In Louisville and Seattle, students may be denied admission to neighborhood schools on the basis of race in order to integrate schools. The Supreme Court is hearing arguments today on the two cases. AP reports:
The Bush administration is siding with parents against the school districts, arguing the policies are an unconstitutional, albeit well-meaning, "racial balancing" without a compelling justification. "A well-intentioned quota is still a quota," the administration said in a brief submitted on the Kentucky case.
Civil rights advocates say it's impossible to achieve "diversity" without taking race into account in school assignments. And they're probably right. The question is whether integrating school enrollments is so great a benefit that it overrides everything else.
In Louisville, the average bus ride is 45 minutes. Some students get on a bus at 5:35 am for a 90-minute ride. That's got to make it harder to learn.
In Seattle, 10 percent of students "were denied the school of their choice because of their race," AP reports.
"We stand for all the school districts in this country that believe Brown v. Board of Education still applies," said school district lawyer Shannon McMinimee.
"Communities are still segregated, either by the history of racism in America or by current circumstances like the affordability of housing. This is about what a school board can do to remedy the effects of past segregation," McMinimee said.
I thought Brown was about assigning black kids to their all-white neighborhood school instead of sending them across town because of their race. Silly me.
Seattle public schools recently declared valuing individualism and planning for the future are examples of racism. In response to critics, the district's equity and race relations director retracted the statement but went on to declare the failure of melting pot or color-blind mentality.
Sometimes, integration supports education, but not necessarily. My book, Our School, is about a San Jose charter school, Downtown College Prep, that's 90 percent Mexican-American. The school recruits students who earned D's and F's in middle school -- ninth graders average fifth-grade reading and math skills -- and focuses intently on teaching them the basic and advanced skills they'll need to succeed in college. The school works because it's not diverse. Most students share a set of educational challenges, such as a limited English vocabulary. They buy into a single mission: Prepare for college.
In Cross X, the story of a successful debate team at a nearly all-black Kansas City high school, author Joe Miller describes a school that's given up on educating students. Even the star debaters who are quoting Foucault in national debate competitions graduate without being taught college-prep writing or math skills. In a court-ordered desegregation scheme starting in 1985, Kansas City schools received $2 billion over 12 years to create programs that would lure suburban whites into inner-city schools. Some of the money created a massive and hugely inefficient district bureaucracy, Miller writes. The rest paid for lavish physical facilities, thousands of computers and magnet programs designed with no regard for the interests or needs of urban black students. Teachers weren't trained to develop courses for the special programs to which they were assigned. When the court ended the plan in 1997, the schools were more segregated than ever and test scores were just as low. That's what happens when getting the ideal racial mix becomes a higher priority than educating the students you've got.
I love it. If you're not a communist then you must be a racist. (but don't worry, we can cure you if you let us)
Instead (or in addition), he should've challenged that purported purpose, since the Seattle policy doesn't do what Breyer says it does. It doesn't create more equal education, but instead redistributes the limited good education opportunities (at the two or three popular/good high schools) on a racial basis.
If the Seattle schools want to make every high school or most high schools roughly equal in quality, entirely different and much more radical policies would be needed. It's factually wrong to pretend the present policy advances anything resembling that goal, and the attorney for the parents should've pointed that out. (Okay, maybe he did in his rebuttal; I couldn't stick around for that). Or another judge should've butted in to point that out.
Part of the strong argument against Seattle schools in this case is that it is not advancing anything more than a racial mix that it prefers. 200 white and 100 non-white students didn't get (one of?) their preferred high school(s), according to the testimony. Looking at the policy and those numbers, I can't think of what the great social goal (or justification) could be.
I agree, silly you.
From Brown II:
It sounds like Brown is to be implemented differently, according to local conditions and according to local discretion... Nowhere does Brown II make mention of "neighborhood schools."
To be fair, Brown II does mention school districts. This is what it says:
The key word here is may. Obviously, revision of school districts into racially neutral compact units is within the spirit of Brown II, but I think it is a big stretch to not only transform a may into a must, but to further reduce the meaning of the Brown to this idea. Brown II is about giving local school districts discretion to implement the principles of Brown (while, obviously, placing courts in a position to ensure that such discretion is exercised within Browns principles), not about implementing one particular approach to the problem.
So I agree. Silly you.
I look for a 5-4 opinion written by either Kennedy or the Chief Justice.
As far as my own views, I think it's pretty clear to me that the petitioners have the better side of the argument.
