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Supreme Court finally gets it right
Despite my misgivings about the current conservatives on the Supreme Court, I must say that I have never agreed more than with their latest ruling on race in America.
Earlier this week, I was put off by the Justices when they ruled in favor of the Faith Based Initiatives and against the ridiculous 'Bongs for Jesus.' But they came through all right on the this one.....
http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/06/28/scotus.race/index.html
It's not very often that I find myself in total agreement with conservatives and opposed to the mainstream liberals. Last night's Democratic debate revealed the rampant racial pandering and hypocrisy of the party and has convinced me to vote 3rd party. But I'm curious to hear your thoughts.
Earlier this week, I was put off by the Justices when they ruled in favor of the Faith Based Initiatives and against the ridiculous 'Bongs for Jesus.' But they came through all right on the this one.....
http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/06/28/scotus.race/index.html
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A bitterly divided U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday issued what is likely to be a landmark opinion -- ruling that race cannot be a factor in the assignment of children to public schools.
The court struck down public school choice plans in Seattle, Washington, and Louisville, Kentucky, concluding they relied on an unconstitutional use of racial criteria, in a sharply worded pair of cases reflecting the deep legal and social divide over the issue of race and education.
Similar plans already in place or being proposed across the country could be in danger as a result of a ruling, which would sharply limit the power of local governments to achieve diversity using race-based criteria.
A conservative majority led by Chief Justice John Roberts said other means besides race considerations should be used to achieve diversity in schools.
"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race," Roberts wrote.
But supporters of the school choice plans found some hope in Justice Anthony Kennedy's concurring opinion. While finding the two particular plans were unconstitutional, Kennedy said race could still be used in narrow circumstances to ensure integrated schools.
"A district may consider it a compelling interest to achieve a diverse student population," he said.
More than a half-century after the high court outlawed segregation in public schools, the justices were deeply divided over one controversial outgrowth of that decision: what role race should play, if any, in assigning students to competitive spots in elementary and secondary schools. (Watch how the ruling may indicate the court is at war with itself)
The cases from Kentucky and Washington state revisit past disputes over race and education, stemming from the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision.
"Before Brown, schoolchildren were told where they could and could not go to school based on color of their skin. The school districts in these cases have not carried the heavy burden of demonstrating that we should allow this once again -- even for very different reasons," Roberts wrote.
Roberts was joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Kennedy proved the key swing vote striking down the Louisville and Seattle plans.
Reading his concurring opinion from the bench, the 70-year-old justice said, "This nation has a moral and ethical obligation to fulfill its historic commitment to creating an integrated society that ensures equal opportunity for all its children.
"A compelling interest exists in avoiding racial isolation, an interest that a school district, in its discretion and expertise, may choose to pursue."
But he added, "Crude measures of this sort [as illustrated in this case] threaten to reduce children to racial chits valued and traded according to one school's supply and another's demand."
Thomas took a harder stance against the choice plans: "Simply putting students together under the same roof does not necessarily mean that the students will learn together or even interact," he said. "Furthermore, it is unclear whether increased interracial contact improves racial attitudes and relations."
CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said the ruling is "going to rank with the great, important school desegregation opinions of the court's history, starting with Brown v. Board of Education in 1954." (Full story)
"What this court said was even though only a few slots were determined by race, that's too many. You just simply can't consider race in deciding which school kids go to," Toobin said.
"Justice Kennedy, who was the swing vote, said maybe possibly you could do it sometimes. But clearly the message of the court majority here is that race is out as a consideration in school assignments. And a lot of districts still use it and are considering using it, and they're going to have to change."
Those on both sides of the issue, as well as the Bush administration, had hoped the Supreme Court would clarify when and to what lengths state and local officials can go to promote diversity in K-12 education.
In a landmark case three years ago, the justices affirmed racial quotas were unconstitutional but offered a limited, but nonetheless powerful endorsement of affirmative action in higher education. The Supreme Court has now ruled that legal standard does not apply in a K-12 public school setting.
