School Desegregation Again?
By Chad A. B. Wilson
Published December 4, 2006, 12:15 pm in Ethics, Morality, & Justice.
Didn't our country deal with this back in 1954 and '55 with Brown V. Board of Education of Topeka? If you remember, the Warren court unanimously decided that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." In other words, segregation of public schools had to end.
Case closed, right? Everyone's happy now that segregation is over. We can all go and enjoy our highly educated, racially enlightened existence, right?
I wish that were true. The Supreme Court begins hearing yet another case on school desegregation today, this time from Louisville, KY and Seattle, WA. The histories on these particular school districts is interesting, but not what I want to focus on today. I want to talk about three things: de facto segregation, racial discrimination, and precedence.
All Types of Segregation Are Not Separate But Equal
The two terms here are "de jure" and "de facto." We are more familiar with "de facto," which means "in practice." "De jure" is the legal opposite; it means "by law" or "in principle."
School segregation before the 1954 Brown v. Board decision was often de jure (in 17 states, in fact), meaning that the law stated that schools must be segregated. In many communities, this was not the case, places where there was no official segregation policy. But the Brown v. Board decision was based on the idea that separate but equal was legislated. Laws existed that specifically stated that schools must be segregated. (In Topeka, it was optional, but the community mandated it.)
Thankfully, that has changed.
But it doesn't necessarily mean that segregation has ended. Many schools began mandatorily bussing students to end segregation. This means that a white kid would be bussed to a black school and a black kid would be bussed to a white school, all in an effort to end segregation. More about this in the next section.
Many communities ended this kind of mandatory bussing system, however. What happened then was white flight to the suburbs, creating more "separate but equal" school systems. If the state or community does not force students to attend schools, then the split between the suburbs and the inner city creates two separate schools. Those in the inner city may be primiarily minorities and those in the suburbs may be primarily white. But this is de facto segregation, not segregation that is state or community mandated. And there is some disagreement about whether de facto segregation is illegal.
Consider Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who said that the Brown v. Board decision stated a simple truth: "the Government cannot discriminate among its citizens on the basis of race." In these de facto segregation instances, however, the government has nothing to do with it. He goes on to say that it had nothing to do with the psychological impact of segregation and that separate black schools may be beneficial for black students.
I used to work at Prairie View A&M University, which is classified as a historically black college or university (HBCU). This school's unstated mission was to provide black students an education in a "nurturing" environment (the term was used by professors there). The idea was that black students could preform better if they were in an environment free of racial tensions. It's similar to the argument Clarence Thomas makes: "there is no reason to think that black students cannot learn as well when surrounded by members of their own race as when they are in an integrated environment.[…] Because of their 'distinctive histories and traditions,' black schools can function as the center and symbol of black communities, and provide examples of independent black leadership, success, and achievement."
It seems like the argument works, and it gets at the fundamental question: why do people want to desegregate in the first place? Is there any research that says that students perform better in racially integrated environments? I hope so. I want to think that it's better, but I have never seen any proof. I want my kids to grow up around all races; I'm not an idealist who thinks that they won't notice race, but I want to think that it's normal to interact with all of them. But I have no proof that such an environment is beneficial. If anyone can point me to studies on this issue, that would be helpful.
Affirmative Action or Quotas?
If there is a difference between de facto and de jure segregation, what do we do about communities who want to legislate desegregation like the one in Louisville. This community believes that it has a mandate to ensure integrated schools, so it states that a school must be at least 15% minority and less than 50% minority. So it guarantees bussing to schools around the city.
The question is whether the governent--schools in this case--can make decisions based on race. As Clarence Thomas put it, "the Government cannot discriminate among its citizens on the basis of race." Is this a type of segregation, even if it is based on inclusion? Does it establish a quota? There's a number involved, so it sure sounds like a quota, but there are other factors in making the decision besides race. Parents can choose among clusters of 10 schools to send their children, and race is only one factor in deciding where a given child will be sent.
So is it okay to establish guidelines for admissions if one of those guidelines or criteria is race? Well, that's the big question, isn't it? Perhaps it should be tied to the previous big question: is there any proof that children learn better in integrated environments. If so, can the government mandate such inclusion?
Precedence and Decision-making
There's another issue here, though, and it's another one that I don't have a clear answer on: How do courts make decisions?
Part of the answer is precedence, but this isn't a hard and fast rule. Think about the history of desegregation: laws existed that mandated segregation, and these laws had been upheld by courts. But then in 1954, the Supreme Court comes in and says they're unconstitutional. In Louisville specifically, a judge said in 1975 that the school system had to desegregate to end their system of de facto segregation.
Now that same court decision is basiclaly under review, this time by the Supreme Court of the U.S. At one point, the Supreme Court had said that schools had to desegregate "with all deliberate speed." But now that is under review.
As the makeup of the court changes, the decisions can be reviewed. In other words, if the Supreme Court was liberal in year X and then new members come on that make it conservative in year Y, the new court can review the old court's decisions. That's basically what's happening now. Our new conservative court has members that are against all types of affirmative action programs, and they may state that such "discrimination" is illegal, whereas the court of 25 years ago may not have.
That seems dangerous, doesn't it? But then again, I guess there is no hard and fast rule when it comes to law. But wait, I thought that was the point of law...
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