New at Reason

July 2, 2007

Are critics of the Supreme Court actually impeding integration? Steve Chapman looks at the substance of the issue and of the court's decision.

Comments

|7.2.07 @ 8:18AM|#

Friday night on the News Hour, there was a guy from the NAACP who said Roberts' line "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race" was "Orwellian", and didn't explain why he thought so. I thought he was just a lone idiot.

Then, Sunday morning on This Week, Donna Brazil used the same term to describe the same line, again without explanation. It looks like we have a new buzzword!

Grotius|7.2.07 @ 8:21AM|#

crimethink,

Well, I suppose the line of argument might be that the program which was at the heart of the particular case isn't discrimination. I didn't see either program, so my guess might be completely off.

robc|7.2.07 @ 8:39AM|#

crimethink,

I described that phrase as a tautology. Then followed up with sometimes they are necessary, because otherwise people dont get it. Never thought to describe it as orwellian.

|7.2.07 @ 9:27AM|#

One argument, I guess, that could be made against Roberts' statement is that you can't stop discrimination by not discriminating any more than you can stop violence by not being violent. In other words, when you stop having public schools send children to certain schools on the basis of race, you will end the possibility of de jure discrimination, but not de facto discrimination caused by geographic segregation.

Another possibility, that would more easily justify calling Roberts "Orwellian", is that the critics think that discrimination in the service of integration isn't the same thing as discrimination in the service of segregation, and that Brown v Board only forbade the latter.

I also find it interesting that people are fuming about how the court dared to overturn precedent, when Brown was itself a complete break with precedent. According to liberals, I guess, once they get the overturnings they want (Wickard, Brown, Roe, etc), the state of the law has to stay the same forever.

|7.2.07 @ 9:29AM|#

Orwellian is exactly the right word, crimethink. Do you remember what was so special about Newspeak? It's the only language that is actually getting smaller every year. When you have two different words with two different meanings - war and peace, for example - and eliminate one word so that the other is used to mean both concepts, you can control the debate.

Roberts took the terms "discrimination on the basis of race" and "integration" and banished the second term, so that he could use the skewed language to make his argument appear implausible.

"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop integration" doesn't even remotely make sense, but just shrink the language a little bit, and there you go. Classic Orwell.

|7.2.07 @ 9:30AM|#

Er, "...make his argument appear more plausible..."

Randolph Carter|7.2.07 @ 9:32AM|#

Friday night on the News Hour, there was a guy from the NAACP who said Roberts' line "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race" was "Orwellian", and didn't explain why he thought so. I thought he was just a lone idiot.

Then, Sunday morning on This Week, Donna Brazil used the same term to describe the same line, again without explanation. It looks like we have a new buzzword!

It would have been Orwellian if by "stop the discrimination on the basis of race" he meant "destroy one race so they can't be discriminated against." That would fit Orwell's mold of political euphemism.

M|7.2.07 @ 9:38AM|#

crimethink -

Seems to me that tautology is far from a meaningless tautology. Rather, it's a beautifully cognent maxim for libertarians, on the same order as "The way for individuals to get healthier is for individuals to get healthier," ie the transparency of the formula restore the common-sense view that initiatives must originate in their agents. Likewise, the only person who can stop discriminating is the discriminator. They handed us a victory, if alas only in rhetoric.

M|7.2.07 @ 9:41AM|#

Oh. On rereading, I think I may have mangled the whole thing. Forget it.

|7.2.07 @ 9:45AM|#

The real educational problems faced by minority kids today are not lack of white students to sit by but inadequate choice, lack of order, a shortage of good teachers and families who don't make a priority of learning. Most parents, given a choice between racially balanced schools and safe, sound schools, would unhesitatingly choose the latter. In the wake of this decision, education officials can now focus more on what's really important.


And this reasoning here is why this decision is going to go down in history as a shallow parody of Brown: the Clarence Thomas to its Thurgood Marshall, as it were.

Brown is famous (to some, infamous) for the level of sociological anaylsis in the decision, included for the purpose of demonstrating the social and material benefits that accrue from integration. Not from the absence of laws that say yadda yadda yadda, but from the actual, real-world workings of children of different races working and playing side by side.

The other core holding in Brown was, of course, that separate was never equal, partially because of the social and material benefits described above, but also because the government cannot be trusted to actually procide equal facilities when the students bodies of different schools are drawn from a white vs. minority population.

