Unlike in the early days of the civil rights movement, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund supports racial classifications.
General Counsel Ted Shaw was quoted as saying the following with regard to the Bush Administration’s briefs opposing racial classification in the assigning of school students:
“The government has taken a position which essentially supports the notion that it is illegal to consciously do something that is aimed at reducing racial segregation or inequality. That’s a terrible position for the government to take,” he said
Well, yes. Shaw is not entirely wrong. The government has taken a position that it is illegal to do “something” that is intended to promote a racial balance in schools that the Seattle and Louisville school boards regards as more just than the balance would be in the absence of assigning students by race. This, of course, is not aimed at reducing “segregation,” since neither the Seattle nor Louisville schools are segregated.
I assume Shaw doesn’t believe that anything that is intended to “reduce racial segregation or inequality” would be legitimate. For example, I assume he would oppose excluding whites from schools altogether in order to promote a more equitable racial balance among the remaining students. But if that’s true, if some things to promote equality are not allowed, then it is not enough to criticize the administration for opposing “something.” It is necessary to come up with an affirmative defense of what is being criticized, namely, assigning students on the basis of race.
After a long and painful experiment with racial assignments, then called busing, the nation reached a widely shared consensus that classifying and assigning students by race was either wrong or counter-productive, or both.
It’s unfortunate that the NAACP-LDF wants to continue that justly discredited practice.
