School Diversity, Another Way

The Chronicle: By Derrick Bell

The Seattle and Louisville decision places in jeopardy similar plans in use by school districts across the country. Given the nation's racial history, it is hypocritical for Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. to assert that 'the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.' The suggestion cruelly conflates minor cures with the major disease. Were he a medical doctor, Roberts would ban the use of vaccines that are fashioned from the disease-causing virus. ...

The resilience of civil-rights groups is praiseworthy, but future litigation, even if successful, is not going to alter the fact that most poor children, regardless of race, are attending schools that are not meeting their educational needs. Their dire condition, and that of the schools they attend, is not solely the result of an insensitive Supreme Court majority quite ready to manipulate precedent to stifle well-intended racial-diversity plans. The plain fact is that a great many white Americans, including many with otherwise liberal views on race, do not want their offspring attending schools with more than a token number of black and Latino children. Whatever their status, they do not wish to be burdened by efforts to correct the results of racial discrimination that they do not believe they caused. Their opposition may not be as violent or as vast as it was during the early years after the Brown decision, but it is widespread, deeply felt, and if history is any indication, not likely to change any time soon. ...

It is painful for many of us, but it is time to acknowledge that racial integration as the primary vehicle for providing effective schooling for black and Latino children has run its course. Where it is working, or has a real chance to work, it should continue, but for the millions of black and Latino children living in areas that are as racially isolated in fact as they once were by law, it is time to look elsewhere. ...

After-school and supplementary programs including the All Stars Project, and BELL (Building Educational Leaders for Life), are only a few of the many achieving academic success for children whose educational outlooks are poor or nonexistent. Civil-rights groups should recognize and support such schools and programs, not as a surrender of their integration goals, but as an acknowledgment that flexibility is needed in fulfilling the schooling needs of black and Latino children in today's conservative political landscape.

As to higher education, if the prognosis for maintaining race-conscious admissions programs is as grim as I believe, it too needs to consider supporting the kinds of school programs I have described. ...

On racial classifications by government

SEATTLE SCHOOL DIST. : Justice Kennedy, concurring:

Though this may oversimplify the matter a bit, one of the main concerns underlying those opinions was this: If it is legitimate for school authorities to work to avoid racial isolation in their schools, must they do so only by indirection and general policies? Does the Constitution mandate this inefficient result? Why may the authorities not recognize the problem in candid fashion and solve it altogether through resort to direct assignments based on student racial classifications? So, the argument proceeds, if race is the problem, then perhaps race is the solution.

The argument ignores the dangers presented by individual classifications, dangers that are not as pressing when the same ends are achieved by more indirect means. When the government classifies an individual by race, it must first define what it means to be of a race. Who exactly is white and who is nonwhite? To be forced to live under a state-mandated racial label is inconsistent with the dignity of individuals in our society. And it is a label that an individual is powerless to change. Governmental classifications that command people to march in different directions based on racial typologies can cause a new divisiveness. The practice can lead to corrosive discourse, where race serves not as an element of our diverse heritage but instead as a bargaining chip in the political process. On the other hand race-conscious measures that do not rely on differential treatment based on individual classifications present these problems to a lesser degree. ...

Under our Constitution the individual, child or adult, can find his own identity, can define her own persona, without state intervention that classifies on the basis of his race or the color of her skin.

I am not generally a fan of Justice Kennedy, although once in a while--as in Lawrence--he surprises me. I don't agree on his disposition of this case--that is putting it mildly--and his discussion of the facts in the relevant school districts (and his approach to de jure/de facto discrimination in this factual setting) seems to me wildly off the mark. But these remarks on racial classification (which stand somewhat free from those issues, and not inherently linked to that disposition) are worthy of more serious consideration and debate. Parallel questions have arisen over census classifications, and the extraordinary (and rapidly growing) variety of multi-ethnic, multi-racial identities in this society calls for greater nuance and more imaginative approaches to racial questions. The movie Bulworth offered one alternative, which may hold some promise in the long term. Meanwhile, there must be some other possibilities worth considering.