Just because Brown was right in its outcome doesn't mean it or "Brown II" were right in the reasoning they used. In fact, they reasoning in Brown -- which relies more on 20th Century social science than constitutional principles -- is in part, pretty poor. If they had just adopted Plessy's dissent, it would have been a much better reasoned case with the same outcome.
What was most unjust about segregation was the inability of black children to attend their neighborhood schools simply because of their race. Generally speaking, you have a right to attend the public school which corresponds to your neighborhood or geographic district. Denying this right on the basis of race was what was wrong in Brown.
Racial imbalances do not equal segregation. Segregation requires purposeful government discrimination, like assigning a student to a particular school on the basis of his or her race.
That would lead to integration, but would not involve looking at the races of any of the students.
The Seattle Schools have publicly stated that:
(1) "concepts such as a melting pot" are outmoded and "unsuccesful"
(2) "individualism" is a form of "cultural racism"; and
(3) planning ahead ("future time orientation") is a white characteristic that minorities should not be expected to exhibit.
Yet they have the audacity to argue to the courts that they are entitled to deference as to racial matters!
And the Ninth Circuit bought it!
And one Ninth Circuit judge even claimed, in his concurrence, that it was OK for the Seattle Schools to use race, because they were doing it to achieve the goal of a "melting pot." 426 F.3d at 1194.
Quite the contrary: the Seattle Schools RIDICULE the very "concept" of a "melting pot."
They are not using race a little bit, as a temporary measure, to promote diversity, as Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), arguably permits.
Instead, they are committed to using race permanently, as a form of racial balancing, which Grutter v. Bollinger emphasizes is unconstitutional. See Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306, 330 (2003) ("racial balancing" is "patently unconstitutional," and all race-conscious student admission policies must have time limits).
It's interesting to me that when motivated/activist people mention this geographic disparity, all of them use words like "discrimination" and "unequal access" to refer to the problem -- one of the parents went and tried to start a highly gifted charter school, to resolve the "geographic barrier" to access. Her son's lengthy commute time was a primary tenet of her argument (she's moved on to more general gifted advocacy, it seems.) And he was already closer to the school in question than many of my classmates (to demonstrate how few spots there are: her son and I, though 10 years apart in age, and a fifty-minute drive from my neighborhood to his, both spent at least a year in the same teacher's classroom.) I was lucky -- we only had to drive by two elementary schools to get to my school from my grandma's house, and though I got in a whole lot of trouble for it, I did walk the 1.5 miles each way for about a week in fifth grade.
If the parents of the kids who qualify for super-special programs hate busing (where the end of the ride is pretty much guaranteed to produce significant academic benefits,) I don't see why parents of your average kid would support busing when it's just to make sure no more than X% of the kids happen to look like him or her, and when it means going away from the school and program they chose for themselves.
I wonder how much segregation continues in true free-choice situations (not just neighborhood schooling.) Everyone in my program had to apply and be tested, but other than that, there didn't seem to be many patterns: from the old photos I'd say the class was 40-50% Hispanic, 30% other "white" people, 10&"African American," and the rest made up with kids of mixed ancestry, kids with truly exotic (to our minds, Iran was quite exotic) parentage, and the four kids with parents from Vietnam and South Korea, two of whom both had the exact same name. And we had first-generation Americans (actually, one was a naturalized citizen -- a refugee from Hungary) from three continents.
Unfortunately, I can't think of any non-magnet applications of the idea. Most places I know of that let students apply to any school they want, either only start that practice after a certain grade, or reserve a percentage of spaces for local candidates.
http://www.cei.org/pdf/5482.pdf
The brief also explains in more detail why the Seattle race-based student assignment plan is a form of racial balancing forbidden by Supreme Court precedent, and unlike any race-conscious remedy upheld by the Supreme Court.
My "silly me" moment was in thinking that Brown was about segregated schools. Apparently, every high school civics class and its own text notwithstanding, Brown couldn't care less about segregated schools, and only cares if a state actor says the word "race."
***
"Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does."
If the schools are still segregated along racial lines, Brown's mandate is not yet live.
I lived in a small Texas town which had two schools, one white and one black. In 1971, they abolished the black school and all those children went to school with us. Busing was eliminated, not mandated. This was as clearly right as the school boards are clearly wrong now.
A bright line ruling from the Supreme Court would be most helpful.
The decision unambigiously allows for local discretion. If the only way school districts may implement the principles announced through Brown is by designing compact school districts where boundaries are not drawn in a racially discriminatory way, where is the local discretion??
