High Court Limits Race In School Choice

5-4 Decision Will Affect How Race Is Used To Assign Students To Public Schools

(CBS/AP)  The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected integration plans in two major public school districts but left the door open for using race to assign students in limited circumstances.

The decision in cases affecting schools in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle could imperil similar plans in hundreds of districts nationwide, and it further restricts how public school systems may attain racial diversity.

The court split, 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts announcing the court's judgment. The court's four liberal justices dissented.

In his ruling, Roberts took aim at the way Seattle assigns students to schools after classifying them as "white" or "non white" and the way Louisville labels students as "black" or "other," reports CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews .

"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race," Roberts said.

Yet Justice Anthony Kennedy would not go as far as the other four conservative justices, saying in a concurring opinion that race may be a component of school plans designed to achieve diversity.

To the extent that Roberts' opinion could be interpreted to foreclose the use of race in any circumstance, Kennedy said, "I disagree with that reasoning."

"A district may consider it a compelling interest to achieve a diverse student population," Kennedy said. "Race may be one component of that diversity."

He agreed with Roberts that the plans in Louisville and Seattle violated constitutional guarantees of equal protection.

"These plans in these districts are finished, but Justice Kennedy may have saved slightly different plans in other school districts around the country because in his concurring opinion he says you can't always and forever rule out the use of race as a factor," CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen says.

"This is not the crushing blow to affirmative action in public schools that it initially appears to be," Cohen says.

Justice Stephen Breyer, in a dissent joined by the other liberals on the court, said Roberts' opinion undermined the promise of integrated schools that the court laid out 53 years ago in its landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

"To invalidate the plans under review is to threaten the promise of Brown," Breyer said.

While Roberts said the court was being faithful to the Brown decision, Justice John Paul Stevens in a separate dissent called the chief justice's reliance on Brown to rule against integration "a cruel irony."

[grammawhamma]

In the late 70's I attended nursing school in a run down district of a large city because it was the only school I could afford. The teachers were good and I received a good education. The student ratio was approximatly half black and half white. All the students were nice and we made friends. A black girl I was a friend of let me in on a secret that she was not supposed to tell. The black students were given a copy of the tests with the correct answers several days in advance so they could memorize them. I was shocked...I kept my mouth shut because I didn't want her to get in trouble. I wonder if the same thing happened when we all went to take our state nursing boards. I don't think it was fair of the school to endorse cheating just to graduate their quota of black students. I wonder how often this happens.

[my2centss]

Posted by phow2 at 02:51 PM : Jul 01, 2007

Tell you what. You repay those enslaved by the Moors. Then America might follow your example. We could just estimate, since you had them for oh, 700 years. How much are they owed?

[phow2]

I repeat: If Caucasians want to SHARE what THEY HAVE ERRONEOUSLY BENEFITTED FROM FOR CENTURIES, then we can all SHUT UP AND MOVE ON. I repeat: Until then, African Americans will grow wiser and stronger. You cannot kill our spirit, nor our children or our hope or our courage or our wisdom. Good luck trying to accomplish the impossible!!


Every time you meet a situation, though you think at the time it is impossibility and you go through the tortures of the damned, once you have met it and lived through it, you find that forever after you are freer than you were before.
~Eleanor Roosevelt

[phow2]

Part IV:

Caucasians ONLY received the comfortable lifestyles they currently enjoy from the 400+ years of slavery and 100 years of Jim Crow laws and the CURRENT institutional slavery and racism.

So if we are discussing entitlement discuss Caucasians since Caucasians are the only group I see benefiting wholesale and in record numbers from the PAST AND THE CURRENT oppressive situation.

I want to hear justification for centuries of Caucasian entitlements!

Oh wait my bad. Caucasians DESERVED all those centuries of hand-outs simply because that is what God ordained, right? You are dead wrong and anyone who thinks otherwise thinks all African Americans are dumb-*****. I realize it is hard for a common racist to believe, but some African Americans have the finest intellectual minds of our time! The days of the African American sitting by and watching Caucasians benefit VIA RACISM AND OPPRESSION while we remain silent are OVER. The days of Caucasians trying to point a finger at African Americans for wanting WHAT IS LONG OVERDUE is OVER.

