Today's unfortunate Supreme Court ruling on school diversity

by: Pam Spaulding

Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 20:45:00 PM EDT

Considering the forum that's about to take place, today's SCOTUS decision will be a topic of discussion.

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected school assignment plans that take account of students' race in two major public school districts.

...The school rulings in cases affecting schools in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle leave public school systems with a limited arsenal to maintain racial diversity.

The court split, 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts announcing the court's judgment. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a dissent that was joined by the court's other three liberals.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote a concurring opinion in which he said race may be a component of school district plans designed to achieve diversity.

The debate at Howard University was set to begin just hours after the Supreme Court ruled against public school programs aimed at achieving racial diversity, a certain topic for the event.

The Democrats decried the ruling, saying it turned back the promise of integrated schools that the court laid out 53 years ago in its landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said as president, she would "fight to restore Brown's promise." Illinois Sen. Barack Obama said it was "wrong-headed." Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd said the decision "will add to the resegregation that is already occurring in our nation's schools."

John Edwards said the decision showed what is at stake in the presidential race.

"The Supreme Court is on the ballot in this next election, and the American people can stop this radical shift or lock it in for years to come," the 2004 vice presidential nominee said.

Delaware Sen. Joe Biden said the decision is another example why he opposed President Bush's two nominees to the Supreme Court, including the current chief justice, John Roberts. "The personal liberties of every American would be threatened even more if another conservative is allowed to serve on the Robert's court," Biden said.

I wish I could find the Supreme Court moving to protect white privilege and against school integration programs today more surprising, but I don?t.  The right makes a big deal out of how they supposedly organized to resist Roe v. Wade, because they know sexism is more socially acceptable than racism, but the entire rise of the conservative movement and the ascendancy of the Republican party owes more to anger over Brown v. the Board of Education and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that sent conservative racists fleeing the Democrats into the welcoming arms of the Republicans.  White supremacists have been giving the Republicans a lot for a long time, and this is how the party repays them.  Simple, brutal politics.

...The ability of education to remedy racial class disparities is in dispute, but there?s not much dispute over the fact that it helps some, if not enough.  The creation of a black middle class, however small, is the direct result of long, hard-won attempts to get education to the race of people that were previously denied it.  And I mean long?it?s a project that?s been going on since the fall of the Confederacy, with nothing but hostility every step of the way.  Brown was, like Roe, a cultural touchstone as much as a practical decision, signaling that official opposition to education for racial minorities was coming to an end, though obviously the social sentiments are still there.  And the recent rash of decisions undermining both of these important cases?and the ones to come, which they will, since the right has been chomping at the bit for this opportunity for decades?leaves me heartsick.