Mr. Rowe,
Was Georgia v. Peck rightly decided? How about Marbury v. Madison? It is pretty easy to tear into Marbury v. Madison, where Marshall attaches an unnecassary meaning to a jurisdictional statute in order to strike it down. The Supreme Court has been exercising its discretion to resolve ambiguities since Chisholm v. Georgia, often in a controversial and contested manner, down through the present day.
Constitutional interpretation always involves some level of discretion. Deal with it. If you don't like how the Constitution is interpreted, vote for a President who will appoint different judges, or a Congress that will increase the number of seats on the Supreme Court, or one that will alter the Suprem Courts jurisdiction.
Most significantly of all. The Constitution itself does not say how it should be interpreted. The best Scalia can say for his dogmatic approach is that it is the "lesser evil," not that the founders somehow required the Supreme Court to take his particular idiosyncratic approach to interpretation. Guess what, if all Scalia can say about his approach is that it is the "lesser evil," there is plenty of room for others to think the evils his approach accepts are greater than evils it avoids, compared to other approaches to interpretation. We are all entitled to our own opinion concerning what is more or less evil.
You vote for your Presidential candidates who will appoint racist judges to the bench. I will vote for Democrats. This is a democracy, and if you don't like how the Constitution is currently interpreted, you can vote accordingly.
By the way, Justice Harlan's admirable dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson is hardly a product of originalism. The 14th Amendment purposely avoided forbidding all racial classification which is why ratification was opposed by some Radical Republicans while others regretted that it did not include a direct ban on racial classifications. It is absurd to think that the 14th Amendment originally intended to prohibit segregation, when North had segregation in education before and after the ratifying it! If the states who ratified the 14th Amendment thought it required color blindness, why did they continue to operate segregated schools??
What can we say about Brown. It was not originalist. What can be say about the Harlan's dissent in Plessy v. Fergusson? It wasn't originalist either. Clearly, a desire for purity with some originalist conception of "constituitional principles" does not motivate one to choose one over the other.
In any case, your comment is in no way relevant to my original point. Jacobs was assuming discussing what Brown was about, not attacking it as wrongly decided.
Bright lines are always helpful for those who want to implement their racism. Just look at the history of the South of its exploitation of technicalities to avoid Civil Rights laws.
By the way, in no way is it reasonable to compare efforts to actively increase integration with segregation. Though obviously, both involve racial awareness, one is based on evil and oppression, the other on a desire to bring about de facto (and not merely de jure) equality between the races.
Of course, it has always been the case that a lot of white males are just fine sending their own kids to wealthy predominantly white suburban public schools while minority children that live in poor neighborhoods get a poor education at poorly funded schools. These same types tend to preach about the importance of local control, and funding through local property taxes. Even though the logical result of this is great disparities in per pupil funding between school districts and in effect the perpetuation of de facto inequality.
So I have a challenge for those, like Houston Lawyer, who complain that racial consciousness designed to address de facto racial inequality is wrong. What do you propose to address these inequalities??
This is going to be fun.
David, why don't you explain to the rest of us what the constitutional principle of non-discrimination is and where in the constitution it is found.
In another Blog I read that a couple of children in the Seattle case left home at 5:30 am and did not arive home unti 8:00 or 9:00 pm.
I would suggest that this is unaceptable in a suburban area.
School choice programs that allow the parents to use state funding to send their students to a school in the suburbs when inner-city public schools are failing. I think I've actually seen Houston Lawyer advocate for similar programs in the past.
So facts/effects/results/outcomes are irrellevant - only the feelings of the people running the thing. Many opressed people in another time found that their personal sense of self esteem was enhanced by bear baiting. SHould we count their feelings, too?
Personally, I care not at all for the feelings of the social micromangers who believe:
Funny, in my household its the mother that has taken the lead in determining where our kids go to school, but I guess "white females" just doesn't have that bite to it.
You clearly don't know who you are talking to. I'd suggest you think first before you opening your trap, or, instead of assuming what I believe about the Constitution and then lecturing me, read this old post by Randy Barnett to see my stance on proper judisprudence.
My criticizing Brown and praising Plessy's dissent had nothing to do with originalism, but rather pointed out that part of Brown's reasoning was poor and Plessy's dissent wasn't.
LOL. Proving that rightwingnuts possess no monopoly on stupidity.
And Bush (whom, btw, I didn't vote for) appoints Roberts and Alito to the bench who will most likely cast the deciding votes to strike down these programs as unconstitutional.