[phow2]

Part III:

%u2026 Which ethnicities have a better chance of not being on death row as a %u201Cdirect result%u201D of oppressing non-Caucasians for centuries? Which ethnicities have better schools as a %u201Cdirect result%u201D of oppressing non-Caucasians for centuries? Which ethnicities have better infant mortality rates as a %u201Cdirect result%u201D of oppressing non-Caucasians for centuries? Which ethnicities have better infant mortality rates as a %u201Cdirect result%u201D of oppressing non-Caucasians for centuries? Which ethnicities have a better chance of surviving a terminal illness as a %u201Cdirect result%u201D of oppressing non-Caucasians for centuries? Which ethnicities have better neighborhoods as a %u201Cdirect result%u201D of oppressing non-Caucasians for centuries?

The truth stands as your glaring illustration %u2026

So if some mindless moron is talking about any one ETHNIC GROUP%u2019S entitlement and stupidly yapping about receiving something you have not EARNED nor DO YOU DESERVE, how about ALL Caucasian Americans share with NON-CAUCASIAN AMERICANS all the entitlements they have undoubtedly cooped AS A DIRECT RESULT OF COLONIALISM AND 400+ YEARS OF SLAVERY AND 100 YEARS OF JIM CROW LAWS AND THE EXISTING INSTUTIONAL RACISIM!!

ONLY THEN WILL I SAY, SURE, WE ARE EVEN!!!! BUT NOT ONE DAY BEFORE!!!

CAUCASIANS WERE NOT ENTITLED TO ANY OF THE VAST RICHES THEY CURRENTLY ENJOY. Yet, Caucasians dominate practically EVERY SEGMENT of economic growth.

[phow2]

Part II:

But then one day, an extreme SICKO said%u2026no, God is wrong! ONLY PALE SKIN IS BEAUTIFUL AND SUPERIOR AND SHOULD LORD OVER THE PLANET EARTH. RACISM is not God%u2019s doing. SLAVERY was not God%u2019s doing. Jim Crow laws were not God%u2019s doing. Colonialism was NOT God%u2019s doing. Institutional RACISM is NOT God%u2019s doing. The racist superiority complex of Caucasians and the racist entitlement that leads an insane mind to think ONLY pale skin should have an equal stance at living %u201Cthe good life%u201D is the workings of a VERY satanic mind-set. Thinking oneself superior based on pale skin is a severe mental illness and should be classified as mental illness in every psychiatric journal on the globe and in every language in existence.

Which ethnicities have better homes as a %u201Cdirect result%u201D of oppressing non-Caucasians for centuries? Which ethnicities have better jobs as a %u201Cdirect result%u201D of oppressing non-Caucasians for centuries? Which ethnicities have better EDUCATIONS as a %u201Cdirect result%u201D of oppressing non-Caucasians for centuries? Which ethnicities have SUPERIOR HEALTHCARE as a %u201Cdirect result%u201D of oppressing non-Caucasians for centuries? Which ethnicities have better chances of not being incarcerated as a %u201Cdirect result%u201D of oppressing non-Caucasians for centuries?

[phow2]

PART I: (As characters are limited)

I find it deplorable that Caucasians continuously say, %u201CAfrican Americans shouldn%u2019t want hand-outs or something they did not earn%u201D in reference to 400+ years of slavery and 100 years of Jim Crow laws and the current deplorable state of race relations in this country. Is that the ONLY insane, inane, absurd and mindless excuse Caucasians have against retributions and affirmative action? If it is, Caucasians really need to get over their false superiority complex and their false sense of entitlement.

Why do I say that? Simply put: Who benefited from the 400 years of slavery and 100 years of Jim Crow laws because it certainly was NOT African Americans! What God said that the best jobs and best homes and best vacations and best resorts and best of everything ELSE is only the entitlement of CAUCASIONS? No God said this. Insane Caucasians ordained this superiority nonsense. God SAID everyone (and I do mean every %u2013 one of us!) is equal and no man is better suited to lord over another human being. That is what God said. How do I know? God made various ethnicities of various and beautiful colors just as God made various fruits of various and beautiful colors and God made various vegetables of various and beautiful colors and God made various flowers of many beautiful colors and butterflies and insects%u2026 the list goes on and on and on and on.

[my2centss]

"...and give struggling inner-city schools proper funding, allow teachers, unmolested, to create the curriculum, and increase teachers pay. "

Posted by kailumego1 at 09:57 AM : Jun 30, 2007

It seems that many school districts have more than enough money. Just watch the news. They have so much in fact, that many of those in charge take it home with them and keep it in their banks. Maybe we just need more accountability, instead of letting them steal it, then wanting to raise taxes to fix it, again and again.

[kailumego1]

First:
Stop characterizing %u201Call%u201D blacks as a monolithic group of people; Europeans and white Americans has been doing so for centuries, I would have thought, as time matured so would have your reasoning and intellect.

