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The New York Times
Resegregation Now
EDITORIAL,
nytimes.com on the Web, June 29, 2007
The Supreme Court ruled 53 years ago
in Brown v. Board of Education that segregated education is inherently
unequal, and it ordered the nation’s schools to integrate. Yesterday, the
court switched sides and told two cities that they cannot take modest steps to
bring public school students of different races together. It was a sad day
for the court and for the ideal of racial equality.
Since 1954, the Supreme Court has been the nation’s driving force for
integration. Its orders required segregated buses and public buildings,
parks and playgrounds to open up to all Americans. It wasn’t always easy:
governors, senators and angry mobs talked of massive resistance. But the
court never wavered, and in many of the most important cases it spoke
unanimously.
Yesterday, the court’s radical new majority turned its back on that proud
tradition in a 5-4 ruling, written by Chief Justice John Roberts. It has
been some time since the court, which has grown more conservative by the year,
did much to compel local governments to promote racial integration. But
now it is moving in reverse, broadly ordering the public schools to become more
segregated.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, who provided the majority’s fifth vote, reined in the
ruling somewhat by signing only part of the majority opinion and writing
separately to underscore that some limited programs that take race into account
are still acceptable. But it is unclear how much room his analysis will
leave, in practice, for school districts to promote integration. His
unwillingness to uphold Seattle’s and Louisville’s relatively modest plans is
certainly a discouraging sign.
In an eloquent dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer explained just how sharp a break
the decision is with history. The Supreme Court has often ordered schools
to use race-conscious remedies, and it has unanimously held that deciding to
make assignments based on race “to prepare students to live in a pluralistic
society” is “within the broad discretionary powers of school authorities.”
Chief Justice Roberts, who assured the Senate at his confirmation hearings that
he respected precedent, and Brown in particular, eagerly set these
precedents aside. The right wing of the court also tossed aside two other
principles they claim to hold dear. Their campaign for “federalism,” or
scaling back federal power so states and localities have more authority, argued
for upholding the Seattle and Louisville, Ky., programs. So did their
supposed opposition to “judicial activism.” This decision is the height of
activism: federal judges relying on the Constitution to tell elected local
officials what to do.
The nation is getting more diverse, but by many measures public schools are
becoming more segregated. More than one in six black children now attend
schools that are 99 to 100 percent minority. This resegregation is likely
to get appreciably worse as a result of the court’s ruling.
There should be no mistaking just how radical this decision is. In
dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens said it was his “firm conviction that no
Member of the Court that I joined in 1975 would have agreed with today’s
decision.” He also noted the “cruel irony” of the court relying on
Brown v. Board of Education while robbing that landmark ruling of much of
its force and spirit. The citizens of Louisville and Seattle, and the rest
of the nation, can ponder the majority’s kind words about Brown as they
get to work today making their schools, and their cities, more segregated.
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