While supporters on both sides of the issue seemed to agree classroom diversity is an important goal, differences remain over how to maintain it without the real or perceived consequence that some families may be unfairly discriminated against or inconvenienced.
In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens said the majority "reverses course and reaches the wrong conclusion. In doing so, it distorts precedent, it misapplies the relevant constitutional principles, it announces legal rules that will obstruct efforts by state and local governments to deal effectively with the growing resegregation of public schools, it threatens to substitute for present calm a disruptive round of race-related litigation."
Stevens was joined by Justices David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.
The Seattle and Louisville plans are voluntary, introduced in the years after integration of schools in many areas was managed by the courts. They were not designed as remedial efforts to achieve diversity, but to maintain it, as a reflection of the larger communities' racial makeup.
During oral arguments in December, hundreds of demonstrators -- many of them African-American college students -- marched and chanted outside the court in support of the affirmative action plans. Some carried signs such as "Equal education, not segregation."
Louisville-area schools endured decades of federal court oversight after schools there were slow to integrate. When that oversight ended in the late 1990s, county officials sought to maintain integration, requiring that most public schools have at least 15 percent and no more than 50 percent African-American enrollment. The idea was to reflect the whole of Jefferson County, which is 60 percent white and 38 percent black. Officials say their plan reflects not only the need for diversity but also the desire of parents for greater school choice.
A white parent, Crystal Meredith, sued, saying her child was twice denied the school nearest their home and had to endure a three-hour bus ride to a facility that was not their top choice. Many African-American parents raised similar concerns.
"We are here not because we didn't get our first choice, but because we got no choice," said Meredith shortly after the ruling. "I was told by the school board that my son's education was not as important as their plan. I was told I should sacrifice his learning in order to maintain the status quo."
Louisville school officials said the ruling would not affect their school assignment plan for the coming school year.
"Although the court held that some aspects of the [county's] student assignment plan do not satisfy the court's 'narrow tailoring' requirement, it is clear Justice Kennedy's concurring opinion will allow local boards of education to use certain race-conscious measures to maintain integrity in schools," said Frank Mellon, the attorney representing the school system.
In Seattle, public schools often rely on a "tiebreaker." Under the plan, begun in 1998, families can send their children to any school in their district. When there are more applicants than spaces available, and when a school is not considered "racially balanced," race is one of several "integration tiebreakers" used to achieve diversity.
A group primarily of white parents from two neighborhoods sued in 2001, saying about 200 students were not admitted to the schools of their choice, preventing many from attending facilities nearest to their homes.
One school at the center of the controversy is Franklin High. Half of its roughly 1,500 students are Asian-American, a third are African-American, and about 7 percent are Hispanic. White enrollment dropped from 23 percent in 2000 to 10 percent last year.
The Seattle diversity plan was suspended while the appeals worked their way through the courts.
From the justices' comments during oral arguments and in the various written opinions, it was clear the legal sticking point was whether those diversity efforts represented a "compelling government interest."
The Bush administration supported the parents bringing suit against the choice plans. Solicitor General Paul Clement told the justices the two plans at issue represented "very stark racial quotas." He argued they were a "clear effort to get the schools to mimic the overall community" and that other "race-neutral" means to achieve classroom diversity should be used.
It's not very often that I find myself in total agreement with conservatives and opposed to the mainstream liberals. Last night's Democratic debate revealed the rampant racial pandering and hypocrisy of the party and has convinced me to vote 3rd party. But I'm curious to hear your thoughts.
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Comments
By the 1990s, the schools were essentially segregated again. (Durham, where I lived before Alaska, had the only 100 percent Afican American school in the country. The others were pretty clearly "majority black, and majority white.) And guess which schools got more funding? Guess which schools got computers first?
It is easy for white folks to talk about racism, and how we need to provide "equal opportunity."
The reality is, I fear, much more complicated. I am not sure drawing school lines based on race is much of an answer. But saying "It is not important," is not much of an answer anyway.
I don't really know what the compassionate thing to do is...When the first started integrating schools, they started with teachers. My parents made sure I was in the first class of white kids who had a black teacher. That was compassionate on their parts.