However, your continued stupidity and ignorance only demonstrates how socially inept most of you truly are, when you "lump" all blacks into this monolithic paradigm, research history about Africa.

Africa is a continent comprised of 54 distinctly unique countries, of which the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade involved some 15 countries, and not one. Do all Europeans share the same identical cultural, language, and traditional ideologies, no?

Therefore, stop stereotyping and lumping blacks as being umbilically connected to each other, it only shows your ineptness.

[kailumego1]

Second:
Stop assuming blacks, as a monolithic group of people, whom feel white Americans owe them for past indignities. Certainly, this government does owe black Americans concessions because it was through governmental laws where disenfranchised and discriminated against blacks had been created. And when I mean concessions, I%u2019m speaking of a quality education, of which they had [have] been vehemently denied, enfranchisement, of which, again they had been vehemently denied, and the right to sovereignty, of which they had been vehemently denied.

And yes this government, including TAX DOLLARS, does owe inner-city schools the same opportunities as white public schools.

Am I speaking of all blacks, no, I%u2019m speaking for those whom seek prosperity, equal opportunities, enfranchisement, and education, they deserve the right to do so without being molested through covert-overt racism.

Those blacks that choose to remain victims are due absolutely nothing%u2026
However, those blacks that desire a better life shouldn%u2019t be demarcated by a racist system that proliferates injustices.

No children should not be forced into desegregated schools, the problem would be solved if this lazy government would get off it%u2019s a@@ and give struggling inner-city schools proper funding, allow teachers, unmolested, to create the curriculum, and increase teachers pay.

[kailumego1]

They're probably deleting certain post, because they are so insidious, ridiculous, and derogatory, in which they don't want to give certain folks the continued rope to hang themselves.

It's an embarrasment!!!

This is a form for intellectual debate not a "free-for-all" for "white raqe".

[lovegetpeace]

Folks, if you study this particular posting, there is a gap of about 6 hours between WiccanTexan at 10:40 AM : Jun 29, 2007 and xzavierbrown at 04:10 PM : Jun 29, 2007.

Someone at CBS is purging comments including 3 from me. I quit this corporate feature.

Love&Peace

[kansas1946]

Forced busing was a bad idea from the day it was concieved, has acvieved nothing, and was punitive to black American children. It is high time it ended. The money saved on the high cost of maintaining this system can be used to improve schools and hire teachers.

[xzavierbrown]

does this mean a time will come that I will be able to lead the Black Panther Army?? think of it this way..the first white man to lead an all black organization..*twinkle twinkle*

[wiccantexan]

The first American public school was authorized on January 2,1643 by the Town of Dedham in the Massachusetts Bay Colony %u2014 nearly 150 years before the establishment of the United States.

The Land Ordinance of 1785 established a mechanism for funding public education in the United States. Until at least the 1840s, however, most schools continued to be privately owned and operated[1].

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_education

[my2centss]

"so why is it that the US Constitution gives no authority to the federal government about what, when, who and/or why our kids are schooled, yet we end up with the federal government destroying our educational systems...."

Where does our Constitution guarantee schools for anyone? Seems to me that is not a right, but a privilege. Schools back in those days were community provided, and in the ,oh no, church.

[wiccantexan]

Folks save your arguments! When these illegals become citizen, which the eventually will, all of you poor folks will not have a pot to pee in or a window to throw it out of! Fact!
Posted by cryonbrian at 05:39 PM : Jun 28, 2007

The illegals issue is about ethnicity. This article is about race. Educate yourself.

[opfor311]

repentance1,

This plan to use economic groups, instead of racial groups to achieve diversity is the method that will be used in the Omaha Public Schools next year. The re-location of students is voluntary, and a student that wants to transfer to another school in the learning community (a two county area) would only be allowed to if there was an opening for him/her in the new school. Economic status would be a primary determinate of which external student would get into the desired school.

[repentance1]

opfor 311

Only one problem. Not all people of the same economic status would choose or be forced into leaving an area that might be in fact out of their "economic belonging". Therefore, it would be quite similar to this case that couldn't withstand our current Suprememe Court.

Equal funding and choice of prayers for our schools.

God created earth...give everyday thanks in the schools from those whom know Him.

[opfor311]

It appears that a better way to achieve a better balance in the Public schools is by economic class. Since not everyone in any economic catagory is of one race, such an arrangement would not violate the current Supreme Court rules, but it would ensure a more diverse population in the Public schools.

There is more difference between economic groups than there is between racial groups within an econonic group. Thus mixing the economic groups will better achieve the goals that many wish to accomplish.