Maybe back in 1955, the Court should have told the NAACP to stop bothering the school district, so they could "focus more on what's really important."

|7.2.07 @ 9:50AM|#

joe,

Yes, I anticipated that argument in the second part of my above comment. But, if you look at the original meaning of the word "discriminate", it means simply to tell the difference between one thing and another (which is why in any other context, being "discriminating" is a good thing). In the context of relations between different groups of people, obviously, the word has taken on a specialized meaning with strong negative connotations. I suppose you could say that Roberts is equivocating on the term "discrimination", using the newer meaning in the first case and the original meaning in the second.

robc|7.2.07 @ 9:55AM|#

joe,

Roberts didnt banish the word "integration". This decision was about descrimination, not integration or segregation. As the CJ pointed out, the Seattle school would be differently integrated but still integrated without the race rule. Same for the Louisville schools.

This decision hits close to me, since I went to Young Elementary in Louisville (the school the boy was assigned to). 3rd grade, 1977-1978, was one of my bussing years. So, instead of a short bus ride to my normal school just like in 2nd, 4th, and 5th grades, I got a multihour (often) 2 bus trip (yes, it took 2 separate buses) to get to Young.

Result of this integration? At my regular school, I had 4-6 blacks in my class. At Young, after bussing, zero. Really. A grand total of zero. Good job there!

So, which is more orwellian? What Roberts said or an "integration" plan that led to an entire class of white kids from all over the south end of the county getting bussed to the west end of the county so we could have an all-white class?

|7.2.07 @ 9:59AM|#

joe,

Thurgood Marshall was on the Supreme Court for Brown vs Board? Talk about conflict of interest! ;-)

In any case, while I agree with the desire to end racial segregation in schools, I consider Brown to be possibly the most disastrous SCOTUS decision in the history of the US. It set in motion the hideous practice of "legislating from the bench" without regard to the Constitution.

The federal courts are supposed to be insulated from politics so that they can faithfully follow the Constitution alone, and not worry about contemporary political fads. I don't have a lot of sympathy for liberals who were just fine and dandy with the federal courts substituting their political beliefs for the plain text of the Constitution as the basis of their rulings, so long as their side was winning, and now are squealing like stuck pigs because the shoe's on the other foot.

|7.2.07 @ 10:03AM|#

robc,

If Roberts had limited his decision to the facts, and ruled that this program was unconstitutional because the slight shift in student demographic composition wasn't a compelling enough interest to justify the action, of the means were not the least-instrusive available to the school district, that would have been one thing.

But he didn't - even with that route open to him, he made the point of bootstrapping the case into as broad and radical a decision as he could produce, to have a sweeping effect based on his political beliefs about race-conscious school assignments.

It's a fair point that the original facts of the case didn't make it about "integration vs. segregation," but the majority opinion made sure it was.

|7.2.07 @ 10:05AM|#

The plans that were rejected attempted to undo the consequences of segretated neighborhoods. The resulting school segretation is a symptom of the root problem, not the root problem itself.

Race-based school assignments are discriminatory on their face, dump severe hardship on some students, and do nothing to alleviate the root problem.

Only a progressive could like the plans in Seattle and Louisville.

|7.2.07 @ 10:06AM|#

But he didn't - even with that route open to him, he made the point of bootstrapping the case into as broad and radical a decision as he could produce, to have a sweeping effect based on his political beliefs about race-conscious school assignments.

But, when the Court did so in Brown, that was OK. (Sorry if I'm being orwellian)

|7.2.07 @ 10:06AM|#

I don't want your sympathy, crimethink.

I want some intellectual honesty, especially from the Supreme Court.

The Brown decision considered the effects of the government's actions in light of copious sociological research, in an effort to accurately understand the real-world conseques.

John Roberts pulled his anti-integration theorizing out of his ass, in an effort to ignore the real-world consequences of not having racially-integrated schools.

|7.2.07 @ 10:13AM|#

crimethink,

Shallow and flip false equivalencies, in defense of a decision based on shallow and flip false equivalencies? Say it ain't so!