I live in LA too and couldn't disagree more. My kids both rode the bus 45min/1hr each way during middle school. They benefited enormously from their middle school experience, and they weren't the only ones -- I knew a great many parents who transported their kids all over town in order to get a better education. Students at the better private schools in LA often travel at least 45 min each way, and I'm sure their parents have no doubt they're doing the right thing.
For that matter, I know parents who drove their kids much further to get to soccer practice. At the extreme, one family I know drove their daughter from Westlake Village to San Diego every Tuesday and Thursday -- I'm not making this up -- so she could play for the best soccer team.
In my experience, the commute time isn't the deciding factor for every family, though it can be for some of course. It's more that each family has its own cost-benefit assessment. Obviously, the petitioners in this case don't like having the school district make that decision for them, but then I doubt those parents whose kids suffer in inadequate schools appreciate the choice imposed on them.
No one said effects were irrelevant. They just are not all that is relevant. If you kill someone unintentionally, that is manslaughter. If you kill them intentionally, that is murder. Same result, different moral analysis.
I think if you say something is "bad" and mean it in a moral sense, you cannot escape from consideration of motives. If what you really mean is inefficient or something else, that is a different criticism. I am all for taking the most efficient path to solving a problem, as long as changing approaches (or rejecting one approach) is not merely a pretext for ignoring the problem altogether.
As far as your quoting of Hans Bader's, who distorts the point of view of those he disagrees with, this is not particularly convincing.
Daniel,
I am glad that Houston Lawyer advocates something that might help. I am find with vouchers, as long as EVERYONE in a given state gets a voucher in the same amount regardless of geography or the property tax base of the neighborhood they live in. (I might be fine with variations of voucher amount based on other factors, such as disability.)
However, two often you hear criticisms without alternatives. This is often a pretext for ignoring the problem of de facto racial inequality, the actual preferred solution.
Or, as I put it in another post, before Brown it was accepted that the State could forbid willing blacks and willing whites from intermingling; after Brown it was accepted that the State could force together unwilling whites and unwilling blacks; as of yet, no one recognizes an individual's right to choose for himself. And that's sad. Good luck to plaintiffs.
So, does this pressure increase or decrease with the percentage of whites in the school? Do whites who do well increase or decrease the peer pressure from blacks not to act white? Do blacks do better in all black schools? Fifty percent white schools? Seventy-five percent black schools?
Is there some reason we presume a black kid cannot excel in an all black school? That seems like the pinnacle of racism. I know separate but equal has been rejected, but that doesn't answer my question. Who would insist Asian kids couldn't do well in an all-Asian school? Who would insist white kids can't do well in an all white school? So, how come we presume a black kid can't excel unless there is a white shill sitting next to him?
Judge: Why?
Fletcher: Because it's devastating to my case!
Judge: Overruled.
Fletcher: Good call!
-- Liar, Liar
I realize that Ragerz doesn't like it when people point out that racist behavior he favors is racist, but that doesn't make it "unreasonable".Does the end justify means?First of all, how did "male" get stuck in here? Freudian slip?
But more important, of course every families first priority is the well-being of its own children. Attempting to repaint that basic fact as crypto-racism is just nonsense.The hidden premise here is that a well-funded school is necessarily a good. The Kansas City example cited in the original post exposes that as the nonsense it is.Rigidly enforce color-blind treatment of all citizens.
First of all, using words like "trap" to describe my discourse or accusing me of "stupidity" is not particularly mature.
Randy Barnett is an originalist. So, if you are aligning yourself with him, your aligning yourself with originalism. Barnett prefers original meaning originalism, which purports to use the original meaning of words instead of original intent. I take it from your post that what you are adding to "original meaning" is "original purpose."
Let me get this straight though. You say that: "My criticizing Brown and praising Plessy's dissent had nothing to do with originalism" Okay, so I take it has something to do with your "original purpose" idea that Barnett talks about in his post.
Please explain how the "original purpose" of the 14th Amendment is color blindedness when Northern schools continued to operate segregated schools after they ratified this Amendment. Also, why, if the 14th Amendment requires color blindedness, the 15th Amendment is not redundant. After all, surely discrimination on the basis of race in voting would already be covered if all government actions had to be color blind. Next, explain how your "original purpose" jurisprudence differs from "original intent" such that it can be distinguished from originalism. Then, explain how "original purpose" somehow restrict the discretion of judges so that you can say that the dissent in Plessy is superior to the decision in Brown. In other words, show that your preference for the Plessy dissent over Brown is based on actual constitutional principles, and not merely your subjective preferences. I don't think you can do it. I don't think anyone can do it. But your welcome to prove me otherwise. I wasn't assuming anything about your constitutional views in particular, but rather was discussing what is logically possible.
