# Van Buren School *Grade school in Saint Paul, Minnesota, named in the record as the school where Harry Blackmun and Warren E. Burger met in kindergarten.* Van Buren School is a grade school in Saint Paul, [[Minnesota]]. Its single documented entry in the Minnesota record is biographical. [[Harry Blackmun]] and [[Warren E. Burger]], who both later sat on the U.S. Supreme Court, first met there as kindergarten pupils.[^1] The record does not establish the school's address, founding date, enrollment, or later administration. What it documents is the place of that meeting and its use in the project's at-issue record. That record sets the school beside Blackmun's best-known sentence on race-conscious remedy.[^1] The school's at-issue entry belongs to a wider federal posture toward the State. The [[United States Department of Justice]] titled its release No. 26-21 (Jan. 14, 2026) "United States Department of Justice Files Lawsuit Against Minnesota's 'Affirmative Action' Regime." Attorney General Pamela Bondi certified that case as a matter of general public importance.[^2] The project's catalogue of U.S.-government "regime" usages finds that no other U.S. state has been so described. That is the catalogue's finding, not an independently established fact.[^2] ## Where Blackmun was raised in Saint Paul's Dayton's Bluff neighborhood. He met Burger in kindergarten at Van Buren School.[^1] The project's Burger dossier gives the family's address as 847 East Fourth Street. The at-issue record describes Van Buren as a Ramsey County grade school.[^1] ## Who Blackmun lived from 1908 to 1999.[^1] He and Burger were both Minnesota Republicans nominated to the Court by President Nixon, and the Court press called the pair "the Minnesota Twins."[^1] The at-issue record states that Blackmun remained Burger's friend for seven decades after they met at the school.[^1] ## In the at-issue record At-issue pair AI-Ramsey-006 places two items side by side. The first is a passage from Blackmun's separate opinion in *Regents of the University of California v. Bakke*, 438 U.S. 265 (1978), at 438 U.S. 402, as quoted in the project's Burger dossier: "In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way. And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently." The second is the shared kindergarten at Van Buren School.[^1] The pair is anchored to the White House presidential action *Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy* (April 2025).[^3] The record documents the shared school. It does not establish that the school bears on the reasoning of any opinion. The project's pinned framing record also includes [[Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services]], 605 U.S. 303 (2025). In that case the Supreme Court held that [[Title VII]]'s disparate-treatment provision "draws no distinctions between majority-group plaintiffs and minority-group plaintiffs." The Court also rejected the Sixth Circuit's heightened "background circumstances" rule for majority-group plaintiffs.[^4] ## In the Minnesota record ### Where - History row HE-0076 places Blackmun in Dayton's Bluff. It records that he met Burger in kindergarten at Van Buren School and that the two were called "the Minnesota Twins."[^1] - Dossier §IV.c (validated) gives Blackmun's childhood address as 847 East Fourth Street, Saint Paul, and repeats the Van Buren School kindergarten meeting.[^1] ## Notes [^1]: Minnesota Historical Society, *MNopedia: Harry Blackmun (1908–1999)* — Blackmun's Dayton's Bluff upbringing, his kindergarten meeting with Burger at Van Buren School, and the "Minnesota Twins" description. https://www.mnhs.org/mnopedia/search/index/person/blackmun-harry-1908-1999 [^2]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, *United States Department of Justice Files Lawsuit Against Minnesota's 'Affirmative Action' Regime*, release No. 26-21 (Jan. 14, 2026) — the release title and Attorney General Bondi's certification of the case as a matter of general public importance. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/united-states-department-justice-files-lawsuit-against-minnesotas-affirmative-action-regime [^3]: The White House, *Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy*, presidential action (April 2025) — the anchor document for at-issue pair AI-Ramsey-006. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/restoring-equality-of-opportunity-and-meritocracy/ [^4]: Supreme Court of the United States, *Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services*, 605 U.S. 303 (2025) — the holding that Title VII's disparate-treatment provision draws no distinction between majority- and minority-group plaintiffs, and the rejection of the "background circumstances" rule. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/23-1039_c0n2.pdf