SCOTUS issues latest school diversity ruling

[maurice]

I've only seen some initial reports (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-scotus-schools-race,1,6189618.story?coll=chi-news-hed), but it looks like another clusterfuck with no majority opinion.

[1951Campbell]

It's a mess:

http://scotusblog.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/05-908.pdf

Good result, at least. :shrug:

[Palehose13]

Interesting.

It seems that to achieve racial diversity in Milwaukee, we have to bus white kids in from the burbs. :eek:

[maurice]

Holy crap, it's 185 pages. I guess I'll just rely on credible reports. Interesting that, nowadays, the Court only seems to invoke Equal Protection to protect all those poor, defenseless white people.

FWIW, the people I spoke with in Louisville all believed that their plan was crap and certain to be rejected by the Court. It was a dream test case for conservatives, just like the other recent school case.

Louisville doesn't need to worry about bussing kids in from the 'burbs. The city annexed most of their burbs to artificially inflate their population figures.

EDIT: Okay, I speedread the decision. I have to say that Robert's opinions run contrary to the BS he spewed during his C.J. confirmation hearings, especially the stuff about stare decisis and reducing personal animosity in the Court's opinions. He spends most of his opinion bitching about J. Breyer and expresses an extremely naive (or insincere) view of de facto segregation. (Our very own J. Stevens eloquently shreds him on this point.) For a guy who campaigned as a uniter-not-a-divider, it looks like Roberts is going to preside over a boat-load of divisive 5-4 decisions. Sounds vaguely familiar.

[MSquad]

Holy crap, it's 185 pages. I guess I'll just rely on credible reports. Interesting that, nowadays, the Court only seems to invoke Equal Protection to protect all those poor, defenseless white people.

FWIW, the people I spoke with in Louisville all believed that their plan was crap and certain to be rejected by the Court. It was a dream test case for conservatives, just like the other recent school case.

Louisville doesn't need to worry about bussing kids in from the 'burbs. The city annexed most of their burbs to artificially inflate their population figures.

EDIT: Okay, I speedread the decision. I have to say that Robert's opinions run contrary to the BS he spewed during his C.J. confirmation hearings, especially the stuff about stare decisis and reducing personal animosity in the Court's opinions. He spends most of his opinion bitching about J. Breyer and expresses an extremely naive (or insincere) view of de facto segregation. (Our very own J. Stevens eloquently shreds him on this point.) For a guy who campaigned as a uniter-not-a-divider, it looks like Roberts is going to preside over a boat-load of divisive 5-4 decisions. Sounds vaguely familiar. I'm not a lawyer, but discrimination is discrimination is discrimination. This was a good ruling. I'm sure somewhere on down the road I'll feel the opposite way about a Roberts opinion. If you want to talk about divisive, what has been more divisive than the knee jerk guilt ridden methods used to make up for past injustice? A strict racial and gender based quota system almost bankrupted not one, but two of my former employers. I liked Roberts opinion and Stevens usually (not always) gives me a migraine.

[samram]

I'm not a lawyer, but discrimination is discrimination is discrimination. This was a good ruling. I'm sure somewhere on down the road I'll feel the opposite way about a Roberts opinion. If you want to talk about divisive, what has been more divisive than the knee jerk guilt ridden methods used to make up for past injustice? A strict racial and gender based quota system almost bankrupted not one, but two of my former employers. I liked Roberts opinion and Stevens usually (not always) gives me a migraine.

Yeah, I really don't see that forced integration is any better than forced segregation. They've had a busing system in place here so that each school's student body reflects the racial make up of the city. What that leads to is kids getting on buses at 6 AM because they have to go further to school and parents deciding they don't want that, so they drive the kids to school, creating more traffic. (I'm kind of surprised the environmentalists haven't said anything about that). It also leads to people being pissed because they move into certain neighborhoods due to the schools and then they're told they can't send their kid to the schools- I've seen this happen to both white and black families.

[Prope]

Yeah, I really don't see that forced integration is any better than forced segregation. They've had a busing system in place here so that each school's student body reflects the racial make up of the city. What that leads to is kids getting on buses at 6 AM because they have to go further to school and parents deciding they don't want that, so they drive the kids to school, creating more traffic. (I'm kind of surprised the environmentalists haven't said anything about that). It also leads to people being pissed because they move into certain neighborhoods due to the schools and then they're told they can't send their kid to the schools- I've seen this happen to both white and black families.
Is that a state law? Or is that local for Charlotte?

[samram]

Is that a state law? Or is that local for Charlotte?

Charlotte. Overall, it's really one of the worst school systems in the country. They've done a terrible job keeping up with the number of people moving here- there are way too many classes being held in trailers next to school buildings.

[Prope]

Charlotte. Overall, it's really one of the worst school systems in the country. They've done a terrible job keeping up with the number of people moving here- there are way too many classes being held in trailers next to school buildings.
Going back to your original post, this is what confuses me the most I guess...
It also leads to people being pissed because they move into certain neighborhoods due to the schools and then they're told they can't send their kid to the schools- I've seen this happen to both white and black families.
So exactly what is the benefit of parents moving into better neighborhoods? Couldn't you just as well stay in the shitty area and hope to be moved to the better schools?

This seems like an ass backwards form of vouchers.

[fquaye14ten]

Zosa is for SCOTUS

are you for SCOTUS?

[samram]

Going back to your original post, this is what confuses me the most I guess...

So exactly what is the benefit of parents moving into better neighborhoods? Couldn't you just as well stay in the shitty area and hope to be moved to the better schools?

This seems like an ass backwards form of vouchers.

Well, there are other benefits besides schools, but yeah, you could hope your kid gets to go to a good school- but there's no way to really know which school your kid would have to go to if they couldn't go the neighborhood one- it would depend on which school needs which students. It's not a system that anyone's really happy with except for school administrators who have way more power than they would otherwise.

[maurice]

I'm not a lawyer, but discrimination is discrimination is discrimination.

Sure but, like I said, they only make noise about "discrimination" to protect white folks. When the Equal Protection Clause is invoked the way it was intended, then we get rulings like, "Yes, that law impacts black people negatively by locking them in jail for several times more years than white people, but I'm sure they have the best of intentions."

Also keep in mind that C.J. Robert's opinion is not the law. He has a majority agreeing with his remedy (blow up these particular plans) but not his reasoning (race cannot be a factor). A majority of Justices still think that race can be a factor (in some extremely unclear manner).