Yesterday USA Today (or should that be USA Yesterday?) ran an editorial about the Supremes’ decision to consider racial school assignments, which I discussed here. The lede was quite revealing, and disappointing:
A half century after federal troops forced white schools in Little Rock, Ark., to accept black children, setting off a wave of forced integration across the South, a plan to make different races attend school together can still spark a fight.
The fight is no longer violent, of course — a measure of how far we have come — but its persistence shows how vast the gulf between the races remains.
This misunderstanding of Brown v. Board of Education is as pervasive as it is disturbing. Brown, properly understood, did not require “integration,” whether forced or otherwise. It required schools to stop discriminating based on race. The mistaken idea that it required integration, “forced” if necessary, is what led to the disaster of cross-district busing to achieve “racial balance.”
The editorial also commits some unintentional humor, which itself is revealing of the mindset that favors “forced” integration. Thus the editors align themselves with the
school leaders, who say these “voluntary integration” plans — carried out absent court orders — are essential to bringing diversity to their school systems.
Voluntary? Well, yes — for the “school leaders.” But not for the students who are denied their choice of school based not because of where they live or some other neutral ground but because of their race.
To their credit, the USA Today editors paired their own editorial with an opposing one from Sharon Browne, “It’s Discrimination. It’s Wrong.” Sharon is an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, which filed briefs opposing racial assignments in both the Seattle and Louisville cases the Court will consider. Both PLF and Sharon are no strangers to litigation involving race-based school transfers (see my discussions here, here, here).
Contrast her lede to the USA Today’s own editorial praise for “forced integration”:
When Crystal Meredith of Louisville tried to enroll her young son in Bloom Elementary School, she was told he couldn’t transfer out of Young Elementary, the school where he was already assigned.
Why? Not because of his grades or interests. It was because he is white. As a federal district court later recounted the facts, he “was denied admittance because his transfer to Bloom would have had an adverse effect on Young’s racial composition.”
Did this happen in 1950, when students were routinely barred from certain schools on grounds of skin color? No, it was 2002. Called “managed choice,” the race-based policy is the district’s attempt to achieve the so-called “right” racial balance of students, ensuring that schools have at least 15% African-American students and no more than 50% African-American students.
I have discussed several times, such as here and here, how “diversity” inexorably leads to holding some young students “hostages to diversity.”
Let’s hope that the Supremes will free these hostages in their decision regarding the Seattle and Louisville school systems.
“Brown, properly understood, did not require “integration,” whether forced or otherwise. ”
Wasnt integration de-facto required when you had segregated school systems that must now treat students equally? It certainly was perceived as forced integration by the people railing against undemocratic judges.
It is certainly true that many people came to believe that Brown required integration rather than the end of state-imposed segregation. That’s what led, for example, to the travesty of cross-town busing based on race-based student assignments. That’s why I said “Brown, properly understood.”
“That’s why I said “Brown, properly understood.”
Properly understood it gave courts broad equitable powers to achieve race blindness. In many places, this means integration.
Properly understood it gave courts broad equitable powers to achieve race blindness. In many places, this means integration.
Yes indeed. What, “properly understood,” it did NOT do is empower courts to compel school districts to abandon “race blindness” and assign students by race in order to achieve a proper (according to the court) mix.
“Managed choice” doesn’t sound like much of a choice, does it?
And doesn’t a minimum of 15% sound awfully close to a quota (which we all know is not what AA is about).
Finally, what will be the outcry, if a brilliant black student wants to attend a top-notch school with exce3llent advanced placement classes but is prevented because they have reached the 50% cap?
This plan seems flawed in so many ways.
Pre-Brown: You’re a black kid, so you can’t go to the white school.
Post-Brown: You’re a white kid, so you can’t go to the white school.
Remember — Brown was all about letting kids go to the nearest school, regardless of their race. That is desegregation.
Later cases were about achieving racial balance and the proper racial mixture, even if that meant taking or keeping kids out of the nearest school. That is integration.
“Yes indeed. What, “properly understood,” it did NOT do is empower courts to compel school districts to abandon “race blindness” and assign students by race in order to achieve a proper (according to the court) mix.”
It said courts have broad equitable powers. Which would include busing in the face of recalcitrant inequity.
“It said courts have broad equitable powers. Which would include busing in the face of recalcitrant inequity.”
So should the courts forcibly integrate black schools against their wills?
“So should the courts forcibly integrate black schools against their wills?”
I would say that brown gave them that power.
“I would say that brown gave them that power.”
That’s not what I asked.
If schools with majority white populations are forced to intergrate, should majority black schools be too? If not, what “diversity” logic justifies the unequal treatment of the two races?
“If schools with majority white populations are forced to intergrate, should majority black schools be too?”
That sounds logical.
“If not, what “diversity” logic justifies the unequal treatment of the two races?”
The only logic that would make sense would be if no-one is bussed to an underperforming school, and you’re only bussed to a better school.
It said courts have broad equitable powers. Which would include busing in the face of recalcitrant inequity.
But that’s wrong. Courts do have broad equitable powers — but equitable powers can only be invoked to remedy wrongs.
Schools that do not have the proper racial mix simply isn’t a wrong. Discrimination is the wrong that Brown was aimed at, and the only one courts are empowered to remedy.
“Schools that do not have the proper racial mix simply isn’t a wrong. Discrimination is the wrong that Brown was aimed at, and the only one courts are empowered to remedy.”
Courts have broad equitable powers to remedy discrimination. If they find discrimination in that the black schools aren’t getting treated as well as the white ones, go ahead and bus.
Courts have broad equitable powers to remedy discrimination.
Yes, but they don’t, or should not, have the power to correct every “imbalance” they run across, especially since the “imbalance” is not caused by discrimination (otherwise they wouldn’t need to rely on their equitable powerss to correct it) and the “correction” itself employes discrimination based on race.