From CNN:


The link to the decision can be found here.

Questions for Debate:
1) Do you agree with the courts decision that race shouldn't be the sole consideration in school assignment plans? Why or why not?

2) Will this decision threaten the attainment of diversity in primary education as was advocated in Brown? Is such a goal even relevant today?

3) Is there an alternative to creating diversity in schools besides the approach these districts were taking?

1) Do you agree with the courts decision that race shouldn't be the sole consideration in school assignment plans? Why or why not?

Yes I do agree. Race should not be the sole consideration when making school assignment plans. Its the dictionary definition of racism. If there are two equally qualified students, then I wouldn't have a huge problem with race coming into consideration. But if race is the only factor that could determine where you go, then it is wrong.

2) Will this decision threaten the attainment of diversity in primary education as was advocated in Brown? Is such a goal even relevant today?

I honestly do not think so. The races have been mixing at quite a high rate in the generations since Brown. In a couple more generations, it will be very rare to see a family that is purely one race or ethnicity. This evolution will be conducive to the spirit of Brown since diversity will increase without much government interference. But that is a few years down the road.

3) Is there an alternative to creating diversity in schools besides the approach these districts were taking?

I am sure there is. For one, don't make race the sole factor but just one of many factors. Second, perhaps redistricting so that kids from different neighborhoods will be in the same school will make assignments unnecessary.

Questions for Debate:
1) Do you agree with the courts decision that race shouldn't be the sole consideration in school assignment plans? Why or why not? Yes I agree that it shouldn't be the sole consideration. No, I disagree with Justice Kennedy and the four dissenting Justices that it should be a consideration at all. It shouldn't, period.

"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race"


2) Will this decision threaten the attainment of diversity in primary education as was advocated in Brown? Is such a goal even relevant today?
Not to seem dense, but I dont' recall the "attainment of diversity" as ever being advocated in Brown. Brown was about eliminating de jur discrimination on the basis of race, specifically segregation. Diversity is a whole different concept, and thus far the only way to achieve it is to discriminate on the basis of race.

I consider the concept that the state has a "compelling interest" in creating diversity to be unconstitutional. It violates freedom of assembly, freedom of expression, and freedom of conscience.

3) Is there an alternative to creating diversity in schools besides the approach these districts were taking?
Yes, school choice. Rather than Big Nanny making the decision where your kids go to school based on their skin color, you make the decision based upon the criteria that are important to you. The resulting school populations will have similar interests/goals, and whatever skin colors.

1) Do you agree with the courts decision that race shouldn't be the sole consideration in school assignment plans? Why or why not?

Yes, I do agree with the Court. We have passed the time when this method is needed. My feeling is that this law has run the gauntlet, and actually may be insulting to all minorities at this point in time.

2) Will this decision threaten the attainment of diversity in primary education as was advocated in Brown? Is such a goal even relevant today?

I live in California so my "take" on this issue may be reflected in my perspective. My feeling is that diversity will still be maintained. Minority groups have now risen, many times through affirmative action, in every "walk of life" and where their children go to school should now be based on where they physically live.

3) Is there an alternative to creating diversity in schools besides the approach these districts were taking?

I no longer see the necessity of government "creating diversity" in the schools. Let's all return to our neighborhood schools, and relegate the busing "solution" to where it belongs - our history!

WHatS?

How is that possibly true for the entire united states? Drive through any southern city, and you will see starkly defined, totally unequal neightborhoods, defined by race. I'm in New Orleans Garden District, writing this as I speak, can I email you pictures of the Magnolia? In Atlanta street names (and house size, crime rates, cops's demeanors) change when you cross into a Black neighborhood. To this day, Martin Luther King's boyhood home sits on a road that takes a new name when it crosses over.

Wake up and read the police reports-- all Black males. I work as a reporter in a Louisiana community where 20 percent of the population is Black, yet, every morning, when I read the police reports, 8 or so of 10 the residents arrested that previous night were Black males. Everyone with a TV knows this. So how are kids expected to learn in this environment with such strong sociological problems distracting and so few role models? Maybe 'some' minorities have risen into all walks of life (excluding the US senate or the executive branch, it seems). But their are millions more trapped behind a wall of defacto segregation.

For many of these communities, race is a 'sole' determining factor-- look at Black and White communities with similar socio-economic standings, and you'll see that the crime rate, the education quality and the number of kids born out of wedlock is often way higher in the Black community that the White.

These integration policies were mainly about two things:

- giving Black students a chance at a average or top-notch education
- preparing students, Black and White, for life in a pluralistic society.

Maybe in some parts of America these policies were serving to mainly give middle class Blacks an exception their economic situtation didn't totally merit. In which case, grand, maybe the policy should be up for review, at the school's individual discretion. But the truly frustraion thing about this ruling is that it bans a policy that, for many schools, was working, and to my mind, sought to resolve inquality, rather than encourage it-- after segregation's cardinal sin was the inequality it encouraged.

And if they can't use race as a criteria, maybe they can use indicators such as neighborhood as a criteria-- my guess is the end results would be mostly the same, and I'd support that, strongly. But the spirit of this ruling seems to nullify that idea as well.

Since Americans settled at Jamestown, waiting no more than 18 months to import African servants, race has been the defining struggle of American history. Today we took a big step backwards. This is a sad day for the next generation of America.


And furthermore, to really discect what's going on hear: lot's of people will whine and say a student should get into a school based on his merit, not his race. Meanwhile, far more qualified schools reject applicants not because of their race, but because of their gender. Yet nobody ever complains about gender as a determining factor. In fact, I bet I could find a few supporters of that provision on here-- who wants to go to school in a sausage fest?

Seems we like out genders mixed and our races sperate down here: great ingredients for a frat party, poor policy for Education.

1) Do you agree with the courts decision that race shouldn't be the sole consideration in school assignment plans? Why or why not?

Absolutely. I cannot fathom the argument that would sway me to believe that my child should be bused to a school out of our neighborhood, to meet a racial quota at another school.
I could take an open minded view that race can be a consideration in some circumstances, but not where I choose to have my children attend school. Many people choose where they wish to live in part, based on the school system in the area. Call it whatever you wish, but my children's education is of such importance, that if I send them to a government indoctrination center to begin with, it's not going to be one where I have to continually worry about their safety and/or low achievement.

2) Will this decision threaten the attainment of diversity in primary education as was advocated in Brown? Is such a goal even relevant today?
Such a goal is not relevant. The goal of Brown was to enable minorities to attend the school of their choice. It was not specified in Brown that the government had a right to dictate where people of certain races must live, nor that a certain racial make up must be attained in a school.

