Supreme Court Rules Against Busing, Affirmative Action in Schools

[The Yankee]

I've been denied from high schools because my grades were too high and they filled their quotas of students with high grades. I should have sued . Though they also denied me because I passed those exams to get into two of the three "specialized" high schools.

I swore I remember hearing that in one of the families that sued, the child denied was looking to go to an elementary school. Maybe I'm just losing my mind, but what other factors could they possibly take into account if they wanted to build "diversity"? Seems as if trying to create a utopia in a school is full-time work.

 

[luiz]

People are throwing racism around a lot. Programs such as the one which this opinion ended are not "racist." Racism is ignorance and prejudice towards a certain race, usually with negative results meant to harm the targeted race.

Racism, in my conception, is the belief that there are significant differences between the diverse human "races".

Programs like this, and what many here are referring to as "affirmative action," are meant to uplift a historically and socially downtrodden sector of society in order to equalize it with other sectors of society. It's based on the premise that without favoritism towards a specific race, (or group of people, or whatever term you are comfortable with) in areas like education or other historically segregated areas of society, the conditions of those people will never improve because the deck is stacked against them.

Well the Jews in Europe were for centuries persecuted. In some places they were not allowed to own land (the basis of power in the medieval society), in some countries they were plain kicked out and had all of their property confiscated.

Yet they managed to overcome it all and seem to be doing rather fine on their own. Therefore the premiss that any "race" that was previously discriminated against would never overcome this without some sort of Affirmative Action can be discarded, won't you agree?

 

[Warman17]

Interesting to see some of the posters here that support 5 activist Judges taking away the power of a local school district to run its school district as it sees fit. If the locals don't like what the school district is doing, they can vote in a new school board.

Same thing happened in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education. You think segregation was going to end via the locals voting it out when they elect people who say things like "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever"? I don't mind taking away the power from the locals when its a power they're not meant to have to begin with.

 

[JollyRoger]

Does anyone know of a map showing where the kids lived? The term 'busing' tends to imply that it's a far distance away, but most kids ride the bus, so it's a little misleading. I wouldn't mind it the school system gerrymandered (though lightly.. I don't know what else to call it) the attendance boundaries a little to try to get a better mix in some schools, but kids should not have to ride cross-county to get to school.

In the Seattle school district, the students were given a choice of which school to attend. Some didn't get their first choice. The 3rd tiebreaker of whether a whether a student got their first choice was race. No student was forced to be bussed cross country if their initial list of choices were all nearby them.

Usually, I disagree with the SCOTUS, however, I support this decision 100%. The decision on what school a kid should go to should be determined by your grades, and not your skin color.

These were high schools and grades were not a factor. Race was not even the first factor and was only used in a handful of cases as a tiebreaker after the students had the same situation according to the items factored in before race. This decision didn't even address merit-based admissions. The last precedent on that still allows race as one factor among many (including grades, which is generally the primary factor except for a handful of marginal spots).

Same thing happened in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education. You think segregation was going to end via the locals voting it out when they elect people who say things like "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever"? I don't mind taking away the power from the locals when its a power they're not meant to have to begin with.

In 1954, the Court forced bussing to achieve integration and now it won't even allow a school district to take much milder steps to achieve intergration. The Court is basically saying "do as we say when you make rules at a board meeting, not as we do when we make rules from the bench".

 

[Tabasco Sauce]

These were high schools and grades were not a factor. Race was not even the first factor and was only used in a handful of cases as a tiebreaker after the students had the same situation according to the items factored in before race. This decision didn't even address merit-based admissions. The last precedent on that still allows race as one factor among many (including grades, which is generally the primary factor except for a handful of marginal spots).

While I did not exactly know the details, from what I can see, why should race be considered when some many possible other factors can be used in determining where a child goes to school? The government should be colorblind in every way, including schooling.

 

[JollyRoger]

While I did not exactly know the details, from what I can see, why should race be considered when some many possible other factors can be used in determining where a child goes to school? The government should be colorblind in every way, including schooling.