The Brown decision was based on an honest attempt to understand the consequences of desegregating schools, and this decision was based on a shallow, dishonest determination to ignore the effects of desegregating schools. Brown decision had a mini-novel about the sociological implications of integrated schools; this decision had an overly-cute one-line tautology coparable to "Creation requires a Creator." The Brown decision took the only course available to address the plaintiff's problem, this decision ignored rank after rank of more modest remedies in order to reach for the brass ring.

|7.2.07 @ 10:19AM|#

joe,

Yeah, just like Roe was based on the cutting edge of embryology as it stood in 1973, so that the state of abortion law is forever determined by a now-discredited view of the first- and second- trimester unborn as an amorphous clump of cells with no organ differentiation and no functioning body systems.

The courts should base their decisions on the Constitution, not the conclusions of current science (especially such a subjective science as sociology).

|7.2.07 @ 10:26AM|#

Oh, look, more science-bashing. Why does it always seem to go in one direction?

Have you got a problem with the science the Brown court used? Were they wrong when they noted that the experience of interacting with peers of different races helps students overcome superficial prejudices? Were they wrong in noting that being cut out of social and professional networks that include white people harms black students' future prospect?

Science is the best method we have for understanding the world around us - even when it tells us things that don't comport with our political ideologies.

|7.2.07 @ 10:27AM|#

Also, crimethink, I'll not that Roberts' little aphorism is no more a part of the Constitution than the numerous publications cited by the plaintiff's lawyers in Brown vs. Board.

|7.2.07 @ 10:31AM|#

Just a note on the Seattle policy that was overturned.

"Since 1997, the Seattle district has allowed its roughly 46,000 students to apply to attend the school of their choice. Race was one of several tiebreakers at popular schools; the student's race was a factor if attendance would help bring the school closer to the districtwide average..."

From the Seattle PI.
Not about forcing students to go one place rather than another. Just one of many factors used to help manage a school choice program.
They also used factors like distance and whether a sibling went to the school.

Luckily the district will still be able to discriminate against only-children.

;^)

|7.2.07 @ 10:32AM|#

joe,

I guess ultimately it comes down to, did the sociological research prove that segregation violated an actual, non-invented constitutional right, or was the court just doing it because "it was the right thing to do"?

|7.2.07 @ 10:45AM|#

crimethink,

The Brown decision was based on the Equal Protection clause. Were kids in segregated schools enjoying equal protection under the law?

The Court ruled that they were not, that one of the benefits of going to public schools was the formation of social - later, professional - networks with your peers. In other words, schools provide membership in the community. When the schools are segregated, the kids in the minority school weren't actually receiving this benefit in an equal manner - they were being provided only with membership in a second-class community.

Yes, they looked at science and the state of society at the time to determine with the protection-under-the-law the kids were recieving was equal. How else were they supposed to make that determination? Via "the rice and poor alike are forbidden from sleeping under bridges" blinkered textualism?

|7.2.07 @ 10:46AM|#

"...whether the protection-..."

"...the rich and poor alike..."

|7.2.07 @ 10:48AM|#

If there are 10 high schools and each one is approximately 30% black, 55 % white, and 15 % other - how is that "unequal"? The only way to GUARANTEE more equality is to rotate students so they have 18 school days at each of 10 high schools. Frankly, the Supreme Court has no business micromanaging Seattle and Louisville unless there is some blatant and systematic discrimination. The "conservative" decision is nothing but right-wing judicial activism.

As for the dissent, was Thurgood Marshall a retard because he did not go to school with whites? Are Finnish people educationally deprived by not having a "critical mass" of Koreans? Diversity, while cute, is completely irrelevant to education.

Sadly, all 9 justices view themselves as gods who must micromanage every school district, pot smoker, and every other decision of life.

|7.2.07 @ 10:48AM|#

Well, in that case the Warren court was pulling the Equal Protection Clause like so much taffy. Does that mean that making rural kids go to rural schools deprives them of the opportunity to form networks with suburban children?

Rhywun|7.2.07 @ 10:53AM|#

How does one desegregate single-school suburban districts that are 100% white? Would someone think of the (suburban) children!!

|7.2.07 @ 11:01AM|#

crimethink, Rhwuyn,

There have actually been court cases that addressed that question, you know. It's really not something you can throw out like some sort of brilliant conversation-ender.

School districts aren't responsible for what goes on outside their borders. The rural district has to integrate its students, the suburban area has to integrate its students.

Personally, I'd be all for desegregation efforts that cross municipal boundaries, since white flight has become the primary mechanism for having segregated schools, but I doubt you'd find that elegant solution to the objection you raise any more acceptable than integration within municipal boundaries.

|7.2.07 @ 11:05AM|#

joe,

So, if a state decided to set up its school districts so that each was 100% white or 100% black, that would be OK?

