De Facto School Segregation

As of yesterday, December 4, 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court has an opportunity to abolish the distinction between de jure segregation (segregation mandated by state law) and de facto segregation (segregation that occurs in the normal course of urban, residential patterns) in public schools. Brown vs. The Board of Education, in 1954 (347 U.S. 483)dealt with the former. It ruled that states do not fulfill their obligation to treat its citizens equally by state mandated segregation of children in public based upon race irrespective of a finding that the schools are otherwise equal in buildings, curricula, qualifications and salaries of teachers and other tangible factors. Separate but equal is inherently unequal, it said. Brown outlawed state imposed segregation. However, since then, when left to their own devices and the natural tendencies of America to short-change Blacks socially and economically, American segregation in schools has become as rampant now as it was in 1954.

Whether segregation is mandated by State law or is permitted to exist on some other basis, such as residence or economic status should be equally condemned. The Brown court recognized the evidence that modern authority has clearly established that "Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of seperating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racially integrated school system" Page 495. To paraphrase, segregation by any other name would smell as bad. W.S. Plans to negate de facto segregation should be given great leeway by this Court even if it means that school assignments must be made on the basis of race. Integrated education is a political obligation. The Brown Court found that "Today (1954) education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. ... It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces...It is the very foundation of good citizenship" 347 U.S. 483 at page 493.

How then can states and local governments (including local school boards) fulfill this responsibility if they do not mandate a system of distribution of students based upon race to assure that de facto segregation does not occur, even if it means that such distribution might inconvenience some for the benefit of others.

So why is the Supreme Court struggling with a situation where a school district tries to prevent creeping segregation from occurring by auditing the racial makeup of its student population and meting out slots in a way to assure a racial balance. If the plan is designed to fulfill it's responsibility to Black students by making sure that they have as equal an opportunity to attend high performing schools as white students, what is wrong with that? I'll tell you what; First, because white parents are upset because their children must go to a more distant lower, performing school (usually in a minority neighborhood) so a Black child would have an opportunity to go to a high performing school (the one in the complaining parents' neighborhood) and Second because the pivotal Supreme Court Justices are conservative, Republican appointees, including Justice Clarence Thomas, a "Black" man.

Everyone knows that Republican conservatism has historically shunned concern for Blacks' full participation in this country. Most of the old Dixicrats, Senators from confederate states, traditionally Democrats, changed parties to the Republican Party or voted for Republican candidates when the Civil Rights Movement came along, because the Republican Party's attitude towards equality of the races more closely fit the southern, racial "traditions". (Can you say Strom Thurmond?)

Double standard? You bet. Will this Supreme Court require that white parent's child to attend a majority Black populated school some distance away so that some Black child, who would otherwise get a poorer education at his neighborhood school could come into that white parent's neighborhood school where school performance is high and have an equal chance at success? No way. But that's vintage America. The white parent calls it racism. Duh?

It's about spin. American will never be race neutral.