Public Opinion on the Seattle Schools Cases:
Quinnipiac released poll results today from a poll of 1,545 American voters (including 611 Republicans and 717 Democrats) that included a question on the recent Supreme Court decision about use of race to assign students in public schools. Here is the question asked:
"As you may know, the Supreme Court recently ruled that public schools may not consider an individual's race when deciding which students are assigned to specific schools. Do you agree or disagree with this ruling?"The results:
By a 71 - 24 percent margin, American voters agree with a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that public schools may not consider an individual's race when deciding which students are assigned to specific schools . . . . Republican voters agree with the decision 79 - 17 percent, while Democrats agree 64 - 30 percent and independent voters agree 71 - 24 percent[.]Of course, poll results are no indication of whether the decision was right or wrong as a matter of constitutional law. But in light of recent claims that the Supreme Court is "dangerously out of balance," way off to the right of American public opinion, it's interesting to get a sense of where public opinion may in fact be on this question. Thanks to Lee Otis for the link.
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True. But then they should have to try to describe the position of Justice Kennedy's concurrence, too, which is no easy feat for a poll question.
However, it probably is a good barometer of how this issue will play politically. Political campaign talking points will likely boil down to the "look to race or not" question.
One could ask the question as two local communities voluntarily worked to integrate their schools to encourage racial balance but the Supreme Court rejected those efforts considering that the way race was used was inappropriate. Do you agree with the Supreme Court decision?
I am curious to see how the results breakdown by race.
Best,
Ben
The court did not, in fact, overturn the use of "race-conscious plans" in that a plan to promote racial integration that looks at and measures race (thus, it is race-conscious in two separate ways) would still be legal. The issue as I understand it is more to do with implementing a plan that unequally treats races, especially given the possibility (or lack of pursuit) of race-neutral means to achieve the goal of (race-conscious) integration.
The original poll question, while flawed, at least accurately got to the heart of the Supreme Court majority's philosophy of the 14th amendment as it pertains to the case--namely, race neutrality.
The question could have been easily improved, however, had the end been changed to "when deciding which students are assigned to specific schools [while implementing racial integration programs.]"
Did the kids and/or their parents volunteer? If not, why should agreements by others be binding on them?
Race was used as a factor to decide whether specific children got to go to specific schools. (Yes, that's true even if race was just used as one factor in establishing quotas and then the kids were ranked according to some other criteria and the top n let in. If N was partly determined by race, the kids who didn't make the cut were excluded because of race.) If that's a good thing in this case, make the argument.
ABC News/Washington Post Poll. July 18-21, 2007. N=1,125 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3. Fieldwork by TNS.
"As you may know, the Supreme Court recently restricted how local school boards can use race to assign children to schools. Some argue this is a significant setback for efforts to diversify public schools, others say race should not be used in school assignments. On balance, do you approve or disapprove of this decision?"
Approve Disapprove Unsure
40 56 4
Newsweek Poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International. July 2-3, 2007. N=1,002 adults nationwide. MoE ± 4 (for all adults).
"Do you approve or disapprove of last week’s Supreme Court decision to limit the use of race for school integration plans?"
Approve Disapprove Unsure
ALL adults 32 36 32
Whites 35 29 36
Non-whites 23 54 23
>this almost useless as a barometer of whether people approve
> of the result the Court actually reached in the case. (For
>instance, I believe that polls pretty consistently have
>majorities disapproving of "looking at a job/school
>applicant's race", but approving of "affirmative
>action.")
This might be because many people don't know what "affirmative action" is. I've had a number of conversations with particularly liberal people. The conversation goes something like this:
Me: I'm against affirmative action.
Them: But how do you protect minorities from discrimination?
Me: Hide race whenever possible. Don't ask about race on college applications. Just treat everyone the same.
Them: Isn't that what affirmative action is?
Me: [explains affirmative action]
Them: WTF?
SM, to quote the Refreshments: "Everybody knows That the world is full of stupid people". Or ignorant people anyway.
Most of my liberal friends heard, when PICS came down, "The conservative majority on the Supreme Court has rolled back precedent allowing schools to use affirmative action." They accordingly thought the decision was horrible. After I explained the details of the case (the system was never de jure segregated; the system only compared white/non-white or black/non-white numbers, depending on the school, in one case such that white students would have received preference over latino students in a school that had no significant amount of latino students; all the schools had substantial white and black populations; race wasn't used as part of a holistic measure, etc.), they were much less supportive. And these are educated Ivy League graduates--what's an average American going to know about the decision?
Really? I think you're lying or don't know what you're talking about.
Let me help you.
More,
More,
The poll which proves you wrong:
As always, thanks for participating.
Do we only have to follow the laws that we agree with? or that we voted affirmatively for? Of course not.
The community has a whole agreed with the programs through their choices of school board members. However some people still didn't agree with it...that's how democracy works. (It also happens to be the rhetoric that has come from conservatives in the past 6 years...majority rules and all that.)
The "two communities agreed" argument wasn't that govt imposed it, but that those specific groups deserved some deference beyond what govts get. One basis for said deference is voluntary agreement, something that is absent from this case.
If you want to discriminate by race, how about we let you do so with your money? (You'll have no objection to others doing the same with their money.) When it comes to public money, let's not reserve water fountains by skin color.
or
Nick Kasoff
The Thug Report