I’ve recently discussed (here and here) the Supremes recent decision to revisit, via cases from Seattle and Louisville, the issue of racial student assignments it had refused to consider, in a case from Lynn, Mass., just before Justice O’Connor left the Court. (I discussed that refusal here.)
Now the Supremes have refused to reconsider their refusal to consider an appeal from the Lynn plaintiffs, parents of six students held hostage in their neighborhood school because of their race. Because the issue itself will be taken up in the Seattle and Louisville cases, however, this last refusal may not be very significant. “We’ll see what the outcome is in the other two cases,” the plaintiff’s lawyer said. “I’m confident the situation will be resolved and that practice will be stopped over there (in Lynn).”
I hope he’s right. He was certainly right when he also said:
What troubles me so much is they’re institutionalizing the definition of children by their color…. You don’t define people by their color, and that’s what this system does. It’s not benign at all. It’s not an innocent approach to diversity at all.
The Lynn school district seems to me to raise an interesting question. Consider:
Unlike the court-ordered busing used to desegregate Boston’s public schools in the 1970s, Lynn’s policy was adopted in 1989 to comply with the state’s voluntary racial imbalance law, which asks districts to desegregate schools with a minority population of more than 50 percent.
Supporters argued that if the plan were thrown out, Lynn’s schools would quickly become segregated. The district has 15,000 students, 62 percent of which are minorities.
So, if each school in the Lynn school district were socially engineered to embody the new liberal dream, i.e., if each one were a perfect microcosm of the district’s racial and ethnic demography, would each one, with its 62% minority enrollment, be out of compliance with what the state “asks”?
I wonder, does the state ask politely? Does it command? Does it merely suggest? Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see how Lynn could possibly comply with this “voluntary racial imbalance law.” (Law? Laws usually require, not ask.)
And, of course, nothing about what this “law” “asks” is “voluntary” to the students held hostage because of their race.
ADDENDUM
Does the following strike anyone else as ironical?
Liberal electoral district: a racially gerrymandered “majority/minority” district made up of minorities who have been siphoned off from surrounding districts.
Liberal school district: a district where students are assigned to schools on the basis of their race in order to prevent minority students from being a majority in any school.
If I remember correctly, majority-minority districts were a collaborative effort between Black office holders and cynical Republicans. The consequence is that there are more Black representatives and more Republican representatives.
This doesn’t mean that Democrats haven’t been placed in a tight spot on this. The could probably pick up more seats by diluting the majority-minority districts, but they face the wrath of those who worry about losing any minority seats.
I believe there is a previous post on this, discussing various suits demanding redistricting for the purpose of getting just the right size minority majority to make winning the district certain while diluting the more white districts enough to elect Democrats as well.
Mike is absolutely right about this. Indeed, the cynicism and hypocrisy of the Republicans is matched only by the hypocrisy and cynicism of the current Democratic position on this issue, which holds that it is racist not to pack enough blacks into a district to elect a Democrat but also that it is racist to pack one more black than is necessary.
I’ve posted about this issue too many times to cite all, but a few good ones are here, here, here, here, and here.
[…] school board that I have done so on more than one occasion — most recently here; earlier here and here.) Sometimes, however, simple description is more effective than attempts at parody (at least my […]