Philadelphia's race-based transfer of teachers upheld by Supreme Court

The US Supreme Court on Monday left intact Philadelphia's system of transferring teachers to achieve better racial balance among the city's public school faculties. The court, without comment, rejected an appeal by four white schoolteachers who said the Philadelphia quota system violated their rights. A federal trial judge had ruled that the system was a form of ``reverse discrimination.'' But the Third US Circuit Court of Appeals overruled the judge last July. The high court also refused to consider the appeal of a Hudson Falls, N.Y., man who said he was wrongly denied custody of his children because of his devotion to a born-again Baptist church. Philip Aldous contended his ``religious beliefs and practices so permeated the trial court's consideration of the custody issue as to require the complete invalidation of the proceedings and the results therefrom.'' In other cases, the court agreed to decide what power the government has to seize money from a joint bank account in collecting unpaid taxes owed by one of the depositors, and let stand a ruling that states may bar religiously affiliated colleges from granting degrees to their students.