You go on to write:
"And Bush (whom, btw, I didn't vote for) appoints Roberts and Alito to the bench who will most likely cast the deciding votes to strike down these programs as unconstitutional."
So what. People make too much of Supreme Court justices and their decisions. If they get too far out of line, We the People can increase the number of judges on the Supreme Court so that any neanderthals are outvoted. Or we can strip them of juridiction. Ultimately, the Constitution is rightly in the hands of the people. (By the way, Article III refers to members of the Supreme Court as judges, not justices. We should have never have started a tradition that called them anything else.)
If you really want to protect your rights and your country and improve things, you can't depend on judges interpreting the constitution in a way you find favorable. You must engage in political activism and win. Then your President can appoint those you favor, not only to the Supreme Court, but to many other offices. Those who depend on the Supreme Court to protect them do disservice liberty. There are no rights, without a fight.
I have an idea then. Let's put your money where your mouth is. Since funding doesn't matter, why don't we reverse the situation of poorly-funded and well-funded schools. So, what we do is, take the property tax dollars from poor school districts and use it to fund rich school districts and vice-versa. Im sure there won't be any objections. It's just money, and as you have just explained, money doesn't really matter to education. So, you should be indifferent between this proposed situation and the status quo.
Money is not the only thing that matters. But it does matter.
"Rigidly enforce color-blind treatment of all citizens."
Doing this alone will not eliminate de facto racial inequalities. So, I should say, propose solutions to the problem that might actually work.
Does that put an end to this whole "inner city schools are just underfunded" argument?
In my previous post, addressing you, I forgot to put quotes around the first thing I copied and pasted.
I thought I would address another point you made. You ask:
"Does the end justify means?"
As a pragmatist who nonetheless has deontological tendencies, I would say no. But, there is nothing wrong with racial awareness. As long as that awareness is aligned with truth and reality and not our prejudices or self-serving fantasies.
Here is an example of innappropriate racial awareness, from Thomas Jefferson in his Notes on the State of Virginia:
"A black, after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning. They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present. When present, they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites. They are more ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which render it doubtful whether heaven has given life to us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them. In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection. To this must be ascribed their disposition to sleep when abstracted from their diversions, and unemployed in labour. An animal whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to sleep."
But this is not really awareness, is it? There indeed are, at the very least, socioeconomic and cultural differences between whites and blacks. (Of course, we must always recognize that behind every generalization are individuals who defy that generalization.) There is nothing wrong, and everything right with taking these difference into account when formulating policy. As long as they are reflective of truth and reality, rather than mere prejudice.
So, no, I do not generally think that the end justifies the means. However, I do not think there is a problem with racial awareness, as such.
Well, no, it doesn't. First, because, as you note, you can't speak for every school in the country. Second, property values and other prices tend to be much higher within cities. A school in a suburban environment is able to acquire land for needed physical expansion much more cheaply than one within a city.
If you had the exact same income, do you think you would be able to afford the same lifestyle in New York City that you enjoy living in the suburbs? Prices are higher in the city, and schools that are in the city are affected by that.
Of course, none of this is to make any excuses for wasteful expenditures that do in fact occur. However, the kids who go to a school are not to blame for this, and we all suffer when and if they turn to crime after receiving and inadequate education. Schools need accountability, including with how they spend scarce resources (not only money, but time). But this does not eliminate the need for adequate and equitable funding.
Please be consistent... it makes it very difficult to argue with you when you keep changing your position.
This is where you stretch a little bit to see what I am actually saying, instead of seeking evidence of contradictions or changed positions.
The principle, is obviously equality in "real" rather than "nominal" terms. In a way, you can think of the differences in prices in the city versus the suburbs as sort of like inflation. To get the same thing, you need to pay more. Basically, I think funding should be equalized so that students can get the same education, regardless of geography, or the property tax base. This may entail students getting amounts that are "nominally" different, but in "real" terms provide the same amount of education.
If you think there is a problem with teacher certification requirement, I definitely agree! You can have a Ph.D. from Harvard, but that is not enough to teach without taking a bunch of annoying classes to become certified.
And you wonder why class sizes are not smaller. True, with training, one can learn to manage classrooms better and a Ph.D. from Harvard does not mean you know how to manage classrooms. At the same time, given a population of students with given behavior tendencies, the need for higher levels of skill in classroom management is directly related to the number of students. In any case, classroom management and presentation skills are something one could pick up on the side during weekends to the extent that acquiring such skills would be useful.
