If Supreme Court overturns Seattle and Louisville school desegregation plans

[beaconess]

will anyone hold accountable the Democrats who did not do everything they could to stop Roberts and Alito from going on the Supreme Court?

[libneo]

1. I don't believe we should discriminate against anyone based on race.

What the supreme court is hearing is not a desegregation case, but a racial discrimination case. The question is whether racial discrimination for the supposed good public policy is constitutional.

[beaconess]

2. Do you know the facts of the two cases?

This wasn't about racial discrimination - these cases are about integration, a big difference.

[Solo_in_MD]

9. I do

and in both cases children were forced to attend a school other than the local one due to their race.

I have a problem with not allowing a student to attend their local school. Its counterproductive in the long run.

[Possumpoint]

3. BTDT

In 1973 my oldest son attended a elementary school within walking distance from home. The school was already integrated. This boy had problems with hyperactivity and on more then one occasion my wife would have to walk to school and bring him home. A judge decided to institute busing to achieve racial parity in all schools in the county. The change was to occur after the first semester of his first grade year. My son was to be bused 8 miles to a different school. I said no.

I wouldn't allow my son to go to school and moved to another state. Some said I was a racist for the action I took. Others understood, family first, to hell with everything else. By the way, the judge's children attended private school.

Does anyone in charge really think of the impact on the children? Racial quotas for any reason are wrong. They don't make up for all the wrongs committed years ago against blacks or any other race. They don't make a level playing field for minorities. They tell minority children they aren't good enough and big government has to step in and help them out.

[CTLawGuy]

4. where I am from

local communities are very important and bussing would be hideously unpopular. It would be expensive, make participating in afterschool activities a hardship. It would burden the poor (who would have to deal with a school far away).

Also, it is a poor solution compared to tackling the problem with inner-city schools and commmunities. Integration will happen once minorities have the opportunities which come from safe neighborhoods, good jobs, and quality schools. We need to focus on improving all those areas.

Bussing is a band-aid solution.

[beaconess]

5. This case isn't about busing - Busing is no longer being used for integration

And in the Seattle and Louisville cases, the local school board and citizens overwhelmingly support the measures that are now being attacked by a few parents who don't like it.

You're right that segregated schools are caused by a number of other societal factors. But are kids supposed to just dwell in such schools for decades until the other problems are solved? The schools systems in Seattle and Louisville should be commended for using reasonable measures to keep their schools from slipping back into abject segregation because of other factors beyond their control.

[Solo_in_MD]

8. Try reversing the polarity here...

And in the Seattle and Louisville cases, the local school board and citizens overwhelmingly support the measures that are now being attacked by a few parents who don't like it.

The same could have been said of the souther and segregation...having a minority opinion does not make it inherently wrong.

The courts and common sense say that the school district is not responsible for changing housing patterns. As a parent and former teacher, I strongly believe that neighborhood schools work best. I have no problem if there is VOLUNTARY busing to school with extra capacity, but there is no reason in either of those districts to FORCE (and that is what is happening) students to attend a school other than the one in the neighborhood.

Then there is the cost. In a era when there is not enough resources for the school and too much carbon polluting the air we breathe, I don't see the justification for busing.

[beaconess]

11. I responded to someone who said "local communities are very important" and this would be unpopular

by pointing out that this measure was very popular. If the fact that something is unpopular means is an excuse for attacking a program, shouldn't the fact that it's popular weigh in its favor? If popularity is irrelevant on one front, it should be irrelevant on the other.

As to your other point, these desegregation plans are overwhelmingly popular with both Black and White families - unlike forced segregation, which was primarily supported only by Whites and resulted in direct and irreparable harm to Black children. The vast majority of parents in these districts fully support the plan - it's only a small handful who complained because their child didn't get their first choice of school (although most children got their first choice and all got one of their top three choices). And race was only one of many factors that determined where the children would go to school. Take the race component out and many of these children would STILL not get their first choice of school. And White children were not the only ones who didn't get their first choice of school.

Also, one of the children whose parents sued wasn't even eligible because they had missed the deadline for selecting their first choice - their failure to get what they wanted had nothing to do with race, but with their parents tardiness. They got into the school they wanted the following year.

