Column of the Day: George Will Reacts to the Supremes’ Seattle and Louisville Schools Decision
He sees it as a step back to sanity and a correct application of Brown v. Board of Education. I agree:
….. The court ruled 5-4 that Seattle, which never had school segregation, and Louisville, which did but seven years ago completed judicially mandated remedial measures, must stop using race in assigning children to schools to produce particular racial ratios in enrollments. How did we get from this: “Distinctions by race are so evil, so arbitrary and invidious that a state bound to defend the equal protection of the laws must not invoke them in any public sphere” (the NAACP’s brief, written by Thurgood Marshall, in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education desegregation case), to this: Local public education establishments routinely taking cognizance of race in assigning children to schools?
….. diversity preferences appeal to race-obsessed social engineers — a cohort particularly prevalent among today’s educators — precisely because the diversity rationale never expires. The diversity project is forever a work in progress.
Seattle’s “race-conscious” policies were devised by the sort of people who proclaimed on the school district’s Web site that “having a future time orientation” (planning ahead), “emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology” and “defining one form of English as standard” constitute “cultural racism” and “institutional racism” and arises from “unsuccessful concepts such as a melting pot or colorblind mentality.”
….. Breyer said that last week’s decision abandons “the promise of Brown.” Actually, that promise — a colorblind society — has been traduced by the “diversity” exception to the Equal Protection Clause. That exception allows white majorities to feel noble while treating blacks and certain other minorities as seasoning — a sort of human oregano — to be sprinkled across a student body to make the majority’s educational experience more flavorful.
….. As Roberts said, Seattle and Louisville offered “no evidence” that the diversity they have achieved (by what he has called the “sordid business” of “divvying us up by race”) is necessary to achieve the “asserted” educational benefits.
Evidence is beside the point. The point for race-mongering diversity tinkerers is their professional and ideological stake in preventing America from achieving “a colorblind mentality.”
It would be one thing if the people so dedicated to diversity had anything to show for the decades of work in the form of educational improvement that can be credited to it. The fact is, they don’t.
