The "Choice" In Segregation

As noted here, the Supreme Court basically ripped the heart out of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling yesterday by telling the cities of Louisville and Seattle that they cannot take even “modest” steps, according to the Times, in applying a race-based solution to school desegregation.

I think it’s also important to note the following in this Times editorial…

Chief Justice Roberts, who assured the Senate at his confirmation hearings that he respected precedent, and Brown in particular, eagerly set these precedents aside. The right wing of the court also tossed aside two other principles they claim to hold dear. Their campaign for “federalism,” or scaling back federal power so states and localities have more authority, argued for upholding the Seattle and Louisville, Ky., programs. So did their supposed opposition to “judicial activism.” This decision is the height of activism: federal judges relying on the Constitution to tell elected local officials what to do.

This post by Adam B at The Daily Kos gives us a more detailed look at the typically patronizing, heavy-handed language used by Hangin’ Judge J.R. in this ruling…

Before Brown, schoolchildren were told where they could and could not go to school based on the color of their skin. The school districts in these cases have not carried the heavy burden of demonstrating that we should allow this once again, even for very different reasons. For schools that never segregated on the basis of race, such as Seattle, or that have removed the vestiges of past segregation, such as Jefferson County, the way to achieve a system of determining admission to the public schools on a nonracial basis ... is to stop assigning students on a racial basis. The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.

If Roberts or anyone else in our government seriously believes that we should “stop assigning students on a racial basis” to our schools, then they should immediately disavow school choice programs through the use of vouchers, because, overwhelmingly, these programs favor African-American families.

Please understand, though, that I do not oppose efforts by African American families to seek better education for their children. All I’m saying is that school choice programs are, ultimately, one type of race-based “solution” that, happily for conservatives, provides better education for a relatively small sampling of affected students funded by money siphoned off from funding for public schools, which would provide for a vastly larger pool of students.

As evidence, I present the article from this link, particularly this excerpt (from 2005)…

Two of the country's three publicly funded voucher programs operate in cities that are predominantly Black (Milwaukee and Cleveland). In 2000, a national public opinion poll conducted by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies (JCPE) found that 57% of African Americans favor public voucher programs, including 74% of African Americans with children in their households (JCPE, 2000). Moreover, market advocates have estimated that African American parents participate in at least 42 privately funded voucher programs throughout the country that target inner-city children (Moe, 1999). Statistics regarding African American students' enrollment in charter schools are more staggering. During the 2000-2001 school year, African American students comprised one-third (33%) of the U.S. charter school population, but only 17% of the U.S. public school population overall (Frankenberg & Lee, 2003).

Both scholarly work and the popular press show that market-based, school-choice reforms appeal to African American parents across the country-parents whose children mostly populate low-performing, urban public schools (Barnes, 1997; Fuller, Elmore, & Orfield, 1996; Miller, 1992; Shokraii, 1996). This fits a pattern of Black parents seeking increased accountability, opportunity, choice, and voice within their children's schools, which they have done since the advent of public schooling (Alien & Jewel, 1995; Anderson, 1988; Levin, 1972; Shujaa, 1992).

And as noted from this link (see “Choice Through Vouchers”)…

Vouchers that parents can use to send their children to private, church-related, or public schools of their choice are an alternative that first received public notice after a 1955 address by economist Milton Friedman. He saw vouchers as a way of providing competition for the public schools. However, vouchers remain controversial because they touch on the line involving separation of church and state and because they are seen as diverting money from the public schools. Since 1991, the PDK/Gallup polls have approached this issue with a question that measures approval of the voucher concept -- "allowing parents and students to choose a private school to attend at public expense" -- without using the politically charged word "vouchers." In considering the results, it is useful to keep in mind that choice, independent of a specific program, is popular with the public.

Findings. The percentage favoring vouchers dropped from 38% a year ago to 36% this year, while opposition grew from 57% to 60%. Support for vouchers started at 24% in 1993, fluctuated up and down for years, and peaked at 46% in 2002. It is now at the mid-Nineties level.

Conclusion VII. Support for vouchers is declining and stands in the mid-30% range.

I would guess that voucher support is declining because many parents in schools deemed as “underperforming” by Every Child Left Behind have come to understand that it is a “rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul” scheme that only assists with a fraction of the cost of sending a child to a participating private school (to say nothing of the issue of a child of another faith, or no formal faith at all, being forced to respect the faith of the school in which he or she attends as part of “school choice”).

It seems to me that Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Scalia and Kennedy, from what I can digest of this (and, like Adam B, I’m still trying to do that), are saying that something like what they would define as “educational need” (something literal and quantitative) is the only basis to them for applying a race-based solution such as that used by Louisville and Seattle. To me, a “choice” program is something literal and quantitative that this court could “wrap its arms around” as opposed to something community based that had already existed in those two cities.

I believe this court wants desegregation, but only on its own narrow terms in accordance with the prescribed Repug, right-wing agenda (which, truth be told, means very little desegregation at all). And they’ve already disregarded “settled” law on other matters, so why should that have stopped them again here (making Roberts, as the Times noted in its editorial, a liar as well as a racist - see his characterization of the Voting Rights Act as noted here).