This case is not about forced anything. It's about a school district doing its best to provide the best possible education for ALL of its children, despite other societal factors that make that extremely difficult.

[Solo_in_MD]

15. Popularity is irrelevant

by pointing out that this measure was very popular. If the fact that something is unpopular means is an excuse for attacking a program, shouldn't the fact that it's popular weigh in its favor? If popularity is irrelevant on one front, it should be irrelevant on the other.
I agree that popularity is irrelevant and bears little connection to what is right

As to your other point, these desegregation plans are overwhelmingly popular with both Black and White families - unlike forced segregation, which was primarily supported only by Whites and resulted in direct and irreparable harm to Black children. The vast majority of parents in these districts fully support the plan - it's only a small handful who complained because their child didn't get their first choice of school
Not sure what you mean by "overwhelming support", since there seems to be differences of opinion on how much support is actually there. Again popularity is irrelevant and bears little connection to what is right.

And race was only one of many factors that determined where the children would go to school. Take the race component out and many of these children would STILL not get their first choice of school. And White children were not the only ones who didn't get their first choice of school.
Not being allowed to go the to local school is wrong, no matter what rationale or greater good used to dress it up. The districts need to develop the local schools as primary and make sure they are all successful.


This case is not about forced anything. It's about a school district doing its best to provide the best possible education for ALL of its children, despite other societal factors that make that extremely difficult.
School districts (and I speak as a former employee of two of them), rarely if every are "actually doing its best to provide the best possible education for ALL of its children". They are bureaucracies with entrenched interests. These two need to focus on addressing education solutions for all schools and not paper over things with a polluting nonsolution

[pennylane100]

6. I don't think people are objecting because of race.

I read that some of the children involved, I'm not sure in which case, have to get on a bus at 6.00 am just to get to school. That is ridiculous and should not be tolerated.

It seems tht the best solution would be to have equality of standards in all schools and students who live closest to the bad schools should be allowed to go elsewhere.

[matcom]

10. 5:30 am and take 3 BUSSES! They would get home after 8:00 pm

that's how it was presented to me anyway. if that is the case this was child abuse

[beaconess]

12. Whoever told you that is misleading you.

That's just not true.

[matcom]

13. can you tell me what IS true then?

that is the story I got

[beaconess]

20. Here are the facts (briefly):

Here is some background information on the two desegregation plans:

In Seattle, every student is allowed (but not required) to rank their choices among the city's 10 high schools. Race is only noe of several factors used and it is ONLY used if a high school is both overcrowded and becoming segregated. Even in those cases, the students' proximity to the school (not race) is usually the determining factor. Ninety percent of all students got their first choice. The 10 percent who didn't get their first choice ALL got their second choice.

In Louisville, which also uses a voluntary choice-based plan, all students have the option of transferring to any school in the district. Race is only used as a factor in transfer decisions if the transfer would push the receiving school out of its broadly defined diversity goal.

The plaintiff in the Louisville case failed to submit an application indicated a choice for her son's kindergarten and he was assigned to the school closest to his house. Later that year, she asked that he be transferred to another school that did not have any remaining space for late enrollees. She then applied for a transfer to another school, which was not in her geographic area and was denied. She didn't appeal the denial and did not apply for another transfer. She testified that it took her 20 minutes for her son to walk to school, so she drove him, although he could have gone on a schoolbus to his new school. There was no testimony or other evidence in the case that he had to get up at 5:30 a.m. or didn't get home until 8 p.m. Nor is there any evidence that students were forced to attend schools far away from their homes or neighborhoods.