I just feel this opinion will do little to reinforce compassion, and for many for whom racism is still an issue (and I am not saying you are one of those people, KoB! ) this will only incite things. The racists can now be free to resegregate, and the African-Americans just have new evidence of how little whites seem to understand the issues of being part of an economic minority group.
I think that my being white has little to do with my views on integration. I tuned in to public radio all day today and heard several blacks applauding the Supreme Court decision. (This whole affair was started by a white mother in Seattle by the way)
The reason schools are so segregated is not because the racists (whoever they are) are are resegregating our schools. No. It's because black people are living by black people and white people are living by white people. Hence, they go to the same public schools as the people they arel living next to. For instance, in my suburban public school, I would estimate the student body to be around 95% white. This is no accident (nor workings of racists), it is simply because there are hardly any black people that live in my suburb.
I'm all for integration, but not at the cost of unconstitutional treatment of children. What about Milatos or mixed races? Why does every child have to be given a color label and shipped off to the 'appropriate' school. I was under the impression that this was a merit based society that looked beyond the superficial aspects of citizens.
To hear the self-serving pundits who agree with the Supreme Court is sickening. They say over and over again ad nauseam that "assigning students to schools on the basis of what race they are is wrong." HOWEVER, that's not a fair assessment of the practices in question in Louisville and Seattle. What those school systems did was merely to factor in the race question when there was a lot of competition for placement in a given situation. I certainly don't look forward to the day when the courts will say that rewarding medical treatment rights to ANY children on the basis of their economic status (inability to pay, or need) is also wrong. To my mind there is no real difference in the matter being discussed.
After hundreds of years of unpaid servitude and unjust treatment, the Great Society, which treats every person alike (personal financial history aside), is now gonna forget past history and start with a fresh slate. What Enlightened Beings We All Are!
The Great Society, of which we are all so very proud, is gonna level everything except for class privileges. It's so very nice to have people of such privileged backgrounds running this fine and enlightened country, which can absolutely do no wrong. I'm so proud of our fine Yale-educated President and the Fine Role-Models he has selected to Run our Highest Court to such an exalted and benificent decision. If the President can't always be The Decider, at least we know the Supremes will back him up.
God Bless the USA and the *+*&%:usflag: to the rest of the World.
:usflag: :usflag: :usflag:
ugh! The Nerve of people saying that considering race IN ANY SITUATION WHATEVER is wrong and ugly.
I just wanna leave this brutal place.
Ok, so since we are discussing color, why limit it just to skin. I say we need a quota system to make sure we 'integrate' people of certain hair colors. For instance, this school needs X number of reds/blondes/broads/etc.....Does this not sound proposterous?
The nerve of people saying that considering hair color IN ANY SITUATION WHATEVER is wrong and ugly.
Curious, that is, if the opinion concurs with yours? So sorry for opining.
BTW, pick up a dictionary or listen to the talking heads on TV when they refer to a pundit. I was not referring to you.
And this argumentative manner of yours is not going to get me going. Let's just agree to disagree on this. There's really no accounting for the way people think, and you're not that consistent yourself. Period.
Please don't take everything as such a personal attack. I assure you that I was just addressing the issue as an issue. OK, it makes me mad, but d-it, all those filthy lucre-grabbing Publicans make me mad. They don't care about poor people at all.
This is a sad day for the Republic.
I should not have jumped to the conclusion of accusation. So I withdraw (but not delete) my previous post.
And I asked for your thoughts and the thoughts of all people here because I was curious to see just how many there were that agreed or disagreed. Naturally, since disagreement has arisen, I will challenge it. This does not make me some type of authoritarian who is close minded to disagreeing opinions.
This is the 2nd forum that I have introduced this topic, and the same disagreements have arisen in all places. I have used the same approach of speaking on the other one and have had no problems.
I'm sure it is clear to all here that I like the hot-button issues. I am most interested in the topics that make people feel passionate and involved. How could I pass this one up? Just because we disagree does not mean we should just end the discussion and say, "well we won't reach common ground so let's just leave it at that."
