WILL SUPREME COURT RETURN TO SEGREATED SCHOOLS?
By Leo E. Laurence
Member, National Committee of Diversity
Board member, San Diego “Pro” chapter
The U.S. Supreme Court is presenting newsrooms will an excellent opportunity to include more diversity in its news coverage.
“At a time of rising de facto segregation in public schools, the high court is to hear arguments on lawsuits by parents in Louisville and Seattle who are challenging policies that use race to determine where children go to school,” the Associated Press reports.
“The school policies are designed to keep schools from segregating along the same lines as neighborhoods,” the report explains.
Parents, politicians, educators and civil rights advocates – not to mention students themselves – are watching this major ruling to determine what value the nation should place on diversity in the classroom and at what price.
The case could become the most significant K-12 ruling since Brown v Board of education in 1954 that banned racial segregation in public schools.
Many civil rights leaders are not optimistic. The case brings before the high court the question of just how far the government should go in trying to promote diversity in education in America, says Ellis Cose, the author of a study on affirmative action.
Should the government help promote diversity in some way in education? That’s at the core of this case.
The Bush administration argues the policies are unconstitutional.
Civil rights advocates believe that the case could bar schools from taking race into account and mwould deal a devastating blow to the promotion of diverse schools, the A.P. report says.
The NAACP believes race-neutral alternatives such as lotteries and socio-economic sorting result in segregated schools again and hurt African-American students.
About 400 of the nation’s 15,000 public school districts are under court orders to desegregate. Hundreds more do it voluntarily, but no hard numbers are available, A.P. says.
This presents newsrooms a wonderful opportunity to add more diversity to its news coverage by interviewing local minority leaders on the issue.
While the Supreme Court case seems to focus on African-Americans, the implications and applications for Latinos and Asian-Americans is also strong, so assignment editors could include them in their coverage as well.
This issue is “as old as Reconstruction efforts to integrate blacks into the mainstream and as new as the 5:35 a.m. start time on some busses carrying students across town in Louisville, Kentucky,” A.P. reports.
Reaction to this blog is invited. Contact me (619) 757-4909 are E-mail at leopowerhere@msn.com.
Leo E. Laurence
San Diego News Service
(619) 757-4909
Member, SPJ Nat’l. Committee on Diversity