Rhywun|7.2.07 @ 11:13AM|#

I doubt you'd find that elegant solution to the objection you raise any more acceptable than integration within municipal boundaries.

An even more elegant solution would be to abolish school districts and let kids go where they want. You'd get more overall integration than is currently the case.

|7.2.07 @ 11:22AM|#

Segregation that results from laws that prohibit the mingling of races is both bad and unconstitional. The Supreme Court was justified in striking down seperate-but-equal as a legal structure.

Segregation that results from social and financial inequality may also be bad (in fact I would state that it is), but it is not unconstitional. Therefore, the state has no legal standing to intervene in undoing that segregation.

It's been 50 yeats since Brown. Racism and inequality still exist in the US. But state-mandated integration programs, like affirmative action programs, need to die.

|7.2.07 @ 11:23AM|#

crimethink,

No, because in your example, the state is responsible for providing equal protection to all the kids in that state, and would be using its authority to produce segregated schools.

Once again, government bodies are responsible for what goes in within their own jurisdictions.

Rhwuyn,

That's an interesting thought. Each school then becomes its own "district," without a layer of administration between the school and the state.

dhex|7.2.07 @ 11:27AM|#

"Diversity, while cute, is completely irrelevant to education."

not necessarily, particularly across class lines. which is what i imagine is part of the thrust here against the ruling.

|7.2.07 @ 11:29AM|#

carrick,

The state "intervenes" to address many public problems that are not violations of the constitution. Look at highway building.

The fact that segregation that results from econoomics and geography is not a violation of the constitution means that the state cannot be forced via the courts to undo it. However, the government is still free to decide whether or not to address the problem, just as it is free to decide whether or not to build another highway.

|7.2.07 @ 11:35AM|#

The state "intervenes" to address many public problems that are not violations of the constitution. Look at highway building.

Now we are back to basic philosophical issues. The libertarian asserts that the state shouldn't build roads ;-)

Rhywun|7.2.07 @ 11:35AM|#

There have actually been court cases that addressed that question, you know. It's really not something you can throw out like some sort of brilliant conversation-ender.

Well, if integration is so important that it throws Democrats into apoplectic fits at the thought of ending its explicit quota system, why have I heard nothing of such court cases? Why aren't they shouting from the rooftops the fact that the benefits of integration are unavailable to the vast portion of American children who live in single-school districts? Could it be that it would draw attention to the fact that the whole thing is a house of cards around which they've centered their education platform for so long that closer examination would cause it to fall down and reveal the emptiness inside? Hey, I think diversity is fine, but forced diversity is shallow; and we've neglected other, more important educational considerations in favor of integration for decades now and have little to show for it.

Charles|7.2.07 @ 11:37AM|#

Also, as I don't think anyone has pointed out yet, part of the reason these areas are white or black is because of years, nay, decades of concerted government effort to ensure residential segregation. Look at the development of somewhere like Atlanta. I think we'd be better off in a system with much more private education. But that's not what we've got, and we can't pretend we're starting with a clean slate here.

robc|7.2.07 @ 11:41AM|#

An even more elegant solution would be to abolish school districts and let kids go where they want. You'd get more overall integration than is currently the case.

That is effectively what Louisville has done (with the exception of the racial balancing limit which just got tossed). Kids get first/second choice within a cluster, but they can then request a transfer to a school outside the cluster if it has space available (and the racial numbers are right).

Interestingly, while it wasnt a part of the lawsuit, over the years black parents have been amongst the biggest complainers about Louisville system. First, because during the bussing years their kids got bussed more often, in order to balance the numbers. Then, because many of the kids wanted to attend a neighborhood school that was already 50% black, so they couldnt get in.

While Im not a big fan of public schools, I dont think there is a huge difference within JCPS (Jefferson Co Public Schools - the Louisville school district) in quality. The year I went to Young (see story above), I had a very good teacher. I dont know if it was that way before bussing - maybe integration of schools led to integration of teaching staffs too. That might be far more important than integrating the students.

|7.2.07 @ 11:42AM|#

The root problem that the Seattle and Louiville plans were trying to solve is the consequence of inequality.

And the whole point of the progressive movement from FDR foward is to undo the consequences of inequality. whereas, the libertarian says that you have just to live with inequality.