While addressing these problems are important, they affect not just poorly performing inner city schools, but also high performing suburban schools. Good schools have teacher's unions too, so obviously, teacher's unions cannot be the sole explanation for the poor performing schools.
Addressing one problem is not really a justification for ignoring another.
"Why do I get the feeling that no matter what the actual dollar amounts are, you'll still say inner city schools are underfunded?"
Because you are making a common error. Human's seem to have a biological tendency to assume bad intentions in others. Think about it. In nature, either someone has bad intentions or they do not. If you assume they have good intentions and they actually have bad intentions, the consequences can be very grave when you fail to protect yourself. On the other hand, the opposite error of assuming bad intentions when the other side actually has good intentions typically does not expose you to as much risk. (Although cooperation may be important to survival, one can tentatively cooperate even while one is deeply suspicious about the bad motives of another.)
Anyway... you keep arguing for your benign racism. I'm going to declare an impasse and move on.
The other proposed strategies (forced busing, forced tax increases, "reverse" discrimination), in addition to being expensive and horrifically racist, also have never reduced, let alone eliminated, de facto racial inequalities.
Just because I don't have a perfect solution doesn't mean we are stuck with your already-failed ideas.
The Kansas City school in question receives more money per pupil than the surrounding suburban Missouri schools where property is more expensive. Kansas City schools do not suffer from a lack of real estate; there are many mothballed schools due to all the folks who fled to Kansas to avoid federal court educational management.
We might ask if the students at this school are victims of discrimination. It doesn't seem to be the case. The students, teachers, principals, administrators, superintendents, and school board are predomonantly black. I wonder how the school would be doing if all those folks were Asian?
I think we tend to avoid the hard questions by focusing on ancillary issues. There seems to be an endemic problem with some minorities' attitudes toward education. We don't fix it by mixing folks up by color to remove the spotlight from the problem.
After all the tinkering with the KC schools by courts, lawyers, consultants, and various self-appointed experts, fifty percent of black kids drop out. Doing the same thing over and over again doesn't hold much promise for this group.
"Benign racism" is an oxymoron. You should be ashamed that you even uttered such a phrase.
Malvolio,
"Just because I don't have a perfect solution doesn't mean we are stuck with your already-failed ideas."
Actually, it kind of does. If the problem is left unaddressed, it is not going to go away. And so that simply means nothing less than a war at the ballot box, and perhaps, eventually, war in the streets.
Solving problems is good. The fallacy of ignoring them, pretending they do not exist has led to more than one revolution.
My singling them out was no accident. Nor was it racist. Racial awareness, where racial awareness merely reflects reality and is not based on a desire to dominate, is not equivalent to racism.
I would not say to any particular white male, you are a white male, so you must believe X. But that doesn't mean it isn't primarily the views of white males and their desire to dominate in this country that have caused so much racial strife in this country, historically, and today.
Frankly, given my age, and the fact that I already have a Harvard Law degree, I am unlikely ever to apply for admission to any school in the future, so I am unlikely to be adversely affected by schools' consideration of race.
I am, however, motivated in part by the fact that my Korean nephew will likely face serious disadvantages -- probably even more than if he were white -- when he applies for college, because of his Asian ancestry. (Especially if he seeks to follow in his father's footsteps and become an engineer. It is harder to get into most engineering schools if you are Asian than if you are white).
That is because "diversity" policies discriminate heavily against Asian students. Just read the Asian American Legal Foundation's brief, which recounts how Chinese students were forced to meet higher standards than black (or even white) students to get admitted to San Francisco's most prestigious schools.
That use of race is unjust, and unconstitutional.
You do not have to be a "white male" to experience the sting of politically-correct racial discrimination in the name of "diversity."
Racial quotas harm society as a whole by depriving the most talented people of admission to the schools where they could contribute most.
I am not advocating any particular approach to Kansas City schools. I do not think policies that take race into account are appropriate in all contexts. I think they may be appropriate in some contexts, however. Certainly nothing in the Constitution, requires complete color blindness. I also think that the political environment in most areas of this country is such that it is such that it is mostly safe to give local communities some discretion to decide these issues on their own.
I think John Hart Ely pretty much was right on. We do not need to be very suspicious of racial classification where a majority of the electorate is of one race, and there is a democratic decision to take race into consideration with the intent of benefiting a racial minority. (Keeping in mind, that in some local areas, whites can be racial minorities.)
As referendum in California and Michigan show, racial preferences that benefit racial minorities can be effectively combatted democratically rather than judicially. It is very unlikely that we need to worry about a racial majority of the electorate systematically disadvantaging itself in a democracy without justification.
