Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 4 December 2008 — Page 35

The Muncie Times • December 4, 208 • Page 35

continued from page 34 is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” The cases before the court were upheld as constitutional by federal appeals courts. The U. S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in the Jefferson County, Kentucky case and the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the Seattle case, ruled that the programs did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, meaning that race may be considered as a factor in the placement of students. An adverse ruling by the reconstituted Supreme Court, however, could have the affect of overturning the desegregation mandates set forth in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Justice Kennedy^ who voted with the majority, was less adamant than Roberts. “The decision today should not prevent school districts from continuing the important work of bringing together students of different racial, ethnic, and economic backgrounds,” Kennedy states in a separate opinion. “Those entrusted with directing our public schools can bring to bear the creativity of experts, parents, admin-

News Briefs

istrators, and other concerned citizens to find a way to achieve the compelling interests they face without resorting to widespread governmental allocation of benefits and burdens on the basis of racial classifications.” Civil rights leaders say they will fight back by pressing to elect a fair president. The president makes Supreme Court appointments, subject to the confirmation of the U. S. Senate. But, Supreme Court appointments are for life. They only change in the cases of retirements, resignations or deaths. “We, the members of the Congressional Black Caucus, 43 members from 23 states, representing 40 million Americans will speak out and to mobilize America that they vote that they change the seat that appoints the power that rules the Supreme Court,” says CBC Chairman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, who also joined the group of rights leaders outside the court. “Shame on the Court, Justice Thomas included,” she said of the lone Black on the court, an avowed conservative. Harvard University law professor, Charles Ogletree, executive director of the Charles

Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, said the court not only diminished the problem of segregation in public education that still exists but has possibly worsened the affects of racial segregation, such as low quality education. “What it means is that today we are approving, at least in theory, the idea of separate and unequal education,” Ogletree says. “That is that this opinion will make Seattle not change. And Black students who can't afford to live in other parts of the city will still go to lesser schools and White students to better schools. The same thing will happen in Louisville.” An NAACP LDP statement explains the cases: “Concerned about how these trends were affecting their own children and community, locallyelected school boards in Louisville and Seattle adopted student assignment measures to foster integrated, diverse schools,” says the statement. “In doing so, they joined hundreds of other communities around the country that have also taken steps to see that children from different backgrounds learn to live, play, and solve problems together.”

Both the Louisville and Seattle lawsuits were filed by parents of White students who complained that their children weren't allowed to attend the schools of their choice. Jefferson County's school-assignment program ensures that each school's enrollment is between 15 percent and 50 percent AfricanAmerican. The aim of the Louisville plan is to diversify a school district that is 58 percent White and 36 percent African-American. In Seattle, Kathleen Brose claims her daughter, Elisabeth, was separated from her friends in 2000 when she was denied her choice of a high school because she is White. In Jefferson County, the district used what they called a “tiebreaker” system by using race to determine where a student should be assigned. Breyer vehemently argued that the school programs were well within the guidelines of earlier court rulings since Brown. He cited a 1971 case: “School authorities are traditionally charged with broad power to formulate and implement educational policy and might well conclude, for example, that in order to prepare students to live in a plural-

istic society each school should have a prescribed ratio of Negro to White students reflecting the proportion for the district as a whole. To do this as an educational policy is within the broad discretionary powers of school authorities,” he quoted from Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education. For months, tension over the new cases by civil rights leaders has been especially high because they perceive a shrinking window for the voluntary desegregation plans. Also were also anxious because swing voter Sandra Day O'Conner has retired from the court. Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and Roberts are the court's most ardent conservatives. David Souter, Ruth Bater Ginsburg, Breyer and Justice John Paul Stephens are considered liberals. Rights leaders had hoped that Justice Anthony M. Kennedy would emerge as the court's new swing voter. But, he did not. He joined the four conservatives, even while expressing reservations. Some fear the ruling could send a chilling affect beyond school districts. “Without the use of continued on page 36