Equal opportunity is not a guarentee of equal outcome. In any free society, there will be inequality. I fall into the branch of libertarians that see the need, both morally and practically, for providing a social safety-net. But, I don't agree that the state should be involved in re-engineering society to wipe out the consequence of inequality which are, in fact, the consequence of freedom.

|7.2.07 @ 11:42AM|#

carrick,

Now we are back to basic philosophical issues. The libertarian asserts that the state shouldn't build roads ;-)

That's because you're racists. :-P

|7.2.07 @ 11:44AM|#

Rhwuyn,

Why haven't you heard Democrats saying that the segregation produced by white flight is bad?

Uh, I have no idea. I hear Democrats bad-mouting white suburbs all the time.

|7.2.07 @ 11:47AM|#

carrick,

Oh, please. Poor neighborhoods with very few non-black residents are not "the consequence of freedom." They are not the outcome of equal opportunity.

|7.2.07 @ 11:57AM|#

Oh, please. Poor neighborhoods with very few non-black residents are not "the consequence of freedom."

They definitely ARE the result of freedom. People with the resources to leave, leave. Those without stay. Freedom of movement is one of the most defining characteristics of the US.

Now, there are many serious questions that can be asked about why so many of the people without the resources to flee poor neighborhoods are people of color. My personal opinion is that the war on drugs has had a devastaing impact on black communities, particularly since there seems to be a pervasive bias within the justice system to punish blacks and let white go given similar drug offenses.

Rhywun|7.2.07 @ 12:07PM|#

I hear Democrats bad-mouting white suburbs all the time.

Not in front of the national media, they don't; not if they want to continue to win elections.

Poor neighborhoods with very few non-black residents are not "the consequence of freedom." They are not the outcome of equal opportunity.

Threads like this remind me of the episode of All in the Family where Lamont told Meathead to stuff his paternalistic liberalism--he could pull himself up by his own bootstraps, thank you very much. I think you short-change black people by claiming they don't have the same opportunities to better themselves as everyone else, when it's clear that millions have done so. The fact is, there are always going to be poor people, not-poor people are never going to want to live next to them, and poor people are always going to work hard and do what's necessary to get not-poor. To pretend otherwise is silly. Are there problems in black inner cities and in particular inner-city schools? Yes. Are they going to be solved by ensuring the right mixture of colors? Decades of experience says no.

dhex|7.2.07 @ 12:24PM|#

someone correct me if i'm wrong but i believe part of the underpinning theory here is if you get enough kids from middle class families who don't automatically treat "education" as a kind of "white thing" or a feminizing influence or whatever, you create a buffer zone of kids who block the shitheads who don't want to play the game (of education).

culture by osmosis, in other words.

Rhywun|7.2.07 @ 12:27PM|#

culture by osmosis, in other words.

I think that's it but you'll never get an integration supporter to admit it.

|7.2.07 @ 12:35PM|#

Rhwuyn,

I think you short-change black people by claiming they don't have the same opportunities to better themselves as everyone else

I'm short-changing black people by saying that the unequal outcomes in our society are NOT the result of black inferiority revealing itself through a meritocracy, but from structural forces? Whatever. Cripes, you can't event attempt to have a rational conversation with libertarians about this issue without them pulling the race card.

The fact is, there are always going to be poor people

Which doesn't do a damn thing to address the point you're dodging, which is why black people are so much more likely to be poor, and from poor neighborhoods. No, Rhwuyn, that's not the result of black people being less able to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. I'm quite confident that race is completely irrelevant to the question of ability. It's not irrelevant to the question of ongoing racism and unequal opportunity.

|7.2.07 @ 12:45PM|#

Rhwuyn,

Isn't it amazing how all the things your gut tells you your opponents feel don't ever actually get argued in any of these threads?

Why do you think that might be?

dhex,

The actual underlying theory - the one that isn't invented by integration opponents for the purpose of letting them believe that their opponents are VERY BAD PEOPLE - is that schools that have some white, middle class parents agitating for resources and responsiveness are going to get treated better than schools whose parents don't have the time, resources, and clout to demand satisfaction; and that kids who have experience working and playing with kids from another race are going to be better prepared to function in a multi-racial society; and that the social networks that form among classmates will turn into professional and political networks, so providing integrated schools will produced a genuinely integrated society.