You have remarked on my incosistency. What is it? If I truly am incosistent on a point here or elsewhere, I will address it.
*Just keep in mind I have no political allegiances here. I act out of good conscience (at least I think it's good). I dislike Republicans nearly as much as you do, but I have nearly as little good to say about the Democrats. While my philosophy rests somewhere around Libertarianism, I am a staunch independent.
And FWIW I believe you have the right to your opinion.
Even if you are wrong!
I should hope so.
Let's leave aside impossibilities for now.
By bringing the Buddhist Dharma in here, are you adressing the idea of the necessity of people of good will being deeply concerned for the well-being of all, as my Teacher used to sum up the chief attributes of an Enlightened person? Or what is it that you mean???
Justice is the human enterprise par excellence. It is the summit of human achievement, in that it takes what is best in us, our intelligence, and puts it to good work for others rather than for our own selfish interests. To do justice is to give people what cannot rightly be kept from them— that is, to give them what they deserve.
Justice is not defined as giving everybody the Same Thing, or using the same yardstick for everyone. That's just in only one way —Just Idiotic.
In addition to justice, there's also the matter of goodness. The Ancient Greeks called it arete, virtue. Arete was synonymous with excellence, as in excellence at performing a craft. An excellent boatmaker had a lot of arete, virtue.
In my own work in nursing, if I were to give every patient the same amount of time, I'd certainly not be a very skillful or helpful practitioner. I'd be neglecting the needs of the ill and needlessly massaging the egos of the well. Of course I'd be unjust, but more to the point I'd just be a bad nurse. Naturally, there is a real temptation to give some short shrift to some patients when there are so many to take care of, &c., but that's where CONSCIENCE asserts itself and says, "that person deserves a lot more care than she is getting." The work is never done, if one is just.
I guess what I am saying here is that IT IS UNJUST TO COME OUT WITH FINAL PRONOUNCEMENTS OF WHAT'S WRONG AND WHAT'S RIGHT. The work is never done, if one is just. Sure, the courts come out with pronouncements all the time. However, I am just a simple human being with concomitant single-being Tunnel Vision, so what do I know?
One might take some pleasure in one court decision or another. But the fact remains that THERE ARE NO FINAL DECISIONS in the life of a Republic. They are just mileposts along the way. And that is not a bad thing.
It's just the present time that has to be suffered through, and thank Goodness for the Lord Buddha, the Lord Jesus, Sri Ramakrishna, and all those for whom the idea of justice is not a closed book, but an open hand.
Here where we live, I got to intern at two schools on the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak. Both had magnet programs and I was actually surprised by the upper-class backgrounds of some of the students. In the elementary school, there seemed to be a better mix, though. In the middle school, students were segregated by means of honors vs. regular classes into different wings. Personally, I dislike the idea of honors classes, especially in middle school (a good teacher can keep students of different abilities - to some extent at least - in the same class but give optional honors assignments). Overall, though, the magnet system seems to work because once you get the students there from the rich families, then the families start to care more about the school's problems.
Another thing I would change would be school funding here in the U.S. A large portion is from local property taxes. Poor neighborhoods have worse schools as a result. I have no problem with property taxes, per se, but I would have it put into one pot at the state level and then redistributed more equitably.
Perhaps we should stop paying millions of dollars to drug enhanced atheletes; silicone and surgery enhanced actors and actresess; and pay some appropriate salaries to our primary and secondary level teachers and administrators.
"No child left behind" has become "One generation left wanting."
IMO, I'm not so sure that this decision is consistent with a lot of laws that were passed in regard to civil rights issues & it certainly works against the solution those laws were meant to provide to many real problems that still exist today. There has been a consistent subsection of people in power who have denied the existence of the problem of racial inequality & that some solution needed to be enacted. These are the same people who thought the Jim Crow laws were a good idea along with ghettos & projects. No offense is intended, KoB, & I know there are problems you face where you live that need to be addressed, but I have my doubts as to whether this was the correct decision & no doubts as to whether this will have a positive or negative impact on our society. It will definitely be the latter.
metta
_/\_
Well, if a statement concurrs with my opinion, of course I think its right. I like everyone else believes my opinion is right and valid. I say they 'got it right' for this case just as I say they 'got it wrong' with respects to the Freedom From Religion Foundation suit earlier in the week.
