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The Robinsons, Dorchester: “I went to primarily white schools growing up,” Cathy Richmond Robinson says. “I think, ‘I did it, my kids can do it.’ Definitely by middle school, we’ll be moving out one way or another.” ( Stephen Michener is a man with a plan. He hands it to me as we sit on the couch in his second-floor Jamaica Plain condo – a slim white binder with the words Boston Metro Evac handwritten with a Sharpie on the spine. Following that, in parentheses, is written simply: (Plan B). "We started putting this together two years ago," he says....

THE SEATTLE school integration case decided by the Supreme Court last month was brought in the name of a group called Parents Involved in Community Schools on behalf of Jill Kurfirst and her ninth-grade son. But it was a little-known, Sacramento-based organization called the Pacific Legal Foundation — a conservative public interest law firm involved in the case from the beginning — that developed many of the legal arguments five justices ultimately found persuasive. Where did the foundation come from? The story begins with former Justice Lewis F. Powell. Shortly before he was nominated to the court in 1971, Powell,...

Commentary: The Use of Race Ratios in America’s Schools Helps Encourage Stereotypes, Not Real Diversity Date: Tuesday, July 03, 2007 By: Joseph C. Phillips, BlackAmericaWeb.com Most Americans favor diversity. However, very few among us would endorse a policy wherein the local government determined where a citizen could live based on their race -- even if such a policy was instituted for the intent of ensuring diversity. “Sorry Mr. Smith, we have reached our limit of white families in this particular neighborhood.” “Too bad Mr. Jones. I realize your wife has her heart set on this house, but there are too...

Under the righteous-sounding banners of “equal opportunity,” “inclusion,” and “diversity,” the political Left embraces racial discrimination as legitimate public policy -- so long as the discrimination is practiced on behalf of the minorities that the Left axiomatically considers victims of an irredeemably oppressive America. Thus the Left reacted apoplectically to last Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling that public school systems may not achieve or preserve racial integration through measures that take explicit account of students’ racial backgrounds. Specifically, the Court’s split decision invalidated programs in Seattle and Louisville (Kentucky) that sought to maintain “diversity” in local schools by factoring race into...

An intriguing ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court could re-open discussion about the brainwashing that occurs in all-too-many public school classrooms these days. The High Court this week issued a thumbs-down to so-called "diversity" plans in two large school districts that use race as a factor in assigning students. According to an Associated Press report, the ruling could affect not only schools in Seattle and Louisville, but could impact like-minded plans in hundreds of school systems around the country. Chief Justice John Roberts said the school districts involved "failed to show that they considered methods other than explicit racial classifications...

Based on their consistent behavior in recent years, and specifically again in their presidential debate last Thursday, it is fair to ask whether there is any race-sensitive situation Democrats will not exploit for political purposes. The Supreme Court's decision last week involving the public schools' use of race to achieve diversity was just too tempting to pass up. The respective candidates' reactions spawned a grotesque competition among them to see which was the best demagogue. These candidates surely understand that the Court's ruling in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 et al, did not --...

Three years ago, when I and the 48 percent of Americans who voted for then-Sen. John Kerry for president were lamenting President George Bush's win, I made this prediction about Bush's second term: He'd stick us with a right-wing high court that will chip away at the country's yet-young history of government-sanctioned integration methods. By the time the decider-in-chief was done, I'd be on a plantation somewhere, picking cotton. That dire and admittedly over-dramatic prediction has yet to come true, but the Supreme Court took a good-sized step in that direction Thursday with its ruling that restricts how race can...

Sunday, July 01, 2007 The school districts told American children they could not attend certain public schools because of the color of their skin. Those are the essentials at the core of the Seattle and Louisville race cases the U.S. Supreme Court decided last week. Those school districts were not discriminating on the basis of race in order to remedy the effects of past segregation. The Supreme Court allows such racial sorting if it's narrowly tailored and the only desegregation option. But Seattle never had segregated public schools, and Louisville came out from under a court-ordered desegregation decree in 2000....

When I am in California, I enjoy visiting Chinatown, that part of San Francisco dominated by Chinese shops, foods and language. The food is fresh, you can barter at stores, and if you're fluent, you can practice your Chinese. The population in this area is not diverse, but this concentration of Chinese culture is what makes Chinatown so enjoyable – the same with Japantown or any other ethnic area. Yet, the four dissenting justices in the recent Supreme Court decision on race would probably rule that each of these "towns" may contain a maximum of 41 percent of the concentrated...