I concur with this statement. From what I've seen here in Texas, Brown vs. Board has never been implimented with much conviction. We still have schools that are predominately minority and often these buildings lack things the majority schools have.

The most unfortunate wording in Brown was "with all deliberate speed." For fifty-three years it's been more like with all with all deliberate foot-dragging.

Now thanks to Bush's reconstituted court, we no longer even have to go through the motions.

Glad somebody grabbed the hammer and smacked the nail. Exactly. But what about the people who do "have to continually worry about their [child's] safety and/or low acheivement."

For so many Americans, sending their child to a better school means sender their child to a more predominantly White school. Wish it wasn't so. All power to those Latinos, African-Americans, etc. who have access to great schools that aren't 'great' because of a White population that lifts the average SAT score.

But for the rest out there, that's not an option; the school they are districted in sucks, primarily because race is never as inconsequential a factor as the 'we-overcame' crowd on here is trumpeting; even when economic factors are even, Black communities are frequently home to higher crime rates, and high drop-out rates.


And working, bill-plagued parents often are not be able to move into a higher-cost neighborhood where the schools are better.

Programs like the Louisville allowed the schools to help those families, by reserving some space for people who would like to send their little angels there, but who live on the other side of town and can't afford the move.

Now, if that just isn't producing any kind of measurable result, then fine, hold an election and let the local community or the county school board decide it isn;t in the broad public's interest.

But -- and I don't have statistic to prove this -- I'm sure SOMEWHERE it was producing some great results, and I can't see how it infringes one parent's right when the public schools have the solemn duty to offer the public at large a quality education. Bridging the great American gap should be part and parcel of a quality education. Read my post from before.



EXACTLY. Now, the old form of out-right "White Only" public schools has been replaced by a rigid adherence to "People Who Are Districted in Neighborhoods Where Most Everyone is White Only." Or at least it has in a whole heap of cities and towns that fit that discription.

By using race in a criteria, schools can enable poorly-districted parents to do exactly what you're saying, even if they couldn't move into a more expensive neighborhood to send their kids to those schools-- I mean seriously, imagine how impossible it is for the working poor to move. A single mother doesn't even have time to hunt for an apartment, let alone negotiate for a piece of real estate, let alone afford one. Maybe their is still a loophole that would allow schools to judge students on the criteria of what part of town they are from. I sure hope so.

I wonder, would anyone on here, imagining an all-white, rural Ohioan town support a movement to bridge the rich and poor sides of town by creating a single public school to house both of them? not trying to pin-point racism, just trying to take race out of the equation and see if anyone supports this kind of admissions policy at all.

Read my post from before.

You don't see how it infringes on a parents right to send their child to the school of their choosing, ie. the district they live in? That is exactly what Brown stipulates, that a child cannot be denied attendance in a school where they live based on race. This ruling reflects the primary difference in liberal versus conservative opinions of SCOTUS. Individual rights cannot be compromised for the dubiously effective goal of equality. Sending a white student to a predominately black school will not make it a better school, just as sending a black student to a predominately white school will make it any worse. Forced integration, where there exists no segregation, is an affront to basic liberty.

DYT these posts seem to capture both well-meaning sides of this argument. A long running argument made against affirmative action is that it by definition applies racism for the purposes of remedying past harm. But as affirmative action began to apply to people who had not lived under legal discrimination, for many critics applying a legal remedy for social racism seems misplaced.

However, for those of us who believe that the problem that exists after you take race out of the equation is the major problem facing our society, too often the discussion seems to begin and end with the issue of ending affirmative action without simultaneously embarking on a thoughtful program to address the problems of economic inequality that hinder all of our citizens from having a reasonable shot at the American dream at an equal minimum. Too many critics want to end affirmative action, declare racism to be a relic of the past, and allow our present system of public and private fiefdoms of academic excellence for the children of the haves of this country while doing nothing to address our real economic disparity problems of education. This is the equivalent of going into a country for war without having a clear plan for how to get back out of the country.

Back to you Drew, I find these two paragraphs are interesting to me because they seem completely contradictory. In the first, you say the best solution is to base education programs giving all Americans a chance to send their children to a better school if they so choose and you say that using race as a criteria is a good way to do this.

In the next paragraph, in order to get people to see the larger problem you present a scenario where race is removed from the situation entirely and then a solution is sought.

1. Integrating based on race has been a failed program because of the NIMBY nature of opposition to larger scale integration programs. What happens is that those with political and economic connections skew the program or relocate or move their children to private schools. In cities like mine, the entire municipal district was abandoned in white flight and a host of private schools popped up and the trend of suburbanization gave white flight a place to go to and make brand new shiny schools and make them the best public schools in the state in the counties surrounding the main city. The few high performing city schools ended up sinking with the rest of them and then a generation later a couple of magnet schools were created to give a solution to a county wide district of bad schools.

In other areas like Boston race based bussing pushed children of color into poor white neighborhoods and triggered waves of violence.


2. I don't like the idea of eroding the meager gains of the civil rights movement, but I think this decision, if it has real practical impact, could lead an opposition policy into finding better solutions for America that are raced based. I believe our main social problem is the have, have-not divide. And that we need to find ways to erode the stratification created by a capitalist economy. Otherwise we end up getting a larger and larger poor population with little political voice and we get chunks of the population that are mired in predominantly cyclical poverty. Born in poverty, living amid fellow impoverished citizens, feeling that only the lucky few can escape but most will live and die without a shot at the American dream.




DTOM I may not have read this as well as I could, but I don't see in DYT's quoted comments where there is a position that parents should be forced to send their children to inferior schools. You seem to be arguing against an assumption or against busing while your identified opponent is not espousing busing.

1) Do you agree with the courts decision that race shouldn't be the sole consideration in school assignment plans? Why or why not?

I would have vehemently disagreed in the 1950s and 1960s when racism was so deeply entrenched in some state governments and local school administrations that directly enforcing racial desegregation was the only realistic way to achieve equal access. Although I don't think racism will ever go away, there are now less intrusive ways to accomplish the same results as Brown without resorting to purely-racial school assignments; so I now tend to agree with this opinion.

It does not seem that this opinion changes the ability of school districts to continue to consider racial diversity as one of many goals, nor the ability of parents to send their children to schools across town. If parents request their children be admitted to a particular public school and are denied access based on race (or racism disguised as geography), that's still clearly illegal/unconstitutional. As others have said, it would also seem unconstitutional when a child is denied admittance to the school across the street based significantly on race, so I tend to agree with SCOTUS's opinion.

