Diversity, Integration and the Supreme Court’s Seattle Ruling

Opening the Campaign for Educational Equity’s November symposium, “Equal Educational Opportunity: What Now?”, a distinguished panel of experienced experts analyzed the recent Seattle and Jefferson County, Kentucky decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which struck down voluntary integration plans. Ted Shaw, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund urged the audience to address school integration in an honest way and said that “there is no room for depression or despair.” He advocated making racially segregated education as equal and high quality as possible. “No one can be safe with racially dual school systems,” said Shaw. He concluded that non-race conscious integration is hypocritical and that we need policies that are race and color conscious because although intertwined, class and race are not the same.

An Opportunity and a Challenge

john a. powell, Executive Director of Kirwin Institute for Race Ethnicity of Ohio State University, argued that “the case has not been put to rest!” He advocated using diversity as an alternative to using individual classifications of students to address racial balance.

Similarly, Professor James Ryan from the University of Virginia Law School, said that if the Supreme Court determined that integration is not a legitimate goal or priority, then we will not be able to use race explicitly. He acknowledged that a good deal was lost in Seattle, but he remained somewhat hopeful based on opportunities for diversity held out in Kennedy’s opinion. Professor Ryan described the decision as a challenge.

Rays of Hope

The practitioner’s panel that followed featured four educators from different states. Their individual presentations shed positive light on the joint effort to salvage the future of integration in public education from the Seattle decision. Despite the unfavorable court ruling, panel members kept their eyes firmly set on the goal of educational equity. They shared their experiences by describing what they are doing and how they plan to ensure that the children in their areas will experience integrated schools.

Pat Todd, Executive Director of Student Assignment of Jefferson County Public Schools, described her Kentucky community as “still very much defined by black and white.” Yet, she said that the district has come up with a “moral yardstick” to hold itself accountable for racially balanced schools.

The practitioners argued that Justice Kennedy had left open a window through which they can shine a ray of hope. Rhoda Schneider, General Counsel and Associate Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Education, urged districts not to panic and not to rush because there is simply too much at stake to hastily scrap integration programs that are working. One panelist even suggested that the Seattle decision presents a rare opportunity to reinvigorate policies on racial diversity! Anurima Bhargava, Director of the Education Practice, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund explained that the goal of racial balance can be met, within the bounds of the Seattle/Jefferson County opinion, with creativity. Todd similarly argued that she’s optimistic about the many options available to support school diversity.

Bhargava further acknowledged that it’s not only about race, but also class. She stressed the importance of targeting concentrated poverty more broadly to ensure that public schools benefit all children across the nation. In spite of an adverse Supreme Court decision, the practitioners of this panel reaffirmed their commitment to equal educational opportunity and their commitment to preserve racial integration in their schools, shining their light of hope for the future of integrated public education.

Prepared by Marcela Briceno, November 21, 2007