Round-Up
Recaps and analyses of yesterday’s oral argument in Mass. v. EPA abound. Here is Dahlia Lithwick writing at Slate, and here she is again, this time discussing the case on NPR; Nina Totenberg also had a piece on NPR that can be found here. Linda Greenhouse of the New York Times has her story here, and Tony Mauro of Legal Times focuses on the role of Justice Kennedy in the case here. David Savage of the L.A. Times has his thoughts here, while Jess Bravin and Mark Anderson discuss both of yesterday’s cases here.
At the Washington Post, Tomoeh Murakami Tse discusses Watters v. Wachovia here.
Ruth Marcus, also of the Washington Post, has a discussion of the voluntary school integration cases that will be argued this Monday here.
Finally, at Above the Law, David Lat agrees with Dahlia Lithwick, who earlier this week wrote that the Court should release same-day audio of every argument.
Ruth Marcus’ argument about the cases challenging schools’ use of race in student assignment is based on a faulty premise and a misunderstanding of the law.
In her Washington Post editorial, “A Slide Towards Segregation” (Nov. 29), she argues that race should be a permissible factor in assigning students to schools, in order to help maintain “racial balance.”
But the Supreme Court has rejected that argument over and over again. For example, in the school desegregation case of Freeman v. Pitts (1992), the Justices warned that “racial balance is not to be achieved for its own sake.” Similarly, in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), the Supreme Court emphasized that “racial balancing” is “patently unconstitutional.”
The Solicitor General and the Department of Education are thus right to oppose the racial quotas adopted by the Seattle and Jefferson County schools in cases before the Supreme Court.
Marcus claims that the Seattle Schools are using race to promote a “melting pot.” But the Seattle Schools have loudly rejected what they call “unsuccessful concepts such as a melting pot.”
Moreover, their actions seem to be the product of racial stereotyping. In addition to claiming that “individualism” is a form of “cultural racism,” the Seattle Schools have made the truly outlandish claim that that planning ahead (”future time orientation”) is a white characteristic that minorities shouldn’t be expected to have.
Moreover, different minority groups in the Seattle Schools are lumped together under a single quota that treats all minorities as being alike.
As a result, if a school has a lot of black students, a Hispanic or Native American student can be prevented from going there, even if the school has no Hispanics or Native Americans. That reinforces, rather than prevents, segregation.
Thus, the Justice should strike down the Seattle Schools’ use of race in staudent assignment, which treats students differently based on their skin color, and undermines the goal of making America a melting pot.
Comment by Hans Bader — November 30, 2006 @ 7:03 pm