2) Will this decision threaten the attainment of diversity in primary education as was advocated in Brown? Is such a goal even relevant today?

Whether or not directly promoted in Brown or mandated by the Constitution, the goal of diversity in public schools is advantageous if only to avoid getting lulled back into racial prejudices born from underexposure to those who may look or think differently than the family one is born into or the potentially homogeneous neighborhood ones family chooses to live in. This case does not threaten racial diversity in areas prepared to transition to any of the equally-effective alternatives...

3) Is there an alternative to creating diversity in schools besides the approach these districts were taking?

Yes, many. Subject-focused magnet schools, the public-school voucher system, and a wide variety of other alternatives allow districts to bus students all over town for reasons not directly related to race, while simultaneously achieving racial diversity and promoting higher education standards. While the private-school option of some voucher proposals led to fears that public schools might be abandoned, public-school-only voucher systems tend to negate such concerns.

Except there is still segregation-- its called districting, and it feeds off the defacto segregation of our society. I guess that wouldn't mean much if it weren't for the fact that Black and White schools are still "seperate, but unequal". This is so despite all the money we may or may not have pumped into Black schools. It has to do with complications so deeply rooted in US culture, that only comedians and musicians can begin to analyze them.

The point is that, in America, race segregates itself. Race is a dauntingly important factor, and to prepare our children to live in "a pluralistic society" we could do them some good.

Moreover, if we're going to offer basic services, we should try to distribute them equally. Race is obviously, for smackingly plain reasons, a handy tool for schools to help offer their basic services to students whose access to quality schools is poor.

You might see that as an affront of basic liberty-- but its public school, baby. Parents who don't think their kids should learn how to put a condom on a banana in 10th grade have liberty affronted all the time. Parents who don't think their kids should have to say the pledge of alleigance have their liberty affronted. Why does the fact that you live near a state-funded school make it YOUR right to send your kids there anymore than SOMEBODY ELSE'S right half-way across the county?

You have a right to public school, but I don't see how you have a right to attend the closest school. The way I, and I think a generation of educators have seen this issue, is that the school system has a duty to distribute their services fairly. That was the spirit of Brown V. Board which found the offensive part of segregation to be the "unequal" part of separate but equal.



With the Ohio scenario, I'm just curious what responses that will solicit. I'm not suggesting that as an ideal, just a hypothetical. It's totally tangential to my point, which is, when districting determines what school students will go to, saving some slots for the disadvantaged has numerous benefits, the least of which being, it allows parents residing on the wrong side of town to share the bounty of where their tax dollars go... and disadvantages tend to run along racial lines here, so the provision is a helpful tool for the schools.

Look I think the national debate about race is incredibly naive. I don't think our language has even developed the tools to discuss race. Any time we embark on that discussion, inevitably the whole conversation devolves into a world of over-generalizations and blunt, cumbersome misunderstandings. On top of which, our PC standard seems to mainly function as a mechanism to silence blunt speakers who obviously don't 'get it.' This is why comedians and musicians and actors are still, today, the best people to discuss race in America. This has been true since minstrelsy and the Blues.

So when the Supreme Court Justice, obviously an intelligent man, says "the best way to stop discriminating against race is to stop discriminating against race," my jaw drops. It's not just school board or the police or the waitresses at Chiles who discriminate against race. It's washed throughout our entire society, from the Hamitic Myth to the mainstream Media, from the History we learn in 3rd Grade to records we buy in 6th grade. It's centuries old, dating back to the days when Shakespeare wrote "Othello." It goes down to the dictionary where Black is defined as darkness, emptiness or evil. It's more than people and it's going to take centuries of slow, arduous labor to shovel away those barriers.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court just took away one of those 'shovels.' Or, in somebody else's words:






I don't know what NIMBY means, and in 'areas like' Atlanta, raced based bussing has worked wonders. I'm one of those wonders, I might add presumptuously--and even if I wasn't and the whole system had failed, that doesn't mean it should be ruled unconstitutional. If failed policy meant unconstitutional policy, the war on drugs would be history.



Like I said before, poverty does not so much dictate race as vice-versa. That's an easy thing to say, and to some extent its very true that the true promise of the civil rights movement is to create a more fluid society, in other words, to produce more Bill Clintons.

But, as I've noted several times here, race is an over-riding factor, even when the economics are the same. Race is simply more important than class, and the former seems to dictate the latter more than vice-versa. For presidential proof, take Barack Obama -- privileged, born into opportunity -- and compare him to John Edwards -- White, born into poverty. We all know both of their stories, yet Liberals recognize that the true upset would not be a poor-born president (we've been having those since Lincoln) but a Black president. Because Race simply means more, and all the 'color blind' admissions policies can't erase that reality. By acknowledging that reality, however, they could fight it.

Let me make a final note: I don't for one, believe in such a thing as a totally objective ruling. Not even in the upper eschelons of our justice system, are decisions reached in a purely logical manner -- too many of the key terms are up for cultural definition. (Like "Life," for instance.) Anyone who has fought Roe V. Wade can agree with that.

What I believe, reserving some respect for John Roberts, is that we have become a culture of entitlement, and that culture pervades us everywhere. This case was started by a White mother in Louisville who found it unjust that she had to drive past one perfectly good school to get to another. I shudder when I think of how she would manage the constant barrage of unjustice that Black residents of New Orleans, Louisiana -- or almost anywhere in this nation -- deal with.

Not enough time right now to deal with all the questions, so I'll address the first one.

1. It's a horrible decision by the Supreme Court's conservative wing that illustrates right-wing activism is every bit as noxious as left-wing activism. The majority has ignored precedent and effectively said segregating schools along racial lines is now acceptable. It does not surprise me that a plurality of posters in this thread are pleased by the Court's decision. Those of us on the political Left have always known "judicial activism" is only objectionable to the political Right when they don't agree with it.

This is merely the opening salvo from the Roberts far-right cabal of the Supreme Court. The gradual chipping away at civil rights, affirmative action and other protections advanced by more progressive courts will be broken down by the current "strict constructionalists" of The Roberts Court.

No less than Associate Justice John Paul Stevens recognizes how the powers-that-be of The Supreme Court have changed
what stare decisis means. “The Court has changed significantly since it decided School Comm. of Boston in 1968. It was then more faithful to Brown and more respectful of our precedent than it is today. It is my firm conviction that no Member of the Court that I joined in 1975 would have agreed with today’s decision.”

