Washington – For the first time in a decade, the Supreme Court will revisit the legacy of a landmark: the Brown vs. Board of Education decision of 1954 that declared unconstitutional the racial segregation of public schools.
Separate schools for black and white children are “inherently unequal,” Chief Justice Earl Warren said in an opinion that helped launch the civil-rights movement.
State-enforced segregation laws are long gone, but for school officials today, a key question remains: Did the historic decision commit them to a policy of seeking integrated schools, or did it tell them not to assign students to a school based on their race?
Today, lawyers in a pair of integration cases will debate whether school boards may use racial guidelines to assign students. Both sides will rely on the Brown decision to make their case.
With the arrival of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., civil- rights lawyers believe there may be a five-member majority determined to strike down race-based integration programs.
In Seattle, the school board adopted a policy – now suspended – that gave “nonwhite” students an edge if they sought to enroll in a popular, mostly white high school. In Jefferson County, Ky., which includes Louisville, the school district said black children should make up between 15 percent and 50 percent of the enrollment at each elementary school.
In both cities, several white parents sued to have the plans declared unconstitutional after their children were barred from enrolling in the school of their choice because of their race.
Although they lost in the lower courts, the Supreme Court voted in June to hear their appeals, leading many to predict the justices are poised to outlaw “racial balancing” in the public schools.
“At its core, the issue here is the promise made 52 years ago in Brown vs. Board of Education,” said Theodore Shaw, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s Legal Defense Fund, which won the ruling that struck down racial segregation in the South. “Mandatory desegregation is now a thing of the past. All that’s left is voluntary desegregation, and now that is being challenged.”
Shaw said school officials should be lauded for their efforts to achieve integration. He said he is particularly troubled by “the ideology that equates any race-consciousness with racial discrimination.”
Bush administration lawyers, who joined the case on the side of the parents, say the Brown decision sought to move the United States toward a colorblind policy. They say school officials may not open or close the door to particular students solely because of race. In short, race- based decisions are racial discrimination, even if the officials are pursuing a laudable goal, they say.
“The promise of this court’s landmark decision in Brown … was to achieve a system of determining admission to the public schools on a nonracial basis,” U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement wrote in his brief to the court. “Race-based school assignment does not advance that objective.”
A ruling in favor of the parents could have broad effect. Hundreds of U.S. school districts are said to use racial guidelines in at least some of their schools.
Lawyers challenging the school integration policies are confident the Supreme Court will agree with them.
Since 1990, the justices have insisted the government may not use “racial classifications” when awarding jobs, contracts or college scholarships. They also have voided congressional districts that shifted black voters with the aim of electing a black candidate. Last year, the court overturned a California prison policy that separated new inmates based on race.
There was one exception to this trend.
In 2003, the court upheld an admissions policy at the University of Michigan Law School that gave an edge to black applicants. Speaking for a 5-4 majority, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said race- based, affirmative-action rules for colleges could be justified as the only way to obtain diversity in higher education.
O’Connor has since retired from the court.
Last month, Michigan voters essentially overturned the university’s policy and outlawed “preferential treatment” based on race.
WHAT’S AT ISSUE
Seattle: A school-board policy giving “nonwhite” students an edge for enrollment in a mostly white high school was challenged by parents whose children were denied admission to the school of their choice.
Jefferson County, Ky.:
A school-district policy that black children should make up between 15 percent and 50 percent of elementary school enrollment was challenged on similar grounds.
