Christian Ford is the son of Kristina Johnson. He is a biracial child. Ms. Johnson identified him as white on hospital records. The Open Enrollment application does not have a category for bi-racial children. An employee of the Waterloo District informed Ms. Johnson that biracial children were identified as "black". The District denied Ms. Johnson's request for open enrollment on January 26, 1998. Christian would attend Kingsley Elementary and minorities were not allowed to open enroll out of that building under the District's desegregation plan. If Christian were regarded as white, he would be allowed to exit Kingsley, although he still might not be able to exit the District under the composite ratio. Ms. Johnson wants her child identified as white by the District. The District will not let her change her form now that the District knows Christian is biracial.

Mr. Anderson is the father of two sons,Christopher and David. They reside in the Roosevelt Elementary attendance area, but are allowed to attend Lowell Elementary because their babysitter resides there. Mr. Anderson applied for open enrollment to the Janesville School because his significant other's children attend Janesville and they would like all the children to attend the same school district.

The District testified that the Anderson children were allowed to transfer to Lowell Elementary because of the school 80.7% minority population, so their presence as nonminority students would have a positive effect on the ratio. The District adopted its current open enrollment/desegregation plan on October 23, 1993. The District continues to have some schools that are not in compliance with the state guideline and minority population in those buildings is greater than 20% point above the district-wide average percentage.

This case raises a very troubling issue. Can a school force a parent to identify a biracial student in a particular way? The District has not adopted such a requirement as written policy or rule. No legal authoirty could be found that would allow a district to require that a parent classify a biracial student in any particular way. There it is found that the District may not require Ms. Johnson to classify her son as black. The District must allow her to classify her son as she deems appropriate. Only after that is done may the District apply the desegregation plan to his application.

The determination by the District that Christopher and David Anderson's exit from the Lowell Elementary building would adversely impact the District's desegregation plan was reasonable and in accordance with the plan. Mr. Anderson raised the issue or reverse discrimination. The use of race in this matter is not prohibited . Waterloo v. Iowa Dept of Education, Case Nos. LACV075042 and LACV077403(August 8, 1996), p. 30.

The the decision of the Waterloo Community School District made on January 26, 1998, denying Mr. Anderson's applications, was affirmed. The decision to deny Ms. Johnson's application for her son was based on an underlying factual error and was reversed.