Roberts almost seems flippant in his one-liner, "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." For someone praised for his intellectual depth, that is a remarkably shallow remark. It certainly provides no guidance to school boards looking for methods to increase racial diversity. Though Anthony Kennedy provided the margin of victory to the Court's more committed conservatives, even he had to take issue with Roberts.

"Fifty years of experience since Brown. . . should teach us that the problem before us defies so easy a solution."

Yes. The 14th Amendment is quite clear when it says: Forcing a child to go to another school schoold district on the basis of race is, by definition, unequal treatment. In my view it is as simple as that.

Nighttimer,
I have to say, I find it ironic that in one breath you decry the ruling as judicial activism on the grounds that the court ignored precedent and bypassed stare decisis and in the next breath use a quote that cites Brown v. Board...a ruling that did precisely the same thing.
Will this ruling revert us back to de facto segregation? No. This ruling simply puts an end to an outdated and currently illegal social engineering program.

"Creating diversity"? Creating diversity requires government force and the restriction of freedom, inherently. Give people the freedom to send their children to a school of their choice, let competition take over. Schools that create good reputations will attract people seeking a quality education for their child, these people will no doubt be "diverse". To me, the concept of diversity is a collectivist one. It divides people into groups among racial lines for the sake of an abstract idea which supposedly enhances the education of another group of people that have been divided among racial lines. As I said, competition creates diversity. If a school is very good, a wide array of people will want to go to it; no government force would be needed.


CP

Conservpat,

I don't think you (or John Roberts) recognize the ubiquitous nature of race in America. Your laissez-faire approach to integration takes absolutely no account of the deep-seated cultural issues between "mainstream" and Black America. Please read my previous posts.

Secondly, Nighttimer didn't decry Judicial Activism so much as he pointed out the inherit hypocrisy in the opposition to "judicial activism" -- which was really, opposition to desegregation all along. Working Americans don't take time out of their day to give one phillup about what precedent the Supreme Court or any branch of government may or may not be breaking-- if they did, Dick Cheney would be in the limelight, not the shadows. Working professionals take time out of their day to decry judicial activism when it allows abortions they morally disagree with, or when their prodigy is suddenly sitting next to the enemy in a class room. Duh.

Thanks,
Times.

PS:


How can you revert back to a place where we already are?

Are you seriously telling me ConservPat that you believe Brown vs. Board of Education was WRONGLY decided? That decision established the precedent that "separate, but equal" was a damnable lie and therefore in violation of the Constitution. I guess The 14th Amendment should be rescinded as well?

Because if you are then congratulations, you have just declared that segregation based upon race is fine by you. The unanimous Supreme Court in 1954 was bonkers and nothing good has come from Brown for the last 53 years. Thank goodness Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy are so much smarter than those old fools in 1954. You and Robert Bork should get together and knock back a few drinks in celebration.

It's always a revelation to see how those who proclaim their love for democratic principles are the loudest ones to decry the mechanisms put in place to deploy it.

Really? Well, I'm the product of a multi-racial marriage, I was raised in a city where white people are a minority, moved to the suburbs where they are an overwhelming majority and now live in a city with severe race relation problems...But you're probably right, I don't recognize race's ominpresence. My laissez faire approach aside, the ruling is correct as it struck down an act of government that violates the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
Right, and I pointed out that he cited a case which was just as "activist" as the one in question.
I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at here, but again, my only point was that Nighttimer was citing a case which also ignored stare decisis, that's all.

On edit:
That is the exact, polar opposite of what I'm saying. It could not be further from what I'm saying. It is not what I'm saying. No.
I simply pointed out that you criticized this SCOTUS for ignoring stare decisis and subsequently cited a case that did so as well. I believe stare decisis has been used as an excuse by the SCOTUS not to overturn past decisions that were wrongly decided. It is painfully obvious that forcing children to go to separate and unequal schools on the basis of race was and is incredibly unConstitutional. That said, Brown v. Board, was, quite obviously, a good ruling on the SCOTUS' part and nothing that I have ever said will indicate otherwise.
I won't respond to this hyperbolic nonsense, as it was made under the assumption that I disagreed with the ruling made by the SCOTUS regarding Brown. Since that is not true, this commentary does not apply.

Although drinking with Robert Bork would be interesting.

CP

I do not believe we are doing children any good by coercing them into going to schools that they do not want to go to. "You are black so you go here and you are white so you go here" is an unconstitutional policy, even if it achieves some positive purpose.



Race is an obvious factor, but it shouldnt be the sole factor.



It was the forced government segregation that was unequal. Forced government integration is equally unequal.



Two wrongs do not make a right. Cultural problems are certainly deeply rooted in this country, but lets not think that government is the remedy for those ills.

Man, I don't care if you are Barack Obama in disguise. My original comment stands: "Your laissez-faire approach to integration takes absolutely no account of the deep-seated cultural issues between "mainstream" and Black America."



But, but, but in real life it IS a sole factor... look at two communities with relatively similar economic situations, but different races... typically you will see higher crime rates, more out of wedlock children born in the Black communities. Everyone with a TV and a local news channel knows this... It's just the way America is. Its complex and like I said, your laissez faire solution doesn't address those other cultural factors I mentioned earlier. School admission boards didn't create that situation, and I don't even think they are encouraging it. I do think, however, they can help remedy the situation by offering Black and White students to learn more about themselves by learning more about each other.


Are you serious? How is forced integration equally unequal than segregation -- equality isn't about how many miles you drive to get to school, its about the quality of the school you attend. If you think that its unconstitutional for the government to order your students to one school, rather than an other, then what do you think of districting?

Just because some councilman built a school close to you, doesn't make it any more yours than the next tax-payer's.



What a Blanket statement.

No, let's think that the government is often a useful tool, and often is not a useful tool. The great thing about government is, if its not being useful, you can vote it out.

Under the hypothetical you have created, the cultural problems that exist (more crime, out of wedlock births) is hardly a job of government to remedy. Cultural problems can only be fixed by members of that culture and any attempt to "fix" the culture to suit my or your desires would end in disaster. The idea of creating diversity is a lofty one, but it shouldnt be at the expense of other principles.



The right to equal protection sits right beside one's freedom to assembly. Telling me that I should go one place because I am white and that student should go somewhere else because he is black is wrong. It doesn't matter if you think that the ends justify the means.