As I said previously, Mr. Bader, I do not assume anything about any particular individual's views or motivations based on race alone. But I don't ignore statistics either.
Although I believe the policies should be struck down as unconstitutional, it's a little misleading to say: "The question is whether integrating school enrollments is so great a benefit that it overrides everything else," when, in fact, at least one (if not both) of the cities ranks other values higher than race.
Studies show that urban school--with very few exceptions--have way worse facilites, way worse teacher quality (Read Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozo if still interested).
Studies show that minorities, african americans in particular, do best in a school that is aprox 1/3 minority, 2/3 white middle class (There is no change in white performance between 100% white schools and 66% white schools).
Paying attention to racial balance of the schools improves total student outcome. It does this, for various reasons, but the main reason is by insuring that all students get the same resources. We're talking facilites, support services, after school activites, and most important, good teachers. Isn't improving overall educational outcomes of american students what we are all supposed to want?
The cost is that a very small minority of kids can't get into their first choice school, which would happen anyway in any system that includes choice, and that some kids have 45 minute bus rides.
Alternatives to this that would be to take into account kid's socio-economic status. The results would be pretty much the same and would cause the same complaints. Another alternative would be to share resources--as needed--statewide. But that is politically impossible.
School policy in should be judged on educational outcomes. Education is an incredibly well studied field and the best practices are well-proven. It would be much simpler (and way better for the kids) to judge policy on this standard rather than a lot of uninformed, predjudiced ideological-based yammering.
As a general rule, the major system central to an area--the city--gets more funding than practically any system in the county. There will always be an exception. In the Detroit area, the tiny system of Lamphere had a really high per-pupil and the demogogues acted as if that was the average of the suburban systems, when in fact probably 90% of the rest had less than Detroit, dropping as they receded from the city.
So part of the funding argument is basically false.
The issue in schools is the kids coming into them. It doesn't matter how much you pay a teacher, she can't teach a kid who doesn't show up.
If the kids don't do their homework, they don't learn and reinforce what the homework was designed to teach and reinforce, which means you can't test them expecting them to have learned and retained that.
De facto racial inequalities are not the responsibility of the state. The state isn't continuing them, the state can't, no matter what, repair them.
Our high school used to be in a league which included an inner city school. When my son played ball there, football and basketball, it got real interesting. The parents' night was a nightmare. One year, their basketball team, twelve kids, had not one complete family. Not one. I don't know how extra funding can make up for that.
But the funding debate does provide one bit of help. It allows the left to blame the whole thing on white greed, especially if they get away with misrepresenting the relative per-pupil expenditures in the various districts, and it allows us to avoid the radioactive subject of culture.
But John McWhorter and Bill Cosby are addressing that.
Yes, but studies don't show that the reason the minorities do better is because of the racial mix
From what I have read, there are lots of reasons (as I said in my post) why minorities do better in this mix. The guesses regarding why this mix works is that if there are too few minorities they feel intimidated and at risk. Too many minorities overwhelm the resources (minority kids need way more resources: more teachers, tutoring, counseling, before and after school care, transportation, etc, because they come to school with way more needs). 1/3 is just about right. That is an approximate figure though.
I think the main reason why it helps minority kids to be with middle class kids in this proportion is that they enjoy the better resources of the schools with middle class kids. They get better facilities, better teachers (I've been taught that the quality of the teacher is the no.1 predictor to student achievement) better extra-curricular activities. They also benefit from a more academic environment. Middle class kids are more motivated and academically oriented. Parents with success at academics have higher expectations for their kids.
Dave asks: "Wouldn't that mean that 33% black is "enough" and the school should then turn them away?"
But of course that's silly. The point is trying to optimize not being optimal. You do the best you can to provide the best learning environment for you kids. I don't really understand the other part of what he writes.
Are you assuming all "minority kids" are lower class or are you just using "middle class" as a euphamism for "white?"
In Brown v. Board of Education, the Court reviewed extensive sociological evidence that racial segregation in the public schools as practiced had an effect of denying opportunities and creating psychological as well as academic disabilities so extensively that it effectively fostered a caste system, creating inequalities which lasted through one groups entire lives. In Korematsu, it was dealing with people being put in concentration camps. In earlier cases, it was dealing with people being denied entry to college or graduate school entirely and being unable to learn a profession.
In other words, the court's early equal protection cases had a floor under them by which the Court first assured itself that the inequalities involved created a serious harm, and only then declared that strict scrutiny was warranted.
