Here is the first sentence of the Supreme Court’s decision in the landmark Brown v. Board case:

Segregation of white and Negro children in the public schools of a State solely on the basis of race, pursuant to state laws permitting or requiring such segregation, denies to Negro children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment - even though the physical facilities and other “tangible” factors of white and Negro schools may be equal. Pp. 486-496.

With that decision the distasteful policy of “separate but equal” facilities for white and black students was struck down.  Schools were forced to desegregate.  Some did so voluntarily; others were forced.

A problem arose, though, with policies seeking integration.  There is a distinct difference between desegregation and integration.  Desegregation means that the government will no longer consider ethnicity as a criteria for admission to schools.  That is a virtuous policy.  Integration means that the government will actively monitor the ethnicity of students and then admit or reject students “solely on the basis of race” (see above in bold) in order to achieve what a bureaucrat deems to be a diverse, integrated student body.  That is a failed policy - and it is being challenged in the Supreme Court.

One [legal challenge] was filed by a white woman in Louisville whose son was denied a transfer to attend kindergarten in a school that needed black rather than white students in order to keep its black population at the district’s required minimum of 15 percent.

The other was filed by parents in Seattle who organized as a corporation to oppose the plan there, which applies only to the city’s 10 high schools. A racial “tiebreaker,” used when a high school attracts more students than there are places, intends to keep the schools within 15 percent of the district’s overall makeup, which is 60 percent nonwhite.

Some of the “conservative” justices had some very reasonable comments.

The conservative justices on the court are, for their part, equally sickened by this practice of—to quote Roberts last spring—”divvying us up by race.” Justice Scalia is at his sardonic best, asking the lawyer for the Seattle school board whether it would be permissible for the government to foster diversity by encouraging “people to move into Little Italy” and have “street festivals.” Justice Samuel Alito is affronted by the Seattle policy of lumping Asian, Latino, and black students together as “nonwhites.” Would a school composed of 60 percent Asian and Latino students and 40 percent white students be “racially balanced?” he wonders. Scalia asks whether a child with a white grandfather is considered white. And Chief Justice John Roberts says that if every single student still gets a place in school, “How is this different from separate but equal?” Justice Clarence Thomas seems to lean forward to speak in the final two minutes of argument. Hearts stop. But then, he apparently changes his mind.

I honestly hope that one day we can get past race in this country and have a “colorblind” society.  That is the idealist in me.  The realist knows that A) there will always be some people of all races that blame others for their own problems and B) there will always be Jesse Jackson’s and other race baiters who personally benefit from inflaming a racial rift in the name of equality.  I can hope, though.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Tuesday, December 5th, 2006 at 11:18 pm and is filed under Education, Legal, Race Card. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.