Government is not a useful tool, it is a blunt instrument that is often weilded by by those who wish to use that power to mold society to their own selfish interests. You think that sometimes the ends justify the means. I disagree. I do not believe that the government should be able to discriminate on the basis of race to segregate schools and I do not believe that the government should be able to discriminate on the basis of race to integrate schools. That is not a power that IT should have.

Then maybe I'm the one confused here. If Brown v. Board of Education overturned the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision by the Supreme Court that racial segregation was constituional and you agree with Brown, why are you saying now that "Forcing a child to go to another school district on the basis of race is, by definition, unequal treatment" when it is a byproduct of the decision?





What other principles are put at risk? Equal protection under the law is one of the highest principles this country stands for and racial segregation is a clear violation of that principle.



Wasn't that the argument Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund made before the SCOTUS that "separate, but equal" was an oxymoron?



So how is segregation of the races (assuming you think that 's a bad thing) overcome if the government through the judicial, legislative and executive branches do not step in to end it? It is far beyond the capacity of any single individual to bring about such a monumental change. Despite your well-established loathing for government interceding, leder there are some cases where it is the only entity that can.

Under your "don't do this, but don't do that" philosophy nothing would have been done AT ALL to end state-sponsored segregation of the races and to this day places like would probably be a "Whites Only" area.

Equal protection is one of the principles I was talking about. Diversity is not a right, it is a goal. It is something that I have absolutely no problem with as long as it occurs along constitutional lines. But just because it is a good ideal to strive for, doesn't mean that other things, such as the constitution, should not apply.



So we are in agreement or disagreement on that statement? I don't think that the government should be discriminating on the basis of race even if the end result is perceived to be positive.



The government cannot end its existence in the minds of people, it can and should only end its existence in the eyes of the law. On these boards we decry the government for their various crusades such as the War on Poverty, the War on Drugs, or the War on Terror. Well, the War on Racism belongs with those crusades. The goals may be noble, but the result is that the government cannot bring about the social change we desire. It can only ensure that people are treated equally under the law.



This is perhaps the worse of rhetorical devices you could use nighttimer, and I surely do not expect it from you. It is flat-out ridiculous to suggest that my beliefs would somehow support a segregated society. It was the government who messed up in the first place and failed to protect the rights of individuals. It was government supported slavery and then government supported segregation that perpetuated the racism. Under my "don't do this, don't do that" philosophy, as you so eloquently put it, the government would not allow slavery and not allow people to be treated differently under the law. Proponents of freedom, like I, Conservpat, and others, do not believe that it is the government's job to make decisions based on race because we saw how well that worked out for the first 150 years.

Here's the critical legal issue, to say nothing of the moral conundrum.

Evidently four member of the supreme court agree with me that busing to achieve integration is not a denial of protection under the law. The problem in segregation was not forced seperation alone but the inequality it caused.

Does integration cause unequal schools? ...or unequal quality of life?

Good. Let me go patch up my levy, integrate my school system, and collect my garbage. I've been on here enough today. You and me are living in two different countries, and that's alright man. do what you do.

Questions for Debate:

1) Do you agree with the courts decision that race shouldn't be the sole consideration in school assignment plans? Why or why not?
I wasn't aware that race was the sole criteria in assignment plans but putting that aside clearly it was a determinative factor in certain cases. I happen to think that local authorities should be able to use race to achieve racial and ethnic classroom diversity if they so choose and whether I agree or not with their particular decisions. It doesn't violate Brown or the equal protection clause because no group advantage is encompassed in carrying out the school assignments. Knowing that members of all races are treated the same assures that.

2) Will this decision threaten the attainment of diversity in primary education as was advocated in Brown? Is such a goal even relevant today?
Edit. I misread the question so I'm revising my answer. It might threaten it but that's not the point. It is for the local community to decide how to handle the issue of diversity as long as they are operating within constitutional parameters.

Well the goal is always relevant. If the question is is it presently necessary to be pro-active in using racial criteria to achieve that goal, I would say lets leave it up to the local authorities. I wish the Supreme Court had been less inclined to butt in and take away the local communities right to work out these matters.

3) Is there an alternative to creating diversity in schools besides the approach these districts were taking?
No doubt many, but it is not really the business of the highest court to impose their notion of what the mix of approaches will be as long as the constitution is not being clearly violated. In my opinion in these school district diversity assignment cases the constitution was not being violated.

The majority legislated to promote an ideological agenda. Maybe they should quit their jobs and run for school board or city council if that's what they want to do.

Because at that point, the very reason for segregation was a gov't sanctioned separation of the races. If I'm the government and I keep two groups of people a part, simply putting them back together is very different than the government NOT holding them apart and THEN forcing the two races back together.

But, again, as I've said, I disagree with the very premise of government-run education.

CP

So are you implying in your second sentence that diversity insofar as the schools are concerns are not occurring across Constitutional lines, because that seems to be the gist of your argument?



And therein lies the dilemma, leder. The government--local, state and national--DID discriminate against Blacks based upon their race. It's a little late to say now, "Well, it sucks that you guys got the shaft then, but doing anything about it now would only create a hardship for us." If you don't agree with the "all deliberate speed" remedy of ending segregation The Supreme Court put forth in 1954, then what is your solution because I don't see where you're offering an alternative to government stepping in to force an end to state-sponsored segregation in education.



Agreed that no government can end the existence of racism in the minds of the people, nor should it even try. Agreed that the government should end racism's existence in the eyes of the law (though that hasn't happened yet). However, I disagree that there has EVER been a "War on Racism." The Civil Rights Era probably exacerbated racism in some hearts and minds as much as it eliminated it in others. That doesn't mean it wasn't a noble and worthy cause just the same.

Most of these so-called "Wars on Fill in the Blank" are phony wars. Poverty still exists. Drugs still flow into America and there is still the lingering threat of terror (as today's events in London remind us). You can no more win a war against an abstract concept like "terror" than you can win a war against earthquakes. It also helps if the powers that be want to really "win" the wars they declare.

Government alone cannot bring about social change, but it can help facilitate it whether through The Great Society, enterprise zones, small business loans and other programs that provide a way out of dependency. The free marketplace either hasn't done it, won't do it, can't do it or isn't interested in doing in because there's no profit motive available. Stepping into the breach when the private sector won't is where the government provides a safety net for those among us not blessed with a 401K, stock options and a gold AmEx.



Don't presume you've cornered the "proponents of freedom" franchise, leder. I'm not saying it's all up to Big Daddy Government to right all the wrongs of days gone by. However, I don't live in this utopia where "the government would not allow slavery and not allow people to be treated differently under the law." That's you talking about how the world could be. I'm talking about how the world IS.

