SUFFOLK COUNTY — Lawyers for Civil Rights filed a lawsuit Wednesday in Suffolk County state court in Massachusetts challenging the state's practice of assigning students to schools based solely on residence. The suit argues that the system illegally maintains racially segregated schools that concentrate Black and Latino students in high-poverty districts with fewer opportunities.

The plaintiffs include nine students and four community organizations from school districts in Springfield, Holyoke, Boston, Lawrence, Brockton, Lynn, and Worcester. Those districts border more affluent, predominantly white districts where the plaintiffs cannot enroll. The suit asks the court to compel the state to address disparities that emerge from rules tying school assignment to residence.

"While the state constitution guarantees students a right to an adequate education and equal protection under the law, it has failed to do so in practice for Black and Latino students." Jillian Lenson, senior attorney at Lawyers for Civil Rights, said. "It's not student potential, it's the conditions of their schools that drive these disparate outcomes, conditions that the state has maintained and perpetuated for decades."

A 2024 state advisory council report found that 63% of all schools in Massachusetts are segregated or intensely segregated and that the state education department had fallen short in its oversight duties. Schools with higher concentrations of students of color had worse outcomes on metrics including graduation and college matriculation. The lawsuit points to existing regional vocational schools and voluntary inter-district transfers, but plaintiffs said a complex system of opt-outs and the small size of most programs prevent equal access.

"The lawsuit is not seeking mandatory integration, but rather an investment in evidence-backed practices that benefit all students." GeDá Jones Herbert, chief legal counsel at Brown's Promise, said. Those practices include expanding regional magnet programs and investing more in under-resourced schools. "Black and Latino students are blocked out of access to those opportunities, and that's unconstitutional." Herbert said.

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education said it does not have the authority to change school district boundaries or to compel schools to allow students from other districts to enroll. The department said the state has invested in efforts to reduce gaps in graduation rates and sought additional investments for high-poverty districts. "Massachusetts leads the nation in student achievement, and we are committed to building on this progress to strengthen our education system for every student in our state." department spokesperson Jacqueline Reis said.

The case follows other state-level litigation focused on residential segregation. In 2018, the Latino Action Network and the New Jersey chapter of the NAACP filed a suit arguing that the state's residence-based assignment system created racially segregated schools. A separate suit filed in Minnesota in 2015 asserted that segregation of schools in Saint Paul and Minneapolis led to inadequate and unequal educations for students of color. Both cases have been pending in state courts with no decisive resolution.

By the early 2000s, a series of Supreme Court cases had limited the tools available to districts for race-based school integration. Integration efforts had declined since their peak decades ago when the federal government intervened in school systems around the U.S.