Sean Gonsalves: A Cruel Distortion of History (Upturning Brown)
[Sean Gonsalves is a Cape Cod Times staff reporter and a syndicated columnist.]
The Roberts Supreme Court didn't reinstitute segregation as the law of the land in its recent ruling on Seattle's and Louisville's integration plans but in a land where schools are, in fact, still mostly segregated by race (and class), it does signal the death of integration; the end of King's dream; or at least, the abandonment of a means to a moral end envisioned by King.
To me, the most disturbing aspect about the Roberts Court's integration decision is the enshrining of a "cruel distortion of history," to borrow dissenting Justice Breyers' words.
The "cruel distortion," of course, is the appropriation of the Brown case and the dishonest neo-conservative claim to being the true heirs of the Civil Rights legacy.
As Professor Risa Goluboff put it in a recent Slate article, the Roberts Court transformed "an opinion championing racial equality (Brown) into one that countenances -- even requires -- continuing racial inequality and segregation in the name of the Constitution."
Ironically, the seeds for this co-optation were sown by Brown legal advocates themselves. Professor Goluboff notes: "the lawyers who directed the Brown litigation ... intentionally set aside the actual inequalities between black and white schools in favor of a blanket prohibition," leaving the door open for Roberts to utter the either naïve or dishonest opinion that "the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."
Unfortunately, the Roberts reading of Brown fails to take into account the broader historical context. Brown was intended to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson, which was based on the legal premise that blacks were an inferior race. Brown was considered to be a starting point on the road to racial equality....
Read entire article at Alternet
The Roberts Supreme Court didn't reinstitute segregation as the law of the land in its recent ruling on Seattle's and Louisville's integration plans but in a land where schools are, in fact, still mostly segregated by race (and class), it does signal the death of integration; the end of King's dream; or at least, the abandonment of a means to a moral end envisioned by King.
To me, the most disturbing aspect about the Roberts Court's integration decision is the enshrining of a "cruel distortion of history," to borrow dissenting Justice Breyers' words.
The "cruel distortion," of course, is the appropriation of the Brown case and the dishonest neo-conservative claim to being the true heirs of the Civil Rights legacy.
As Professor Risa Goluboff put it in a recent Slate article, the Roberts Court transformed "an opinion championing racial equality (Brown) into one that countenances -- even requires -- continuing racial inequality and segregation in the name of the Constitution."
Ironically, the seeds for this co-optation were sown by Brown legal advocates themselves. Professor Goluboff notes: "the lawyers who directed the Brown litigation ... intentionally set aside the actual inequalities between black and white schools in favor of a blanket prohibition," leaving the door open for Roberts to utter the either naïve or dishonest opinion that "the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."
Unfortunately, the Roberts reading of Brown fails to take into account the broader historical context. Brown was intended to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson, which was based on the legal premise that blacks were an inferior race. Brown was considered to be a starting point on the road to racial equality....