Well, you would have at least 5 votes in the Supreme Court disagreeing with you. However, affirmative action is moving more towards being class-based, rather than race-based, which is probably the better way to do it.

 

[Warman17]

In 1954, the Court forced bussing to achieve integration and now it won't even allow a school district to take much milder steps to achieve intergration. The Court is basically saying "do as we say when you make rules at a board meeting, not as we do when we make rules from the bench".

What school needs to achieve integration? Not one school in this country has a system set up to actively segregate its school system. The results of doing so would be a PR disaster, not even locals would probably stand for it. If an system of virtual segregation is set up based around geodemographics then nothing is wrong with it. An area with a 95% of people of school age being Asian shouldn't expect more than 5% of their school population to be Asian. The school trying to draw more non-Asians into their school system to become more diverse really achieves nothing in the end, whats wrong with a near all-Asian school when the community is near all-Asian?

I agree with the statement made by Roberts: "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." I know it sounds redundant, but in order to stop future discrimination we need to stop discriminating now. If that means we have schools which don't meet some sort of diverse standard, and its because of natural geodemographics and not some sort of active system (like the 50s), then I'm for it.

The 3rd tiebreaker of whether a whether a student got their first choice was race.

I don't care if race is the 50th tiebreaker, it shouldn't be taken into consideration. Period.

 

[onejayhawk]

Well, you would have at least 5 votes in the Supreme Court disagreeing with you. However, affirmative action is moving more towards being class-based, rather than race-based, which is probably the better way to do it.

I would say this decision has 5 Justices AGREEING with him, and 4 disagreeing in favor of continued color based selection.

J

 

[mangxema]

In the Seattle school district, the students were given a choice of which school to attend. Some didn't get their first choice. The 3rd tiebreaker of whether a whether a student got their first choice was race. No student was forced to be bussed cross country if their initial list of choices were all nearby them.

Hmm... well I guess that's not quite as bad. I still would have preferred a names-out-of-a-hat strategy, though. And I must say I don't like the prospect of a kid getting his own bus to drive him across town just because he wants a different school. It doesn't seem fair to make other people pay for it.

 

[Tabasco Sauce]

Well, you would have at least 5 votes in the Supreme Court disagreeing with you. However, affirmative action is moving more towards being class-based, rather than race-based, which is probably the better way to do it.

Well, I was actually thinking the same thing(class over race-based) selection.

 

[illram]

Racism, in my conception, is the belief that there are significant differences between the diverse human "races".

From Websters Online:
Racism:
1. a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race

It's not just belief, it's belief of superiority/inferiority based on race, and putting that belief into practice with discrimination.

This isn't what Affirmative Action is, at least in theory. It's disingenuous and misleading to refer to it as "racism." That's my point.

Yet they managed to overcome it all and seem to be doing rather fine on their own. Therefore the premiss that any "race" that was previously discriminated against would never overcome this without some sort of Affirmative Action can be discarded, won't you agree?

That wasn't my premise. You are also talking about two completely different things.

I'm talking about de-segregation in the United States. Your analogy doesn't fit, mainly because analogies don't really work when you are talking about such a unique scenario as this one.

This is muddying the issue a little bit anyway; as others have pointed out, 5 Justices agree (Kennedy's concurrence being the 5th) that race can still be a determinative factor in student enrollment, but the issue is how that can constitutionally be accomplished.

Simply taking race into account is not "racist." That's all I am saying.

 

[luiz]

I think my anology fits perfectly because it illustrates that even a "race" violently persecuted througout centuries can overcome this without any racist AA policy.

AA is racism in the sense that it can punish people for their skin colour. That's as racist as it gets, intentions aside.

 

[DBear]

In his ruling, Chief Justice Roberts suggested that racial classifications perpetuated the very divisions they were put in place to dissolve.
"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race," he added

Game. Set. Match.

 

[Tabasco Sauce]

Game. Set. Match.

Ditto. (10 Char)

 

[GenMarshall]

This has gotten so low, I no way support this rulling to take us back to the days before Brown vs. Board of Ed.