In the world outside your door people ARE treated differently under the law. They always have been and for the time being until discrimination and bias are bled out of the human soul it is likely to continue to be that way.

It’s not clear at this point what kind of desegregation plan could withstand court scrutiny. It’s divided not merely over how to interpret the Consitution, but over the meaning of America’s history, over where we are as a society, and over how, or whether, to pursue the goal of racial equality. Those divisions mirror divisions in society itself. Roberts and his allies argue that history doesn’t much matter: discrimination in the service of addressing a legacy of racism is impermissible. Government should not be in the business, they say, of favoring ethnic minorities, even if those minorities suffered discrimination once upon a time. Indeed, Clarence Thomas equates today’s advocates of race-conscious remedies with segregationists of the past—a view that liberals on and outside the court find outlandish.

Whatever one thinks of the efficacy of desegregation, it seems clear that the level of integration declines when the state abandons desegregation efforts. An amicus brief filed by 553 social scientists noted that “school districts that have eliminated race as a consideration in student assignment policies have experienced resegregation.” Gary Orfield, codirector of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA, tells NEWSWEEK that the result of resegregation is far from race-neutral. “Blacks and Latinos end up in neighborhood schools that are inferior, with fewer curriculum choices, lower graduation rates and less experienced teachers,” he says. Based on his research, Orfield has no doubt that Louisville’s school system will end up more segregated—and that black students will pay a price—when the desegregation program ends.

Those who believe racial classification is evil are unimpressed with such research. They argue that desegregation is not a panacea for minority students; better ways can be found to help them, they say. Ward Connerly, who led successful efforts to abolish government affirmative action in California, Washington state and Michigan, tells NEWSWEEK he was pleased with the court’s position. “This decision keeps moving us inexorably in the direction of purging race out of the body politic,” he says. “While a victory for our side, it is not a total victory in my view.” A total victory, as he sees it, eliminates race from government altogether. It removes the option of the state ever using the rationale of a “compelling interest” to treat members of one race differently.

Thurgood Marshall, who headed the NAACP’s legal division at the time of Brown, had no idea Americans still would be arguing over desegregation more than half a century after his Supreme Court victory. At the time, giddy with excitement, Marshall predicted that America’s schools would be totally integrated in five years. Marshall, who, of course, went on to become a Supreme Court justice, lived long enough to eat his words. He became a staunch advocate for the policies that the Roberts court may end. If it does, will it also end the dream of equality for inner-city blacks, and a growing underclass of Latinos, who seem trapped in the underbelly of American society? Not necessarily, says Connerly, who argues that the solution lies not in busing a handful of blacks to majority-white schools, but in “improving the quality of neighborhood schools” for poor minorities.

Perhaps he has a point; but most of those fighting to end what they see as discrimination by the state don’t seem that interested in battling to increase educational opportunities for those marginalized—at least in part—because of ethnicity and race. Their job will be done, they seem to feel, when they have eliminated any acknowledgment of race from the public sphere. There is a possibility they will succeed—and one day wake up to find that they have increased the very racial divisions they had hoped to erase. Ellis Cose (emphasis added)

School desegregation and increasing racial diversity in America is by no means dead, but this week its opponents severely wounded it. Creating a colorblind society does not mean being blind to how color divides us.

It's little more complicated than that.

There was a combination of government, private business, and vigilante action that held segregation together.

In any case as I said before the seperation was struck down because of the inherent inequality it caused.

Forced integration causes no such inequality and is therefore not a violation of the 14th Amendment.

Turnea, that is why I used the term "government sanctioned". I understand racism was a societal issue that spread far beyond government, my point was that government enabled segregation and used force to maintain it.

Now, would you call the assigning of schools to children based on race equal treatment under the law? If a school "needs a black kid" and I'm a white kid in a neighboring district, will I get treated in the same manner as a black kid in my same town? No. The hypothetical black kid could be forced to attend another school because he is black whereas I am safe from this government action because I am white. That is unequal treatment under the law, plain and simple.

CP

To be forced to attend a certain school is not in and of itself a violation of equal protection. The very concept of districting is "forcing" a student to attend a certain school. Because this cause no innate harm I would argue it does not qualify as "failure to protect."

No it isn't. Being forced to attend a certain school because of your race, however, is. That is my point, the government forces students to attend certain schools based on the race of students, that inherently requires the government to treat races unequally.

CP

The key is protection in my view.

Whereas putting a halt to segregation protected student, putting a halt to integration protects who again?

...and from what?

That is an interesting interpretation of "equal protection". When I read "equal protection of the laws" I see "the laws apply equally to all". In the case of this policy, that is not the case. This law, as I've said, does not apply to all equally. But, if you don't read the "equal protection" clause as I do, then I would say, that the "protection" in this case is "protection" from government force. The government has the legal authority, under this law/program to FORCE a child based on race to go to a school of the government's choosing, if you are not of that child's race, you are immune to that force.

CP

I am implying that the SCOTUS ruled on the issue and found it to be wrong.


You are right, there was a lot of discrimination occurring and it was because of laws that government allowed when the 14th Amendment was wrongly interpreted in Plessy. My solution is to end all government discrimination, positive or negative. There has to be a differentiation between an individual person discriminating against another and the government discriminating against another. They are not the same thing. The state is supposed to be neutral and blind to ALL social factors. It should not be allowed to make decisions based on those factors because just as easily as they can make "positive" decisions, they can make "negative" ones.



nighttimer, I agree with everything here except the last sentence. There is zero proof that the government will do any better at facilitating this social change than if they did nothing at all. The Civil Rights movement occurred not because of government action but because the people saw an injustice and pushed for that change. I do not believe that the government should discriminate on the basis of race, good or bad.



Thats how the world IS because race was/is considered an important factor in law. We should not be separated by any social factor by the government because that inevitably leads to discrimination.




So we have laws on the books that are supposed to treat everyone equally but they fail to do so, so we pass new laws to make sure that the old laws that were already passed actually do what the law said originally? The point: the laws are there, people MUST be treated equally. Thats all that the government can do and should do. Then it is up to us, society to make that work.

Hey lederuvdapac, do me a favor will ya? When you're old enough have whomever the current President of the United States is to put your name up for nomination to The Supreme Court. I don't know if you're majoring in law or not, but that isn't always the most predominant prerequisite to sit on the highest court in the land.

