Supreme Court Overturns Race-Based Student Assignments

Posted by Hans Bader

Welcome to OpenMarket.org! Please consider Subscribing to our RSS feed, so you don’t miss any of the news and analysis brought to you by CEI’s policy experts.

The Supreme Court has overturned the race-based assignment of students in Seattle and Louisville schools. (The decision can be found here).

CEI filed an amicus brief arguing that schools shouldn’t receive deference from the courts when they use race, pointing to the bizarre racial statements made by the Seattle Schools.

CEI pointed out that the Seattle Schools, on their website, have falsely claimed that “emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology” constitutes “cultural racism,” that only whites can be racist, that it is racist to expect minorities to plan ahead the way white people do, and that colorblindness is bad.

Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion announcing the court’s decision cites these statements, which were brought to the court’s attention by CEI.

So, too, does Justice Thomas’s concurrence, which rejects giving any deference to schools when they use race, and emphasizes that the bizarre “racial theories endorsed by the Seattle school board should cause the dissenters to question whether local school boards should be entrusted with the power to make decisions on the basis of race.”

At SCOTUSblog, I discuss what today’s decision means in this post.

Earlier, I explained why the use of race in the Seattle is not justified under a “desegregation” or “integration” rationale, since racial “imbalances” are not the same as “segregation,” and since Seattle has never been segregated, and there is therefore nothing to “desegregate” or “integrate.” John Rosenberg also has discussed the case at his insightful blog Discriminations.

 Email This Post  Print This Post

06/28/2007 @ 3:30 pm | Constitutional & Legal | Comments

5 Responses to “Supreme Court Overturns Race-Based Student Assignments”

  1. Posted by: OpenMarket.org » Race Games Continue In Our Courts and Schools - 11/12/2007

    […] June, the Supreme Court cut back on school districts’ ability to assign students to schools by race, even when school districts claim to have reasons for doing so, such as promoting […]

  2. Posted by: OpenMarket.org » Embarrass Your Employer, While Getting Rich Off of “Diversity” Scams - 11/16/2007

    […] June 2007, the Supreme Court struck down Seattle’s use of race, and 4 of the 9 justices cited Seattle’s wacky, Singleton-influenced, definitions of racism in the …. Justice Thomas, for example, cited those definitions as an object lesson in why not to defer to […]

  3. Posted by: » Seattle Schools, where diversity = Blame whites for everything (and make some money) » Leaning Straight Up » Blog Archive » - 11/20/2007

    […] June 2007, the Supreme Court struck down Seattle’s use of race, and 4 of the 9 justices cited Seattle’s wacky, Singleton-influenced, definitions of racism in the course of their opinions. Justice Thomas, for example, cited those definitions as an object […]

  4. Posted by: OpenMarket.org » Arlington Schools Hire Race-Baiting Diversity Consultant - 11/20/2007

    […] struck down the Seattle Schools’ use of race in student assignment, and 4 of the 9 justices cited Seattle’s wacky, Singleton-influenced, definitions of racism in the course of their opinions. Justice Thomas, for example, cited those definitions in footnote […]

  5. Posted by: A “Human Right” to Discriminate in Government Hiring? | OpenMarket.org - 01/22/2008

    […] in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 (2007), a case in which CEI filed an amicus brief that is discussed […]

Comments are closed for this entry.