Supreme Court Ruling on School Diversity Not Good, Not Horrible

by Mike Hall, Jun 28, 2007

In another 5–4 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court today struck down school choice plans in two school districts that were designed to bring diversity and avoid racial segregation to the cities’ school systems.

Five justices—Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Scalia and Kennedy—struck down the specific policies used by the Louisville and Seattle communities. But five justices—Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg, Souter and Kennedy—also ruled that educational diversity and combating segregation are compelling governmental interests that governments may pursue through careful race-conscious efforts.

The ruling came in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education.

As Kennedy said in his opinion: 

School boards may pursue the goal of bringing together students of diverse backgrounds and races through other means, including strategic site selection of new schools; drawing attendance zones with general recognition of the demographics of neighborhoods; allocating resources for special programs; recruiting students and faculty in a targeted fashion; and tracking enrollments, performance, and other statistics by race. 

Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion—which was joined by Alito, Scalia and Thomas—fundamentally misunderstands the purpose of our constitution and highlights the importance of close scrutiny of the president’s judicial nominations by the U.S. Senate. These four members of the court, including Roberts and Alito, the two justices nominated by President Bush, would have outlawed almost all effective efforts to promote inclusion in our nation’s schools.

A majority of the court correctly rejected that extreme position and in a scathing dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens noted:

There is cruel irony in the Chief Justice’s reliance on our decision in Brown vs. Board of Education.…the Chief Justice rewrites the history of one of the court’s most important decisions.

The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights points out the positive part of the decision in which

the court affirmed that school districts can still take race-conscious measures to achieve diversity in K-12 public education. Justice Anthony Kennedy’s role in the decision is analogous to Justice William Powell’s in the 1978 Bakke case in helping the majority preserve the important precedents of the court in this area. The court recognized that here in the 21st century, if the nation is to maintain its democratic and economic prowess, the nation’s children must have a diverse, quality education that prepares them to live and work in an international society with a multitude of different peoples. Diversity of education is part of that preparation.

Court observers note that in the court’s last major ruling on racial diversity, also a 5–4 decision, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor as part of the majority upheld consideration of race as part of a college admissions programs to ensure a diverse student body. When O’Connor retired, Bush put staunch conservative Alito on the bench. Today, Alito was in the 5–4 majority.

Today’s decision is the latest in anti-worker decisions, such as last month’s ruling in the Lilly Ledbetter case that makes it much harder for workers to recover wages unfairly denied them.

The Bush Court’s corporate favoritism makes the need for political action crystal clear—let’s face it, Sen. John Kerry as president wouldn’t have put Roberts or Alito on the court.

There’s tons of info and reactions on the Supreme Court-School Integration site, more info at www.naacpldf.org and www.civilrights.org, and Adam B on Daily Kos goes into great depth about the ruling.

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