This case is rather complicated and involves facts, issues and legal considerations that are too extensive to go into here. But the bottom line is that this is not as simple as "these poor little White kids aren't allowed to go to their neighborhood school because they're White" and the "these kids are being bussed all over town" is just plain incorrect. I urge you to take a look at the opinions and the briefs and background of the case to better understand what it's all about. You can find a lot here: http://www.civilrights.org/issues/education/school_diversity.html

It's also important to know that, among those filing Amicus briefs in support of the deseg plan are the ACLU, NAACP, Anti-Defamation League, Urban League, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, every major Hispanic organization, and the Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, and a bunch of other Democratic Congresspersons, including:

Rep. Jim McDermott (Washington)
Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (Michigan)
Rep. Danny K. Davis (Illinois)
Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (Arizona)
Rep. Rubén E. Hinojosa (Texas)
Rep. Michael M. Honda (California)
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas)
Rep. Betty McCollum (Minnesota)
Rep. George Miller (California)
Rep. Major R. Owens (New York)
Rep. Linda Sánchez (California)
Rep. Maxine Waters (California)
Rep. Melvin L. Watt (North Carolina)
Rep. Robert I. Wexler (Florida)
Rep. Lynn Woolsey (California)

I hope this is helpful.

[matcom]

21. very thank you. but what about post #19?

:shrug:

[beaconess]

25. See below

But really - since when is George Will a reliable source on anything related to civil rights?

[zbdent]

7. Mike "Gang of 14" DeWine

got canned 11/7/2006 ...

[fuzzyball]

14. I am not "white" and I would fight like hell if my kids were bussed to

a school far away simply because that school had too many white students.
As a parent, I want to be close to the school in case of a health
emergency. It is also easier for me and my wife to get involved
with teacher meetings and other school activities if the school
is close by in my own neighborhood.

[Solo_in_MD]

16. Quality neighborhood schools are the right answer, busing is not

Many minority neighborhoods and activist groups have come to realize that as well. All busing does is lengthen the school day for some students and deny them and their parents involvement opportunities.

[beaconess]

18. THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH BUSING!!!!

Busing is not involved in this case at all!

If any child needs to be bused to the school they're assigned to, it's because their parents selected that school as one of its top 3 picks out of dozens of available choices.

[beaconess]

17. These children ARE NOT BEING "BUSSED FAR AWAY."

Their parents are choosing from a number of schools in the same general area! Most of them get their first choice. All of them get one of their top choices!

This bears very little difference from magnet schools that have been set up all over the country. The only problem that has come up is that a tiny minority of parents are pissed off that they didn't get the first choice and they're claiming that the desegregation plan - which has worked extremely well for years - is the problem. But what you're not being told is that many of these kids wouldn't have gotten into their top choice, even if race were not one of several factors.

[matcom]

19. Washington Post Says OTHERWISE

sorry i know it's George Will but this is all I really found. can you find a different version for us?

Note: I am ONLY addressing the 'stated' fact that they were bussed far away. IF that was/is the case I stand by my earlier statement that it is child abuse to make these kids do that day in and day out

<snip>

SEATTLE -- This city's school district decided in 2000 that because the son of Jill Kurfirst and the daughter of Winnie Bachwitz are white, they should be assigned to an inferior and distant high school. If they had not left the Seattle school system, this would have required them to rise at 5 a.m. in order to leave home by 5:30 a.m., alone and in the dark, to take the first of three buses, returning home between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., with almost no time left for homework, family activities and adequate sleep.

The parents argue that the racial school assignments -- actually, assignments by pigmentation -- that so injured their children violate the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection of the laws. The reliably unreliable U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit -- often reversed but never in doubt -- predictably ruled, with interesting indifference to pertinent Supreme Court precedents, against the parents. Soon -- oral arguments are tomorrow -- the Supreme Court can remind the 9th Circuit of the Constitution's limits on what schools can do in the name of "diversity."

Students can seek admission to any of Seattle's high schools. But the Seattle School District decided to engineer a precise racial balance in its most popular -- because much better -- high schools, which are chosen by more students than they can accommodate. The district wanted each oversubscribed school to reflect the entire system's ratio of 40 percent whites and 60 percent nonwhites. So it adopted a race-based admission plan to shape the schools' "diversity."

more>>>>>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/01/AR2006120101520.html?nav=rss_print/editorialpages

[beaconess]

23. Wash Post didn't say it - George Will did - and he's not exactly a reliable source on anything

Please see my post above for an explanation of how the plan really works.

I have done an extensive search and find absolutely no support for Will's claim, which appears to be purely anecdotal (in fact, apocryphal). If this were true, this certainly would have been introduced into the case - but the Bachwitzes are nowhere to be found in any of the legal documents I've reviewed.

