Rethinking how we think about race

FRANK MIELE

A curious reader called last week to ask me whether or not segregated schools were legal again.

Huh?

Turns out that the Inter Lake's headline on an AP story about the Supreme Court's final day of the 2006-2007 term proclaimed rather boldly, "Ruling reverses Brown."

Brown, of course, refers to Brown vs. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 ruling which overturned the doctrine of "separate but equal" that had been the law of the land since Plessy vs. Ferguson was decided by the court in 1896.

The court held in Brown that the states could not create separate schools for black and white students, saying that such mandated racial segregation was inherently unequal.

It goes without saying that the June 28 ruling in Parents vs. Seattle did not reverse Brown, Chief Justice Roberts did not drag the country back into the 19th century, and school segregation under law is not once again permissible.

So the truncated headline in the Inter Lake (trying to tell a complicated story in just three words) was somewhat misleading. What the ruling did was not to reverse Brown, but rather to revise it - or to clarify how it is to be applied in the 21st century.

Parents vs. Seattle - along with another case decided at the same time, Meredith vs. Jefferson - challenged the assumption that it was acceptable to use race as a factor in determining who could be admitted to certain schools.

Roberts and four other justices concluded that using race as a deciding factor in classifying students would require a "compelling state interest." They concluded that the court had previously found such a compelling interest if the state were remedying past intentional discrimination or trying to achieve a diverse student body in higher education. Neither factor came into play in these cases, so the majority ruled that the state had no compelling interest in using race to make school assignments.

A minority of four justices was outraged by the ruling, however, and they did complain in essence that Roberts and the slim majority had "reversed" Brown. So if the Inter Lake's headline had been attributed, it might have been correct: "Ruling reverses Brown, dissenters claim."

Indeed, the dissenters have pretty much claimed that Chief Justice Roberts DID drag the country back into the 19th century.

Justice Stephen Breyer bristled as he spoke contemptuously from the bench: "It is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much." And in his written dissent, he claimed that the decision would deprive local communities of a tool they need to prevent resegregation of schools.

Huh? Resegregation? That's still illegal, right? The only tool you need to prevent resegregation is to tell any school district that tries it to "Knock it off!"

It is absolutely odious, reprehensible and unacceptable for the government to force students to attend one school or another because of their race. Presumably everyone agrees about that.

Unfortunately, that is just what Seattle and numerous other communities around the country have decided to do - apparently out of a sense of "guilt" that black students might be deprived of white company during school hours.

Talk about going back to the 19th century! It sure sounds like a modern-day version of the "white man's burden" - the condescending phrase that Rudyard Kipling coined for the moral duty of whites to help the so-called "lesser" races.

But let's recall what Brown vs. Board of Education was all about. In that case, a number of black parents tried to enroll their children in white schools that were in their neighborhoods. The whole logic of the decision was based on the reasonable expectation that a student should be educated where he lives, and not be forced to go elsewhere because of the color of his or her skin.

Seattle, on the other hand, said that all schools in the district had to be 40 percent white and 60 percent non-white because the district itself was 40 percent white and 60 percent non-white. It would bus students to and fro to meet this arbitrary goal, regardless of where the student lived. Such a formula reduces diversity to a mere reflection of population demographics. By such illogic, a school district that is 99 percent white and 1 percent non-white is diverse if all of its schools maintain the same 99-to-1 ratio.

That, of course, makes no sense.

What does make sense is ensuring that the 1 percent minority population in a community that is predominated by one race or ethnic group is treated the same as the 99 percent majority in terms of opportunities granted.

To instead conclude that the community is somehow imperfect because of its near homogeneity is absurd. We do not need a government moving populations across the country to achieve some kind of insane racial balance because it satisfies someone's notion of fairness.

What is fair is to allow people in our country to run their own lives with the minimum amount of interference from government - even well-intentioned government.

What must ultimately be understood is that there is nothing inherently wrong with a school that is only attended by black students. To assume otherwise is to cast doubt on the fundamental humanity of us all - that we are all created equal.

People who support turning schools into melting pots are basically saying, "We respect diversity so much we are willing to destroy communities to achieve it." But what they don't realize is that the cultural diversity they treasure is only possible when communities are allowed to develop their own traditions, nourish their own sense of identity and educate their own children.

If we try to use government to force diversity, we will instead get the opposite. There will be nothing anywhere in this country except a homogeneous, bland, politically correct mish-mash unless people of conscience stand up and declare that common sense will prevail.