president—and with funding from the California Chamber of Commerce and other groups, Zumbrun and Momboisse launched the foundation. Today, it has four offices and nearly twenty attorneys on staff who work in three main areas: defending private property rights, challenging environmental and governmental regulations, and fighting racial preferences.
Browne, a senior attorney skilled in trial and appellate work, joined in 1985. She made her reputation in California defending Proposition 209 (the California Civil Rights Initiative), which state voters approved in November 1996. The initiative amended the state constitution to prohibit race- and gender-based preferences in public contracting, public employment, and public education. The initiative was funded by the California Civil Rights Initiative Campaign, led by the University of California regent at the time, Ward Connerly. Connerly subsequently took his successful anti–affirmative action campaign to Washington State, which approved Initiative 200 in 1998, and to Michigan.
Fifteen years after the adoption of Proposition 209, it is still the subject of litigation in state and federal courts, as is the Michigan initiative adopted in the same year.
Korrell’s conservative bona fides were firmly established before the Seattle lawsuit reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Although his law practice focused on employment law,
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