From the The IHT:
WASHINGTON: In a decision of sweeping importance to educators, parents and schoolchildren across the United States, the Supreme Court on Thursday sharply limited the ability of school districts to manage the racial makeup of the student bodies in their schools.
The court voted, 5 to 4, to reject diversity plans from Seattle and Louisville, Kentucky, declaring that the districts had failed to meet “their heavy burden” of justifying “the extreme means they have chosen - discriminating among individual students based on race by relying upon racial classifications in making school assignments.”
The decision Thursday, one of the most important in years on the issue of race and education, may not eliminate race as a factor in assigning students to different schools. But it will surely prompt many districts to revise programs they already have in place, or go back to the drawing boards in designing plans.
The majority’s rationale relied in part on the historic 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education that outlawed segregation in public schools - a factor that the dissenters on the court found to be a cruel irony, and which they objected to in emotional terms.
From CNN:
Thomas took a harder stance against the choice plans: “Simply putting students together under the same roof does not necessarily mean that the students will learn together or even interact,” he said. “Furthermore, it is unclear whether increased interracial contact improves racial attitudes and relations.”
Uh, Judge Thomas? You’re married to a white woman. Do you not think that your attending school with people of different races sort of…hmmm…impacted your “racial attitude”?
I’ll admit that I’ve got to read up on the case. I don’t understand how Brown vs Board could be used for this when it goes against BvsB’s original intent.