Saturday, June 30, 2007
Editorial: A return to segregation
A Supreme Court ruling says race can't be a factor in seeking racial balance. What, do tell, should schools use to achieve equality and diversity?
From the RoundTable blog
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A narrow, radical majority on the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a half-century of progress toward integration of minorities. In finding the desegregation plans of Seattle and Louisville, Ky., schools unconstitutional, the justices might as well have said, "Stick with your own kind."
Under this ruling, schools can no longer look at the race of students in deciding which schools they should attend in order to achieve diversity that 53 years of progress under Brown v. Board of Education had hoped to achieve.
Chief Justice John Roberts said, "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." By taking away the one way to do that? Whatever parallel universe the white, privileged Roberts inhabits is separate and unequal from the one populated by millions of schoolchildren. In the real world, discrimination and segregation still exist, though not as overtly as in the pre-Brown days.
Roberts' twisted interpretation of Brown was even too much for his partner in judicial activism to tolerate. Justice Anthony Kennedy said that race may be a component in school efforts to achieve diversity. This leaves the door open to legal hair-splitting over plans that are "race-specific" (a bad thing, the majority said) and "race-conscious" (an idea at least Kennedy accepts). Roanoke's attendance zones most likely would withstand a legal challenge under this nuance as it assigns neighborhoods rather than individuals to particular schools.
As the racial and ethnic mix of our nation becomes ever more diverse, many neighborhoods -- including many in Roanoke -- remain stubbornly segregated. It is to the advantage of society and to children of all racial and economic backgrounds to attend schools with a diverse student body that better reflects the society they will enter upon reaching adulthood.
While this ruling incredibly forbids looking at students' race to achieve racial equality, it does leave the back door cracked for schools to look at economic status in striving for schools with a balanced mix of poor, middle-income and wealthier students. But integration becomes an option rather than a requirement and something that communities will get to decide.
Roanoke may soon confront this challenge as it considers amending its attendance zones in order to cut transportation costs. Roanoke conceivably could decide not to bus students outside their neighborhoods and return to the days of segregation. While this would be acceptable to five Supreme Court justices, it would not be to this community.