JUNE 28, 2007, will be remembered as a shameful day in the long, elusive battle to instill equal opportunity in American schools. The U.S. Supreme Court's twisted logic in limiting a school district's ability to take race into account as a way to end racial segregation echoes the court's Plessy vs. Ferguson ruling of 1896. That ruling put the imprimatur on "separate but equal" policies that allowed racial discrimination and oppression to flourish for more than half-a-century more. The 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision, fortunately, drove a dagger into Plessy's heart -- until Thursday, when a court invigorated...

June 28, 2007, 3:50 p.m. Diversity without Decrees By The Editors In a 5-4 decision Thursday morning, the Supreme Court struck down race-based school assignment plans in Louisville and Seattle. Chief Justice John Roberts’s opinion for the Court is narrow, and is further weakened by a concurring opinion in which Justice Anthony Kennedy blesses some level of color-consciousness to achieve racial diversity in K-12 education. Yet the ruling is also a victory for those who think race plays too large a role in public life. Using different formulae, the school districts of Louisville and Seattle tried to manipulate the...

WASHINGTON, June 28 — With competing blocs of justices claiming the mantle of Brown v. Board of Education, a bitterly divided Supreme Court declared Thursday that public school systems cannot seek to achieve or maintain integration through measures that take explicit account of a student’s race.

Democratic presidential candidates stood united Thursday night against the Supreme Court and its historic ruling rolling back a half-century of school desegregation laws. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said the conservative court "turned the clock back" on history. Sen. Barack Obama, the only black candidate in the eight-person field, spoke of civil rights leaders who fought for Brown v. Board of Education and other precedents curbed by the High Court. "If it were not for them," he said, "I would not be standing here." The 90-minute debate was the third gathering of the Democratic hopefuls in a presidential campaign that has...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected school diversity plans that take account of students' race in two major public school districts but left the door open for using race in limited circumstances.The decision in cases affecting schools in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle could imperil similar plans in hundreds of districts nationwide, and it further restricts how public school systems may attain racial diversity. The court split, 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts announcing the court's judgment. The court's four liberal justices dissented. Yet Justice Anthony Kennedy would not go as far as the other four conservative justices, saying...

The Supreme Court ruled 53 years ago in Brown v. Board of Education that segregated education is inherently unequal, and it ordered the nation’s schools to integrate. Today, the court switched sides and told two cities that they cannot take modest steps to bring public school students of different races together. It was a sad day for the court and for the ideal of racial equality.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the Seattle school district's racial tiebreaker, along with a school-integration plan in Kentucky, but left the door open for the limited use of race to achieve diversity in schools. The decision in cases affecting how students are assigned to schools in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle could imperil similar plans in hundreds of districts nationwide, and it further restricted how public school systems may attain racial diversity. The court split, 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts announcing the court's judgment. The court's four liberal justices dissented. "The way to stop discrimination on the...

June 28, 2007 Reid: Supreme Court Decision On School Desegregation Is Judicial Activism Washington, DC—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada made the following statement today in response to the Supreme Court’s decision on school desegregation: "The Supreme Court decision in the school desegregation cases is appalling. Ever since Brown v. Board of Education, it has been settled law that the Constitution requires racially mixed schools. Today's decision turns Brown upside down and ignores decades of constitutional history. If this isn't judicial activism, I don't know what is."

SCOTUS Watch [John J. Miller] In a 5-4 decision, the Justices have struck down race-conscious school plans in Louisville and Seattle. Roberts wrote the opinion. Announced minutes ago.

Court rules that white children do not have to be bused miles away from home to achieve racial equality. BIG DECISION here.

The Inter- District Downtown School in Minneapolis and the FAIR School in Crystal opened their doors with much fanfare in 1999 and 2000, respectively. Their sponsor is the West Metro Education Program, a consortium of the Minneapolis school district and 10 suburban districts. WMEP created the schools at a cost of more than $26 million to be showcases of racial balance, achieved voluntarily. Last week, we learned that they are no such thing. Today, InterDistrict students are 70 percent minority' and the FAIR School is nearly 70 percent white. Their racial composition is little different from that of the districts...