I'm not sure where I am 'uneducated' here.
I just find it ironically and perhaps unintentionally racist when a school says to parents, "Well, you can't go to this school because you're white and we need more black kids here. But a school much farther away needs more white kids so you have to go there. After all, we have to be fair."
I'm not ignoring racial inequality in this country. But trying to fix this problem by discriminating on the basis of race is certainly not the answer.
Oh, & what I meant by uneducated is in the sense that unless you have studied constitutional law, common law (specific to civil rights issues), then you are speaking from an uneducated POV. Now, I'm not saying I'm incredibly educated myself, but I know enough to know the complexity of such legal decisions, especially ones with this much social impact & history.
I used to feel similarly to you, KoB, but after taking some American history courses with a really good professor, I began to see things a lot differently.
metta
_/\_
What galls me about this opinion is that Roberts had the audacity to quote Brown v Board in his opinion which guts BvB. But that has been his particular method this semester. He agrees with past opinions, then deviates wildly from them in the name of preserving them. At least Thomas and Scalia have the integrity to say, "That was wrong, and we want to change it!"
BTW, in 24 cases this semester, Kennedy was in the majority in......
drum roll.......
24 of them.
Well, at least we know what BONG HiTS 4 JESUS means now, thanks to Roberts diligent parsing of the phrase....I wonder how much time he took doing that...and how many bong hits it took...
metta
_/\_
It would be quite inappropriate for me to comment on the decisions of a sovereign state which is not my own. My question arose from the fact that this appears to have become simply a political debate whereas we have tended to use the lens of the Dharma as our instrument of focus in most other topics.
I have no doubt that all forms of discrimination on grounds of race, gender, sexuality, hair colour, etc. are deeply abhorrent and contrary to the teachings. It is, however, a truth that such discrimination is deeply ingrained within our societies and institutions. How we challenge and address this problem has led to violence and even deaths, to the impoverishment of whole swathes of society and to hatreds.
My question is how we go about changing this in the light of the Dharma? My own answer, and it is personal and local, is to challenge as and when I come across it. I find this most compelling because, as a white male, I am, whether I like it or not, among the discriminators. The difficulty of effecting a complete change in the attitudes of society is a much bigger question.
It is worth noticing, however, that there have been significant improvements even in my own lifetime. Poltical 'fixes' last a short time and then need adjusting as situations change.
Or rather, "Yet another generation left wanting."
I personally am tired of seeing children being used as proxies to atone for the racism of their parents.
Palzang
I know people dont mean to sound this way, but some of you sound like the kids are being punished when they are thrown together with kids from other races and ethnic backgrounds. In fact, the opposite was true in my case. While I cannot say that any of my junior and senior high school years were enjoyable (at least the school part....the others parts were!) I can say that my life was much richer after bussing than before, and, knowing what I know now, I could go back in time, and be the decision maker, I would choose the same path.
Was bussing the answer to racism? No. Did we still have separate (but equal) lunch tables? Yes. Was it worth it? Definitely. It is hard to put into words what it was like going from lily white to normal, what it was like to suddenly have a whole new culture become a part of yours. I made some black friends, some black enemies, but on the whole it was an incredible eye opening experience.
It pains me a bit to think we could head back to the bland vanilla days when race was "not a factor" in how schools lines were drawn.
Simon is encouraging us to look at this through the eyes of the Dharma, a good suggestion. My experience tells me this was a good thing. There were many drawbacks, but on the whole, a good thing.
I am of the mind to agree. I like Penn Jillette's solution to this problem: Everyone have sex with everyone else; that way in a few generations, there will no longer be any "races".
Things like race — when we look at them from the conventional standpoint, or in other words, as concepts based upon the appearance of the aggregates — are empty distinctions.
