|
US Supreme Court Moves Country Closer to Racial Segregation
This morning H. Alexander Robinson, NBJC Executive Director/CEO stood on the steps of the US Supreme Court alongside fellow Black Leadership Forum members, including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus to respond to the Supreme Court’s ruling striking down school diversity/integration programs.
National Black Justice Coaliltion Response:
 |
WASHINGTON, DC --Today the US Supreme court delivered a major blow to civil rights threatening a roll back to the segregation era days that America once embraced.
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to strike down school diversity programs in school districts in the cities of Louisville, Kentucky and Seattle, Washington. The ruling leaves public school officials in both cities with limited tools and resources to maintain racial diversity. |
“Today’s ruling provides a dangerous and volatile precedent which potentially could spread across the nation as other school districts come under similar scrutiny for maintaining racially diverse integrated school environments” explained H. Alexander Robinson, Executive Director/CEO of the National Black Justice Coalition.
"Historically schools with majority students of color have received less funding, less experienced teachers and score lower on standardized tests thus diminishing their chances of attending college" Robinson added.
"Today's decision is a roll-back and a major thrust towards the once segregated days of Jim Crow laws, the George Wallace stand in the school house door – 'separate but equal' era of education " Robinson concluded.
Although the Supreme Court stuck down the use of diversity programs in this instance, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote a concurring opinion in which he stated that race may be used as a component of school district plans designed to achieve diversity but that the Louisville and Seattle plans went too far.
History:
The following two court cases sparked today's Supreme Court rulings:
Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education
The Louisville Kentucky school system spent 25 years under a court order to eliminate the effects of state-sponsored segregation. When a federal judge freed the Jefferson County, Ky., school board, which encompasses Louisville, from his legal oversight, the school board decided to keep much of the court-ordered plan in place to prevent schools from re-segregating.
Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District
The Seattle school district however used race as one of many factors it relied upon in allocating students among the city's high schools. Seattle suspended its program after parents sued.
The National Black Justice Coalition is a civil rights organization dedicated to racial justice and empowering Black same-gender-loving, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people. www.nbjc.org
##
|