The existence of these arguments is not some big secret; anyone who actually makes an effort to expose themselves to the argument of the pro-integration faction can't help but come across them.

|7.2.07 @ 1:04PM|#

Uh, joe, the problem with the science that the court used in Brown was the fact that they were using science. Appellate courts are supposed to rule on matters of law. They aren't supposed to look to factual issues. That is the trial court's job. Appellate courts are supposed to take the facts as established in the original trial. They should rule if due process was denied and therefore the facts collected were defective, but they are not supposed to collect new facts or make fact based decisions (unless the decision of the trial court was so far out of line with the facts as established in the trial).

|7.2.07 @ 1:09PM|#

is that schools that have some white, middle class parents agitating for resources and responsiveness are going to get treated better than schools whose parents don't have the time, resources, and clout to demand satisfaction;

and that kids who have experience working and playing with kids from another race are going to be better prepared to function in a multi-racial society;

and that the social networks that form among classmates will turn into professional and political networks,

joe, I'm going to agree with all these points. Now,let's talk about how.

How about we build magnate schools in poor neighborhoods so that middle-class white kids will compete, voluntarily, to get into those schools.

How about we give poor kids vouchers that they can take to any school, private or public, religious or secular, so that schools will compete for the vouchers.

How about we let domain experts, say engineers like me, teach part-time classes without having to join a union and take dozens of hours of "teaching" classes.

Give me your ideas. Just leave racial profiling out of it.

|7.2.07 @ 1:13PM|#

carrick,

That "certification" point came out of left field.

As for the others, they all sound like recipes for providing an integrated learning environment for some minority of students. I don't think that's good enough.

|7.2.07 @ 1:16PM|#

Heh heh heh.

"Magnate schools"

*knock knock* Mr. Soros? Mr. Trump told be to come see you because I didn't do my homework.

|7.2.07 @ 1:20PM|#

That "certification" point came out of left field.

Certification, in addition to other issues, prevents poor minority students from having direct access to professional networks of active, working professionals(e.g. me).

As for the others, they all sound like recipes for providing an integrated learning environment for some minority of students. I don't think that's good enough.

I think it can be expanded to cover all students.

I asked for your ideas, you did not provide any.

dhex|7.2.07 @ 1:25PM|#

"The actual underlying theory - the one that isn't invented by integration opponents for the purpose of letting them believe that their opponents are VERY BAD PEOPLE - is that schools that have some white, middle class parents agitating for resources and responsiveness are going to get treated better than schools whose parents don't have the time, resources, and clout to demand satisfaction; and that kids who have experience working and playing with kids from another race are going to be better prepared to function in a multi-racial society; and that the social networks that form among classmates will turn into professional and political networks, so providing integrated schools will produced a genuinely integrated society."

on the first point, i wonder how much of a dropoff to private schools one sees in those situations. (i'm sure someone, somewhere has measured it, and a billion other things.)

the second point seems reasonable, even as i'm more inclined to point to class as a far larger function of what we're really talking about, rather than race (see the obama thread for that sticky wicket).

the last one, well, on the high school level? that seems an argument better suited for colleges, and applying it to high school - particularly if you're trying to mix things up with kids who are college bound - feels like a reach.

culture by osmosis sounds cooler, though.

|7.2.07 @ 1:26PM|#

No, I didn't.

I don't want to get too far OT, carrick. We were talking about the principles behind school integration plans, and the principles behind the Court's rejection of them.

|7.2.07 @ 1:39PM|#

I don't want to get too far OT, carrick. We were talking about the principles behind school integration plans, and the principles behind the Court's rejection of them.

It's not that far off topic.

You argue that school integration plans are necessary because they do good things to alleviate bad problems in society.

I argue that these good things are not relevant, because any integration plan that relies on race as determining factor in making school assignments is unconstitutional (the logic provided by Roberts, et al is crap, but scrapping the plans was the correct result).

I also argue that the good things you want to acheive can be provided by alternative means that do not require racial profiling as a part of school assignments.

If you don't want to discuss any additional concepts for creating integrated schools without making actual assignments based on race, then so be it.

So there really isn't anything left to discuss.

Rhywun|7.2.07 @ 1:43PM|#

Cripes, you can't event attempt to have a rational conversation with libertarians about this issue without them pulling the race card.