An appointment to The Supreme Court has long been looked upon as akin to being called up to the major leagues for a jurist. However, according to a scribe on the SCOTUS blog, twas not always so:

Is it possible that the current Court’s rather marked willingness to find constitutional limits on the authority of the Legislative Branch – striking down federal statutes at an unprecedented rate (and limiting State authority as well) – results in part from the fact that no Justice has actual legislative experience? Is Monday’s adoption of a more academic approach to assessing the constitutionality of campaign finance regulation attributable to the absence from the Court of anyone who actually has significant campaign experience? Is it possible that the absence from the Court of any Justice with substantial experience as a government official responsible for resolving contentious public policy issues produces a willingness to announce broad principles disconnected from the realities of government decisionmaking?

My point is not that Justices should be selected on a quota system – so many former legislators, so many former executive branch officials, etc. And it is not to criticize any current Justice. Rather, it is to direct attention to the fact that the current selection process has produced unusual uniformity – experience as judges, in legal academia, in legal policy (for example, the Solicitor General’s office and the Office of Legal Counsel).

If judging were a technical exercise – after inputting the relevant data only one answer could come out – then this would not matter. But judging is not a technical exercise. Judges’ experiences plainly influence their decisions. We therefore should be very worried that the selection process’s undue emphasis on judicial and academic experience is skewing the Court’s decisionmaking in manner unprecedented in the Court’s history – and creating consequences that we will be living with for decades to come. link

Let me put forth a proposal to you and ConservPat: if we are to follow the advice Chief Justice Robert and end racial discrimination by not discriminating by race, we can assume as the Court is currently composed along with school desegregation programs, affirmative action will be next on the hot seat.

What about changing these programs so they are no longer based on race, but instead on income? Unless you totally discount the need for programs to increase diversity and access in the schools and workplace, if race were removed as a consideration and instead the income of an applicant were considered wouldn't that be a fairer process and open up opportunities for poor Whites who do need a helping hand instead of middle-class Blacks that don't?

But the news is not all bad for those of us who share the four liberal justices' sense that more racial integration would give many students better educations and foster interracial understanding and social cohesion.

There is another—perhaps better—way to pursue these goals, one that also happens to be legally unassailable. This is to take account of students' socioeconomic status in making school assignments and to give underprivileged students—who are disproportionately black or Hispanic—the opportunity to attend middle-class schools.

Some 40 school districts with about 2.5 million students, including Wake County, N.C. (Raleigh and suburbs), and San Francisco, already have such class-based programs. In Wake County, the school board replaced a long-established racial desegregation program in 2000 with one designed to keep the number of students eligible for subsidized lunches below 40 percent and the number who are not performing at grade level below 25 percent at every school.

Such socioeconomic integration is actually more effective than pure racial balancing at improving the academic performance of poor children of all races, studies show. Stuart Taylor

If race is the Third Rail of American politics (and a proven thread-killer on ), then class is the unmentioned elephant in the room. If I am reading correctly the perspective of most of the posters in this thread, it isn't that diversity has been abandoned as a goal as much as it is that the current practice of integration as it currently exists is a polarizing factor.

How do we meet in the middle between the unpopular approach of forcibly integrating the races or discarding any pretense of trying to relieve the racial divisions and inequities of state-sanctioned and sponsored segregation?

yes and a lot of people have supported this idea, and supported the supreme court's ruling.


My response: "the way to stop discriminating on the basis of class is to stop discriminating on the basis of class."

phew, I just read the Roberts Ruling and the Breyer dissent and boy are my eyes opened.

I believe I deferred to the description of my fried Doc in the opening post of the thread. In asking whether race should be the sole consideration in school assignment plans I felt the ruling must be reasonably limited in a way that violating schools could reformulate and make even better plans as has been possible in the past such as the Bakke decision and the recent Michigan decision. However after reading the decisions I believe Roberts should have issue a one paragraph decision, because after all of his arguments about why these systems don't meet recently established tests, he waits after all of that to drop his real bombshell, that he doesn't believe race should be used as a criteria at all in school assignments. And he does this, perversely, by using the arguments against segregation laid out by Marshall before the court in the Brown decision.

To me the heart of the matter is whether there is a compelling government interest in preventing segregation in schools. I think there is and I think a competent attorney could meet this standard before the court (although he probably wouldn't be recognized for doing so by this court). If diversity is a recognized interest allowed by the court, than how can part of that not be to measure for racial diversity? How can a school not argue as was recognized by the court in the Swann decision, that to prepare students for a pluralistic society it is in their best interest to attend a pluralistic school?

No I fear this decision is an atom bomb that rolls us straight back to the 1890s where separate but equal could be argued even despite the obvious evidence to the contrary and that attempts to protect equality and opportunity like the 14th Amendment and the Sherman Anti-trust act were used to allow segregation and prohibit unions.

Holy yikes, and I would love to be disabused of these fears.


1) Do you agree with the courts decision that race shouldn't be the sole consideration in school assignment plans? Why or why not?
I don't agree with the assertion that this decision says race shouldn't be the sole consideration. I believe that in all practicality this decision has so limited the ability to consider race (and if you are trying to desegregate or fight of segregation trends what other considerations could you possibly use) that it cannot under this decision be constituionally used. Roberts asserted the courts have recognized only two tests. One is active legal discrimination. (So if Louisville was really committed to its plan it could pass some Jim Crow laws so the courts would have to reorder Louisville to comply with Brown) The other is an acknowledged value of diversity in higher education. (Sorry no colleges in primary and secondary ed.)

Yet the Brown decision is 50 years old and the enforcement of Brown was left to the courts especially after the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Compliance with Brown was a long worked out system that lasted in many places (including the last to places I have lived and in Louisville) beyond at least the forty year anniversary of the decision. As Breyer points out, many many remedies have been allowed and used by the courts that consider race as a factor. In fact Roberts language even threatens to make the census and the No Child Left Behind Act (along with a myriad of other aspects of how our government operates) unconstitutional.

To make a pithy comment, Roberts relied on legal precedence in this case about as effectively and in as balanced a manner as the Bush administration's Office of Special Plans used the prewar intelligence on Iraq.

Roberts asserts that Louisville's plan is not constitutional even though it was implemented, with one later revision, while the district was still under court authority because it failed to meet the standards of Brown. Because of this very plan that is being ruled unconstitutional, it was released from that court oversight in 1999 with a job well done and beyond assessment. The system was successfully challenged after that because it included the districts exclusive and unique magnet school. Because of the exclusivity of the magnet school it was deemed a violation of the 14th amendment to use race based criteria for admissions. The Louisville board responded by amending its existing program to exclude race based criteria for the magnet school. Roberts disengenously has characterized that amendment as the implementation of a new plan in Louisville after the district was declared in compliance with the court orders. He even then asserted that “Once Jefferson County achieved unitary status, it had remedied the constitutional wrong that allowed race-based assignments. Any continued use of race must be justified on some other basis.” Now the plan implemented under court order and amended under court order defies the constitution. It boggles the mind and must undermine about 100 existing enrollment plans.