I also find it tiresome that the majority of the world seems to place such emphasis on these distinctions, so much so that people eventually fail to see beyond these superficialities.
A lot of suffering might be relieved if we could see that all of the things we so desperately cling to as being important parts of our identities are actually dukkha, anicca, and anatta.
Jason
"I'm sorry, but I don't see race. People tell me that I'm white, but I just have to take their word for it."
There is only one race; the human race. Color is superficial and there is really nothing objectively different except for skin pigmentation.
The thing is, I'm against racial discrimination in all forms. The kind that seeks to suppress and the kind that masquerades as progressiveness. After all, how can a society truly progress if it discriminates on the basis of race; for better or for worse?
The fact is "race" exists, both as a category, and as a culture. You can pretend to not see it, but a) the fact that you even acknowlege categories like "white" shows that you at least perceive and understand it, and b) even if you didnt, others do. Saying you dont see race is a bit like saying you dont see evil. When it happens, will you just ignore it, because it doesnt exist?
Personally I believe "race" is pretty fluid. (I once met a woman who was considered white in Haiti, where she lived, mestizo in Mexico, and black in America. The thing was, America was the only place where she did not get to choose which racial group she identified with.) But fluid or not, it is still and understandable category.
And with race as a category, we have to admit that racism also exists. NOT the kind of racism where I see that you are black and I am white. The kind that sees that you are differnt, and therefore not as good as I am.
To ignore that is to ignore how others can be mistreated.
I believe Arctic is right. The reason you're getting negative feedback here (which you might want to listen to, humility is important) is because you continue to deny the fact that racism still exists in our modern society and you're basing your opinion and argument on that denial. Your position would be completely defensible if you were talking about a level playing field, a society in which no minority was persecuted because of the colour of their skin or had been enslaved for a couple of hundred years etc. But that's not the reality of the society in which we live.
Not only is racism alive and well, but pretty much everyone born on this earth has been deeply conditioned in one way or another, and from childhood, to be racist. Anyone who says they're not racist to some degree is either lying or deluded.
I think you may be looking at things not as they are, but as you wish they would be.
P.S. You do understand that Stephen Colbert is sardonically joking, don't you? He's making fun of people who claim not to be racist and thus ignore the suffering that is caused by racism.
Bongs for Jesus?
holy shiite!
However, there was a lot of BS that got handed to African Americans that has caused them to be unofficially segregated, even amidst all the Civil Rights legislation. This is not white people paying for their great, great grandparents owning of slaves or whatever. This is simply an attempt to rectify very real mistakes that are not very apparent to most Americans. Decisions, like the Supreme Court one this week threaten attempts at rectifying the poor situation that African Americans were given which basically led to their poor socio-economic status & effective disproportionate grouping together in Urban & Poor neighborhoods. African Americans are still in a handicap regardless of whether racism exists or not (and it does). They got handed the crap jobs & the crap locations after their emancipation & successive Civil Rights victories. There are still wrongs that need to be righted & not out of some sort of vindictive penance or some sort of 'white person's guilt.
Like I said, i used to feel very close to what KoB & other do. But I had a great history teacher who really laid out the progressive movements of the 20th century & what caused them. This greater understanding made me realize that a lot of my positions were simply uneducated & based on superficial analysis.
anyway, take care everyone.
metta
_/\_
The first problem many schools have is that a third of the funding (in CA) comes from property and sales tax revenues. And that revenue doesn't leave the district where it comes from. The second problem is that the school maintenance and repair budget is pretty much the same per school. So, you take a suburban school with 1100 students and an urban school with 5000 students, and the basic budget for cleaning and maintaining the campus is going to be the same, while the larger school has more area and facilities to clean. That means the school has to take money out of the classroom budget to clean the halls and bathrooms.
On the whole, the best way to rectify the problem is to spread the money around. When I was 18, there was a measure on the ballot to do just that. It failed to pass simply because the number of suburban and rural districts in CA greatly outnumber the inner city districts and the richer schools didn't want to lose the money they get because of location. But that is ultimately the best solution to inequity in education.