One can trace the theoretical basis for this floor to the famous footnote in the Carolene Products case where the Court said that it would apply strict scrutiny only in cases where inequality or deprivation of rights was so severe that it effectively interfered with people's ability to exercise First Amendment political rights or to conduct themselves politically as equal citizens.
It seems to me that there is no conceivable possibility that a constitutional objection to the relatively mild forms of affirmative action at issue in today's cases could possibly stand if the Carolene Products floor, or any reasonable floor involving a conception of practical harm of the sort the Court used in Brown, were in place. It only makes sense if one converts the 14th Amendment into an ideological zealotry, in which vciolation of a theoretical principle personally dear to a judge, rather than evidence of any degree of practical harm, is what brings Scrict Scrutiny into play.
I have, several times, written that various symbolic government displays of religion rarely cause practical harm (as opposed to harm to people's sense of the zealous) and hence should not be incoorporated into the States by the 14th Amendment. I've consistently argued that the 14th Amendment should require a practical conception of harm before courts can act. I've argued this concept arises from the Carolene Products case and is well-rooted in classical 14th Amendment jurisprudence.
I believe I would well deserve an accusation of hypocracy if I didn't apply this concept against,as well as in favor of, conservative causes. One may not like the idea that people aren't getting put into their preferred schools, but there is simply no evidence of the sort of extensive or overbearingharm appearing in Brown or Korematsu or spoken of in Carolene Products. There's no serious ability to argue that people's capacity to function as full citizens, for example, is implicated.
The Court went too far in involving itself in attempts to solve racial problems in the past. Let it not go to far in the other direction now that it has a majority with a different ideology. The Court is often a poor vehicle for solving social problems; it usually does best when it contents itself with simply not letting things go too far. The Court should restrain itself, quell its zeal, and let the elected branches deal with a knotty social problem in ideologically imperfect ways.
Race was originally classified as fundamental under cases where the Carolene Products "fundamental" criterion was clearly met. In the 1950s the state was actively educating blacks to be subservient to whites and whites to dehumanize blacks, and the absence of black people in white schools helped foster both the subservience and the dehumanization.
We have nothing like that in today's cases. Fundamental rights should not be declared based on purely ideological considerations. They should be limited to the 14th Amendment's purposes. Just as it was wrong for the Judiciary to strike down Washington State constitutional amendment against busing and quotas a generation ago, it is equally wrong for the Judiciary today to constitutionalize what is essentially a political viewpoint. We have to have a definition of "fundamental" that is clearly intelligible and that imposes meaningful limits on the judiciary, and we have to stick with it. A bunch of conservatives run amock is as bad a recipe for a judiciary as a bunch of liberals run amock.
Siblings go to same schools in Seattle. Siblings trump race. Race is just one factor and not the no. 1 factor.
And it is totally hypocritical to rule in criminal case after criminal case that the defendant was harmed, sure, but only a little, and then to be complete absoloute sticklers when it comes to the 14th amendment.
I wonder what would happen if we could take the current dispute and project it backwards in time and apply it to those primarily "white" minorities.
This does also illustrate the temporary nature of the racial dynamic. After 200 years of race-mixing among the white nationalities, can you really figure out "what" people are without asking them? And do they even know?
How long will it be before we have to acknowledge that the races we identify as "minority" have changed? Is there a difference between "race" and "nationality?" Does a student who is 1/16 black count as a minority? Where will the line be drawn - and who gets to draw it?
As long as goodies are handed out by race, the question of the line will be with us.
Fortumately, after the end of apartheid, the race courts in South Africa are out of business and their judges probably could use a new gig. Their job was deciding which race--of several--an individual belonged to legally, so as to be advantaged or disadvantaged in an orderly fashion. There was to be no discrimination in discrimination. We need that here.
And which of the two schools was more racially integrated?
The harm is not "not getting into your first choice school." It's being discriminated against based on race.1) No, it isn't.
2) Who rules that "the defendant was harmed, sure, but only a little"? There's a harmless error doctrine -- but that's a ruling that the defendant wasn't harmed at all.
The plaintiffs in Brown proved, systematically, that much more was involved than mere disappointmant about school choice. No such proof has been produced in the present case, and none can be.
One is reminded of Holmes' dictum that "a page of experience is worth a thousand pages of logic." To those to whom the law is a purely a set of logical abstractions, no doubt the two are comparable. To one interested in the input of experience, they are not.
As for "none can be," the article above alone refutes that claim: That's more than "mere disappointment."