I'm not the one who makes the assumption that black folks need some white folks hanging around in order to provide a better example. Sorry if the concern you feel isn't showing through your words.

the point you're dodging, which is why black people are so much more likely to be poor, and from poor neighborhoods

I'm "dodging" it because I think it's ridiculous to assume that the problems faced by black people in the inner city are going to be fixed by throwing some white kids into the mix. It's a feel-good solution that does nothing to address the actual problems such as joblessness and fathers abandoning their kids.

robc|7.2.07 @ 3:01PM|#

We were talking about the principles behind school integration plans

Niether Seattle nor Louisville were integration plans.

Seattle is obviously integrated even without their plan, just not "evenly" integrated. Louisville had a forced integration plan until about 2000 - one, that as I pointed out, tended to be like all government programs and fail miserably, in that I had less blacks in my class the year I was bussed than the years I wasnt - the courts let them off it. The current school choice plan sufficiently integrates the schools without needing to add on the lower/upper limits. JCPS has done large number of magnet schools too, in order to get integration via choice, not force.

|7.2.07 @ 5:03PM|#

joe sez "Poor neighborhoods with very few non-black residents are not "the consequence of freedom." They are not the outcome of equal opportunity."

Funny, but when the Fair Housing laws went into effect in Maryland, that is exactly what happened - middle class blacks left DC, in large numbers, for Prince Georges County.

|7.2.07 @ 5:15PM|#

is that schools that have some white, middle class parents agitating for resources and responsiveness are going to get treated better

Shades of Kipling and terribly unprogressive joe. You really shouldn't say things like that and accuse other people of playing the race card.

that kids who have experience working and playing with kids from another race are going to be better prepared to function in a multi-racial society

That's assuming that they self-integrate when given the opportunity. There is also a significant impulse to self-segregate. This is not the gimme you would like it to be.

that the social networks that form among classmates will turn into professional and political networks, so providing integrated schools will produced a genuinely integrated society.

Funny, but I have no professional or political network contacts from my pre-college days. Is this another phantom, feel-good bit of progressive rhetoric?

|7.2.07 @ 5:36PM|#

I apologize for repeating this link for those that have seen it on other recent race related threads...but I think it is directly related to the arguments.

A working paper out of the Santa Fe Institute showing that when modeled under assumptions that groups have equal ability, initial conditions of segregation alone will lead to unequal economic outcomes without active policies to overcome the inertia of the situation.

http://www.santafe.edu/research/publications/workingpapers/06-02-006.pdf

"Extending earlier work by Loury, Durlauf, Lundberg and Startz and others we have identified the conditions under which, in a plausible dynamic model, the economic injury of segregation does indeed endure. We have shown that group differences in economic success can persist across generations in the absence of either discrimination or group ability differences provided that the social segregation of networks is sufficiently great, and that there is a threshold level of segregation below which group inequality cannot be sustained. A challenge to policy makers arises because crossing this threshold may induce a transition to an equilibrium with either equally high or low levels of human capital in both groups. Which of these will occur depends on the population share of the disadvantaged group.

Thus the challenges facing policy makers in an urban area such as Baltimore are quite different from those in Bangor or Burlington. Similarly the challenges of assuring group-equal opportunity in other countries are quite different in New Zealand, where 15 percent of the population are Maori and South Africa where the disadvantaged African population constitutes 78 percent of the total. We have shown that race-neutral educational policies that reduce the costs of acquiring human capital unambiguously increase the range of population shares over which, starting from a segregated and unequal initial state, the process of integration will induce a transition to an equilibrium without group inequality and with high levels of human capital."

I think this leads to logical support to keep control local.

|7.2.07 @ 8:30PM|#

joe said:

that the social networks that form among classmates will turn into professional and political networks, so providing integrated schools will produced a genuinely integrated society.

I don't think so. Public resources create conflict by their very nature: using them for social agendas heightens the conflict and steeps them in strange ideas like "race".

In a properly free economy, the creature of racism would largely die out because it's so ridiculous and economically confining, just like it should have back in the paleozoic era.

soulr3b3l|7.2.07 @ 9:57PM|#

white people invented the race game we play today. they designated people into their racial group. what were black people before white people decided they were black people, hence the opposite of them? i don't believe in race, only in culture and ethnicity. therefore, one can be so-called black (on the surface) but culturally that person is white (like clarence thomas). i find it odd how white people don't want things to be viewed in terms of race when it doesn't benefit them. white people have a feeling of entitlement. they complain when a black person gets into a college they couldn't presuming that every white person who did get in did just as good or better. no one complains about the white rich dumb kid who gets into a school based off legacy status. that white rich dumb kid is taking up a seat that a poor white person earned. the ramifications of this decision are yet to be seen. ever since the integration of the public school system, the public schools have become less integrated. whites quickly moved to the suburbs, and left the public schools of the city. this whole country (white people, black people, latinos, asians, arabs, and the indigenous people) has been mind-screwed by the legacy of racism that this country was built on.

