The Return To “Separate But Equal”
The Synod is on its way to showing what it means by stare decisis, rather than what everyone else thinks. They have rendered a decision that foregos that “new kid,” Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), and returns to the glory days of Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896).
Of course, if it weren’t for those pesky Constitutional amendments, they could have returned to their preferred judgment, Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1856). Yes, they want to return to spirit of the first Roman Catholic Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Roger Brooke Taney.
The article on the decision has a wonderful quote:
“Instead of spending zillions of dollars around the country to place a black child next to a white child, let’s reduce class size. All the schools are equal. We will no longer accept that an African-American majority within a school is unacceptable.”
Teddy Gordon, attorney for Louisville school system.
Full speed back to Y1K!
10 comments
This is the result of shrinking budgets in schools where the district no longer wants to share with minorities and wants to focus on white students. It’s all a matter of resources. Plus, if you have too many minorities graduating from good high schools, God, they’re going to go to good colleges, taking the place of white students who are ENTITLED to those spots (see the lawsuit of two white applicants to the University of Michigan Law School who argued that two lesser-qualified minority students were given the spots that were rightfully theirs. Nothing like the response for then U of M president Lee Bollinger: “Last time I checked a University of Michigan education was a privilege, not a right.” Right on Lee!!!!) and then they’ll end up getting good jobs. My God, the horror. Actually you’d be surprised for racists (sometimes not so subtle) attitudes were at one time (at least) readily apparent among doctoral students in the field of Psychology and Education (future superintendents and the like) at the very University of Michigan… who held the view that minorities and the poor failed in school because of laziness and inferior intellect…. 1950 you ask? No, 1998, when my wife, a Clinical Psychology student was in a class with them… My wife and a friend of hers in Clinical (both White, one from a middle-class-with-working-class-roots and the other from a working-class background) both spoke up against the others’ attitudes, which did not make them as unpopular as their bringing up the subject of White privilege….
OK, enough ranting… Life is good, Bush has less than two years to go, and the next president will hopefully get the chance to replace one of the right-wing nuts in the Supreme Court with a human being with compassion and understanding who will help right all these wrongs… (let’s make him/her as young as possible, so they’re on the bench a long time).
These 5-4 Supreme Court decisions are destroying a lot of gains that have been made over decades. We have a damn provision in the state constitution requiring smaller class sizes and can’t get them implemented, so I doubt the problem is people being moved around.
Indeed, let’s set the Wayback Machine and party like it’s 1899… and it’s just *coincidence* that these school district lines are drawn so that white kids go to all-white schools and black kids go to all-black schools and Hispanic kids go to all-Hispanic schools wink wink nudge nudge…
– Badtux the Snarky Penguin
I just read your piece, Badtux. We recognize the disease because we’ve seen it in the South.
I believe I heard my late father’s ashes re-sifting themselves in the urn in the next room.
For much of his life, Dad was an educator… schoolteacher and school counselor. He committed more than half his life to making sure all kids got the education they needed and deserved. Of course he understood and celebrated Brown v. Board, but his active participation in the education of kids of all races in the public schools went far beyond that. He fought battles on state committees and in his own school. He seldom rested.
And these (expletive deleted)s are undoing much of the work of his lifetime. Damn them. Damn them.
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Aside: I know there are five Catholics on the Supreme Court now, two (I think) appointed by Bush 43. Is it possible that Bush is violating the Article VI prohibition against a religious test for any office? I know it would be impossible to prove; I just wonder if he has deliberately filtered his Court appointments based on religion.
They are the 5 in the 5-4 decisions, and it isn’t their Catholicism, it’s the fact that they are linked to Opus Dei which many consider a cult, and some claim is not really Catholic. They are the Synod, Steve. Alito and Roberts were no doubt chosen in consultation with Scalia. Kennedy is being pulled along.
This is probably something cooked up by Cheney and Scalia on a hunting trip.
Bryan, what is their connection to Opus Dei? I tried to find out yesterday, using only Google, just which Supremes belonged or were connected, and turned up a lot of rumors and not much definitive. Do you have any sources?
AFAIK, “Fat Tony” is the only definite member, but OD is a semi-secret society. They are are like the early SJs, very authoritarian. The only way to know for sure is if they say it, or they are identified by another OD, which is not very likely.
I tend to go with “you will know them by their actions,” and they are walking in lock-step. Normally, elevation to the Supreme Court frees people to act independently, but the Synod is marching in lock step. Their opinions are bogus on their face. There aren’t the careful legal opinions that Roberts is very capable of producing, but more along the lines of “I’m doing it because I can.”
We may end up having to impeach Supreme Court justices to bring sanity back to the country.
I don’t think that membership in a secret society is an impeachable offense for anyone in public office, much less a supreme court justice.
For the time being what you think isn’t illegal, but they are on the verge of going around the bend. They are subject to impeachment, but the offense has to be clear. Acting in clear opposition to the Constitution would be about it, although the Scalia conflicts of interest on several cases is awfully close to the line.
The OD thing just shows their mind set and prejudices, and isn’t, in any way impeachable.