By Carlos Sadovi

Chicago Public Schools officials said Thursday's U.S. Supreme Court decision rejecting school integration plans in Seattle and Louisville, Ky., should not have any immediate affect on the district, because Chicago is still governed by a 1980 consent decree that put the district's desegregation efforts under federal oversight.

While the district's law department is still reading through the high court's decision, spokesman Michael Vaughn said district lawyers believe that the federal consent decree takes precedence over the Supreme Court decision. The decree was put in place after the Justice Department had sued Chicago to force it to integrate. The decree was a voluntary settlement that avoided a lengthy legal battle.

The consent decree was amended by a federal judge in August, eliminating spending requirements for magnet schools that promote integration and for extra services in the racially isolated schools attended by most children. There is no time frame for when the decree would be lifted.

"We are not impacted by the Supreme Court's ruling because we are bound by the second modified consent decree," Vaughn said.

Ed Yohnka, an ACLU spokesman in Chicago, agreed with the district's stance, saying the decree would take precedence over the latest ruling.

The case that the Supreme Court ruled on had to do with two cities that had been removed from consent decrees and were engaged in voluntary integration programs, Yohnka said.

"The court-supervised programs, we don't think those would be covered under this decision," Yohnka said.

Yohnka pointed out that Justice Anthony Kennedy, who cast the deciding vote and concurred with the court's ruling, said that while he disagreed with the way Seattle and Louisville structured its plans, he did not disagree with the final aim.

"He didn't disagree with the ultimate goal of integrating schools or of using race conscious means to integrate the schools," Yohnka said.

Online: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-web_skulracejun29,1,6298626.story