I\'m just saying|7.2.07 @ 10:54PM|#

How is this the debate on a supposedly libertarian website?

Most of things being discussed are fully social issues and have nothing to do with our governance. As a libertarian, I spit in your general direction.

soulrebel|7.2.07 @ 11:07PM|#

it has everything to do with our governance, considering the government legislates social issues.

I\'m just saying|7.2.07 @ 11:15PM|#

Soulrebel, what of all this talk about real-world consequences and other random bullshit?

Let the real world take care of itself. It already has enough problems without the government piling on.

soulrebel|7.2.07 @ 11:26PM|#

i'm just saying, i agree the government is for shite. but how can the real world take care of itself while the government interferes? the war on drugs has real-world consequences, like i have to piss in a cup to get a job. bush is big on states' rights, unless the states don't agree with him. the role of the government has been perverted, but then again the government here has never been concern with the interests of the masses of people.

I\'m just saying|7.2.07 @ 11:45PM|#

Soulrebel, from your last comment, I doubt we have a very large philosophical divide. My concern is simply that I read this thread as not so much a rebuke of governmental interference but as a series of suggestions as to how it could better interfere. (Obviously, I don't think all the comments were like that.)

soulrebel|7.2.07 @ 11:50PM|#

i'm just saying, i have to agree with you.

|7.3.07 @ 9:57AM|#

Rhwuyn,

I'm not the one who makes the assumption that black folks need some white folks hanging around in order to provide a better example.

Neither am I. I specifically disagreed with that statement, and laid out for your my actual beliefs. You just decided to ignore them, so you can bask in your delusions of moral superiority.

Sorry you can neither read nor argue rationally about this subject, just assign racial straw men to your opponents. Like I said, it's difficult to discuss this topic with people whose primary interest is to call people racists.

|7.3.07 @ 10:00AM|#

juris,

Shades of Kipling and terribly unprogressive joe.

I haven't the foggiest idea what that's supposed to mean, and I doubt you do, either.

That's assuming that they self-integrate when given the opportunity. There is also a significant impulse to self-segregate. This is not the gimme you would like it to be.

An integrated school is going to have more cross-racial socializing and cooperation than a segregated one, even if there is some self-segregation going on.

Funny, but I have no professional or political network contacts from my pre-college days.

Thank you very much for your anecdote.

|7.3.07 @ 10:02AM|#

Nasikabrachus,

Public resources create conflict by their very nature: using them for social agendas heightens the conflict and steeps them in strange ideas like "race".

Let's set aside the hoity-toity language and get right down to what we're talking about here; a white third grader and a black third grader sitting next to each other in class, being study-buddies, playing together at recess, and maybe going over to play at each other's houses on the weekends.

Do you actually think that their relationship is going to play out different because something they've neither heard of nor understand happened in a back office at the school department?

dhex|7.3.07 @ 11:19AM|#

"Do you actually think that their relationship is going to play out different because something they've neither heard of nor understand happened in a back office at the school department?"

in one sense, perhaps - depends on how far away they're bussed in from. and whether or not one set of parents is resentful of said bussing, or if they're cool with it, etc.

|7.3.07 @ 11:41AM|#

- The percentages of students affected don't support the argument that only a "tiny number" of students are affected. Maybe I misunderstand.

- Talking about the "family" challenges of minority students sounds a little out of tune without mentioning why those families are challenged. You don't have to keep apologizing for the slavery and Jim Crow of past generations, but when you are arguing against a policy that is a product of the civil rights movement, the burden is arguably on you to acknowledge the real origin of that particular part of the problem, particularly if you feel the need to bring up the family challenges of minority students.

|7.3.07 @ 1:52PM|#

"So, if a state decided to set up its school districts so that each was 100% white or 100% black, that would be OK?"
A state can do that only if the state keeps count of race. States must not make official note of race nor base any decision on race. Back in the days of Jim Crow anyone could tell you that the Negras were happy except when outside agitators came in.
The NAACP and the KKK agree blacks need special consideration because of their color. I don't.