In other words, George Will is probably lying. That's certainly nothing new.

[Little Star]

22. Thats not what I saw watching

TV last night. Wish I could remember what program I was watching. They had a whole segment on showing a couple of kids who were on busses for hours! The premise may not be busing but the reality certainly is busing.

[beaconess]

24. If these kids were bussed, it's because THEIR PARENTS chose schools outside of their area

No child in either case was assigned a school they had not selected. If they didn't get their first choice, but they got their second choice - and they were able to choose out of numerous schools throughout the district.

If they didn't want to go to school far away from their home, they didn't have to - they could simply have picked a school closer to home. And one of the primary criteria for assigning a student to any school was the proximity to their home.

Just because someone says something on television, doesn't make it true.

[beaconess]

34. These plans do NOT require your children to go to a school not close to your home

In fact, unless you request another school outside of your immediate geographic area, your child would be assigned to a nearby school. He/she would only be assigned to a school farther away if you requested it.

Please don't buy into the conservative, anti-civil rights spin - these lies are being spread by the same people who brought you John Roberts and Sam Alito, who have been fighting civil rights and voting rights for decades and who either were directly responsible for or are the ideological descendants of those who launched the massive resistance movement against the civil rights movement in the 50s and 60s.

[fuzzyball]

35. So long as the PARENTS have the final say in which school

their kids are assigned to, I have no problem. Some
parents may want to send their kids to other than the neighborhood
schools, and that is alright, ofcourse.

[beaconess]

36. That's exactly how the plans in this case work

The school may not be the parents FIRST choice (although 90% of the parents did get their first choice), but they get one of their two top choices.

[AngryAmish]

26. The only relevant question should be if the plans make children succeed

Have the test scores improved because of desegregation? If so, then the plans stay. If not, then the plans go. If it is unclear or impossible to tease out the data, then the plans involve inconveniencing a lot of people just so people can feel better about themselves.

[matcom]

27. actually, once it hits the SCOTUS, that isn't the question at all

once it gets that far it is simply if one's Constitutional Rights were violated. the results of the move become irrelevant

[beaconess]

28. Exactly - if the state mandated segregated schools - one set for Blacks and one set for Whites

it wouldn't matter whether test scores went up or down.

[AngryAmish]

29. Would you care if the schools were segregated and everyone did better?

Test scores improved, drop-out rates decreased, college attendance and graduation went through the roof, crime rates fell...but there were separate high schools for black folks, white folks and all other folks. How would you feel about that?

[Solo_in_MD]

30. Depends if it were mandatory

I have no problem is non-diverse schools if its due to housing pattern not discrimination and EQUAL EDUCATION is available to all students regardless of location within the system.

There is nothing current and credible that says different school racial ethnic mixes produce better results but esp with younger students, going to the local neighborhood school does.

[AngryAmish]

31. If it does not produce better outcomes then why is it done?

Just to make people feel better about themselves?

(Or, living in Chicago, I can imagine people having bussing contracts must know the mayor somehow...)

[beaconess]

33. When schools are segregated, either by direct school board action or

as a result of segregated housing patterns, the education provided to the children is NEVER equal.

This didn't just fall down off of the vegetable truck - there is a long history here - starting with Plessy v. Ferguson, moving into the 20th Century with Sweatt v. Painter, McLaurin v. Oklahoma, Murray v. Maryland and Missouri, through to Brown v. Board of Education, Milliken v. Bradley and more. There is an entire body of jurisprudence based upon an established record regarding the impact and unconstitutionality of segregation, the confirmation of desegregation and diversity as compelling state interests and the validity of narrowly tailored measures to remedy past discrimination and to prevent re-segregation.

"To separate {Black children} from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone . . . 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 separating 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 the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial integrated school system. Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

Unlike the segregation invalidated by Brown, the Seattle and Louisville cases do not involve the separation of children based upon race - in fact, it's just the opposite - the plans in those cases (which were upheld at every level by the lower courts) enforce Brown by implementing integration and preventing educational re-segregation of the kind that Brown and other cases found to be unconstitutional.

[beaconess]

32. Read Brown v. Board of Education - that will answer your question.