Seattle has never been found guilty of legislated legal segregation, but it has a long history of having the constitutionality of its enrollment patterns challenged because they in fact encouraged segregation. Here to, Roberts dismisses the circumstances of the Seattle district with a simplistic point that they have never been found in violation of de jure segregation laws. However complaints have been lodged against transfer policies that contributed to a highly segregated school system. The NAACP filed a law suit against the school district which it resolved through negotiation to comply with existing federal standards. It has since been in a form of voluntary compliance with existing federal law in maintaining a minimum standard of integration in its schools. The district has followed federal court guidelines from bussing to more open choice programs. Yet Roberts dismisses the district's desegregation plan glibly as if it came out of nowhere with no established history of segregation.



2) Will this decision threaten the attainment of diversity in primary education as was advocated in Brown? Is such a goal even relevant today?

I agree that Marshall's sentiment in arguing in Brown that separate can never mean equal was a type of call for diversity but it was indirect. I interpret his meaning to express the point that if you tell a group pf people that they are not fit company for the first class citizens of the community they can never feel equal. I think the Swann decision's statement about seeing how a school could argue that a pluralistic environment is essential for preparing students to excel in a pluralistic world could be a compelling interest for pursuing diversity in education. I still believe it is as long as the system takes great care to minimize the impact on anyone displaced by the policies.

We are a more diverse society today so I believe that diversity is more important today than ever. It is only in the homogeneous environments I have been in that the worst and most ignorant stereotypes can be offered as fact.


3) Is there an alternative to creating diversity in schools besides the approach these districts were taking?

If a school system has decreed that establishing diversity in general or fending off segregation in general is a genuine enhancement to education then it should be able to do so. When and if race is a criteria for creating balance among similar schools then the only sane way to achieve that it to use race as a consideration in enrollment. I believe that most systems could be tweaked and preferences could be adjusted to provide a more just system, but as previous posters have noted, racial segregation is not a long distant past and its continuing nuances and practices seem proof enough the finding a way to create a more "inclusive" environment in all schools can be argued as a compelling government interest.

As Justice Breyer argues, ignoring the context of the system entirely and not showing any consideration for the inclusive nature of the racial criteria being debated while contrasting that to the real more "pernicious" concept of using overt and subtle practices to exclude students from certain groups. Context is not everything, but it should not be dismissed as nothing.


I believe this may be the most important Supreme Court ruling since 1973. I believe the social conservatives have won the activist and biased court they have been seeking.

This is becoming a pretty broad debate, but I like that and I think that's exactly what these issues are supposed to spur.



Come on, give me a little more credit. To this I would reply that your MEANS justify your ENDS. In other words, you don't so much care if any century or plus of African-Americans are born into Ghetto hell, replete miserable districted schools, so long as your means -- utter government non-intervention into social, cultural matters -- is upheld. These ar means, I might add, that most people living in cities disagree with, basing this one the democratic leanings of urban areas. And it would be one thing if you said, 'not in my backyard,' fine... different strokes for different states. But this is a ruling that impacts all of America, even areas where people's relationship with the government is more developed and amicable. To me that's a former of ignorance and light-handed culture repression, just as it would be for me to ask that all schools in the middle of Montana comply with diversity orders that have no regard for the lack of diversity in Montana. Let tax-payers in Louisville pursue government programs that they think are in the their interest... and if they aren't, they can vote them out! If you don't like it, we have 50 states and hundreds of ways to live life in this country.

In my case, I am taking the more moderate appraoch. And whenever we get into questions of justifying means with ends or ends with means, then moderation has its obvious perks.

If I was totally justifying the end with the means, then I'd be promoting some kind of state-sponsored trail-of-tears like forcible mogration of white populations into black and vice-versa to counter-act white flight, racism and race-based poverty forever. But obviously I'm not. I'm just asking that schools be given the chance to maintain a basic, flexible level of diversity both for the benefit of the student population, and for the community at large. I ask that they be given this right to acheive some kind of basic equality of education standards from school-to-school.

Putting aside the issue for whether this is a constitional program or not -- studied, intelligent supreme court justices can disagree on that, it seems -- what is your opposition to this based upon? The fact that you think everybody should follow your no-state-involvement procedure on every issue you think it should apply to?

Can't the tax-paying, voting residents of whatever district decide whether racial quotas help or hurt the education of their children?

I mean race is a fairly place-specific facet of life. What might work in Seatle might tank in Birmingham, what might work in Atlanta, might just be unecessary in New York. So why can't this be an issue for the people in that area?

Now, potentially, such a resolution might not pass... opposition to desegregation is still strong and thriving in the South, no matter what anyone here says about brown v. board no longer being 'relevant.' Those persons have obviously never tried to get service in an Macon,. Georgia diner, and they've certainly never been pulled over by a Georgia Highway patrolman with multiple young Black men in their car, God help them if they do. By why can't you respect the right of another American to acheive a relationship with his or her local government as he or she seems fit? Seriously, have I ever on this board asked that diversity programs be applied universally across America?

I know that's slightly different from mandatory integration, ordered by Brown V. Board, which got mixed (important word mixed, not bad) reviews nationwide. And frankly, I stand by the mandatory integration order by Brown V. Board. But what I am saying is that your no-state idealism constitutes a form of activism in and of itself, and for many schools in urban districts, this ruling will represent the most heinous, problematic form of government intervention.

Talk about a strawman. My ends are freedom, constitutionality, and the rule of law. The means to those ends require that the government be restricted to the duties laid out in the constitution. Just because I have a different idea about how to deal with an issue, doesn't mean I do not care and to suggest otherwise is fallacious.



I have no problem with the democratic decisions of a community as long as they adhere to the Constitution.



In my experiences, supporting the Constitution is the moderate approach.



You don't have to take the utmost extreme program in order be justifying your ends. I do not have a problem with diversity as a goal in schools as long as it doesn't violate anyone's rights. Making race the sole factor in determining where one goes is a violation of rights whether or not the end result has a positive impact.



Aside from your yearning for diversity and equality in education, why do you support the program? You cant undercut my main argument and push it aside, looking for some other reason. Constitutionality is the most important point on this