Update II (12/6): James Taranto on How “Integration” Became Discrimination, SCOTUS blog…
——————————————–
My latest Washington Examiner column is about the two race-based school assignment cases currently before the Supreme Court.
White parents in Seattle and Jefferson County, Kentucky, sued the school districts for assigning students to schools based on race, a policy they claimed violated their rights to equal protection of the laws.
Although these school districts say they use a number of factors as “tiebreakers” to determine where to place students, their true intent is to categorize and haul students around by race to achieve a system-wide, so-called racial balance. This practice is discriminatory on its face, and one could oppose it simply on that basis. But if the law doesn’t convince you, perhaps a personal account will help. According to columnist George Will, this is what parents have to face:
This city’s school district decided in 2000 that because the son of Jill Kurfirst and the daughter of Winnie Bachwitz are white, they should be assigned to an inferior and distant high school. If they had not left the Seattle school system, this would have required them to rise at 5 a.m. in order to leave home by 5:30 a.m., alone and in the dark, to take the first of three buses, returning home between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., with almost no time left for homework, family activities and adequate sleep.
Anyone who cares about their child would complain about this, even if race weren’t a factor. But since it is, the practice is even more egregious because we’ve been told, over and over again, how wrong racial discrimination is, yet school districts openly practice it!
After courts ordered government schools to desegregate in the mid-1950s, whites left certain areas. To curb “white flight,” the government ordered busing in the 1970s, forcing parents in the suburbs to send their kids to low-performing schools in the city to balance out the racial make-up. Consequently, parents who could afford to do so sent their kids to private schools. Parents who couldn’t afford to move or send kids to private schools didn’t have much recourse. But parents are finally fighting back, invoking the same laws that protected blacks from government-mandated racial discrimination, laws that protect all of us.
Critics who support race-based school assignments and college admissions inexplicably cite Brown v. Board of Education to support their arguments (although I think the reasoning in Brown is flawed, I agree with the court’s ruling). They mistakenly believe the landmark case somehow allowed the government to consider race only if blacks benefited from the consideration. From my column:
The issue in Brown was whether the segregation of children in government schools solely on the basis of race deprived black children of equal educational opportunities.
Implicit in the court’s reasoning was that government-mandated racial segregation was anathema to the notion of equal protection, not segregation per se. The court ordered government schools to desegregate, which was not the same as forcing individuals to integrate.
I could go on and on about Brown, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and how appalling it is that government is still getting away with judging citizens by race, but I have lots to do today.
I’ll point you to other resources, like this post at Patterico’s Pontifications. Both race-based school assignment cases went before the Supreme Court yesterday, and Patrick links to RealAudio video of arguments for the first and second cases. Transcripts (in PDF) here and here.
John Rosenberg at Discriminations links to and comments on news stories of the arguments here. Also read what he has to say about a so-called diversity proponent’s misinterpretation of Brown.
Howard Bashman at How Appealing links to news accounts of the case before and after yesterday’s arguments here.
I don’t think I’ve ever said this about a court case, but this might be the most important one for true equality and colorblind government policies since the conception of the Civil Rights movement, an event that all too quickly began a rallying cry for race-based entitlements, a cry that’s still ringing in our ears.
Update (9:21 a.m.): The veil is slowly pulled away. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights finds “little evidence that racial and ethnic diversity in elementary and secondary schools results in significant improvements in academic performance; studies on the effect of school racial composition on academic achievement often suggest modest and inconsistent benefits.” Download the media advisory and full report (both PDF).
Regardless of the findings, what could justify government-mandated racial discrimination, for crying out loud???
This blogger believes in forced integration. Even if black students benefit from it, why should the rights of non-blacks be violated for it? Either we’re for race-neutral policies across the board, or we may as well bring back Jim Crow. Hyperbole, you say?
Related posts:
- The Unconstitutionality of Brown v. The Board of Education
- The Irony of Brown v. Board of Education
- Colorblind Bind
- Value of Diversity: Serious Input Needed
- Nebraska Considers Coerced Integration
- “White Flight” Declared Illegal in Texas School District
- Jim Crow Redux
MSM:
Court Reviews Race as Factor in School Plans
