Partial Segretation Ruled Unconstitutional
WSJ Best of the Web says good things about the Supreme Court saying that allocating students to schools by race is unconstitutional (and you thought that 50 years after Brown vs. Board of Education this wasn’t controversial?). Recall that in Brown one reason the lawyers chose Brown as plaintiff was that the little girl had to walk a long distance to go to a colored school rather than go to the nearby white school.
Crystal Meredith of Louisville, Ky., wanted her son, 5-year-old Joshua McDonald, to attend a kindergarten close to home. But the school district said no. He would have to attend a school 10 miles away–because of the color of his skin.
Something similar happened to Andy Meeks, a Seattle ninth-grader. His mother sought to enroll him in the Biotechnology Career Academy, a selective government high school. But Andy was refused too–again, because of the color of his skin.
This sort of thing was all too common in America in the middle of the last century–before Brown v. Board of Education and before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But it’s been illegal for more than 40 years.
Or is that four days? These acts of discrimination occurred in 2002 and 2000, respectively, and the Supreme Court held them unconstitutional only last Thursday.
What’s really astonishing is that, notwithstanding the clear language of the 14th Amendment, which outlaws racial discrimination, this was a 5-4 ruling, and it prompted wails of outrage from people who claim to favor racial equality, including the dissenters on the court.
That is because in the post-civil-rights era, two competing ideas about discrimination, particularly racial discrimination, have arisen. The “conservative” view is that discrimination is wrong, period. The “liberal” view is that discriminatory means are acceptable in pursuing a noble end.
What differentiates Thursday’s case, Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, from Brown is the intended purpose of the discrimination at issue. In the latter, school officials sought to keep the races apart; in the former, to force them together by ensuring “racial balance” in each school.
Do you suppose that if some Southern school said it would limit black pupils to 15% to maintain racial balance, the liberals past or present would allow that?