In-Depth: Re-Segregation? The repercussions of revoking Brown v. Board of Education in 2007: Part III
Published March 6, 2007
By Nate Bradbury
Part III of a Three Part Series
Two current Supreme Court cases, Jefferson County (Louisville) and School District No.1 (Seattle), pose a threat to the gains of the Civil Rights Movement. Thus, major questions arise about social and racial equality in this country.
If the Supreme Court overturns the historic decision of Brown v. Board of Education in favor of race-neutral governance, the future looks stormy.
During my interview with civil rights attorney Miranda Massie, she explained to me the gravity of the situation. The outcome of these two cases has the “capacity for social cataclysm.” A negative ruling from these cases would set a foundation for what Massie calls “severe civil disturbances.”
Scandalously segregated school systems exist in Detroit, Baltimore, Chicago, New Orleans and other cities as well; the racial tensions are there to prove it. Any one of these “hot spots” could be the site of future riots because the outcome would further solidify the invisible, but very tangible, advantage of whiteness in the US.
It is critical to understand that the implementation of race-neutral governance would do three things immediately: (1) wipe the voluntary integration programs (such as in Seattle and Louisville) off the educational map, (2) completely undermine the ability of universities to implement affirmative action plan and (3) significantly decrease the overall level of integrated education in the United States.
Alone these changes would be enormous. However, that is just the beginning.
The elimination of integrated schooling would eventually start affecting other policies, too. The message that such elimination would send to non-white Americans would be dreadful. In a nation founded on liberty, democracy, and freedom, the court system would be upholding the existence of a racial caste system.
As Massie put it, these cases have the potential to demonstrate the “fundamental hypocrisy and unsustainable nature of the American legal system.”
California provides an excellent example of the implications of race-neutral governance at the state level. Since the California legislature passed Proposition 209, banning any form of race- or gender-conscious governance, female and minority enrollment and employment have plummeted in California’s public university system.
It is truly difficult for many white students to understand that even the system of standardized tests and access to advanced placement courses in the United States is racially biased. This is mostly because it is biased in favor of the white majority, and therefore never addressed.
Affirmative action stands to be the next victim if these court cases favor a race-neutral stance. Affirmative action programs across the country help to fight our society’s inherent and institutionalized racism. There is a myth that affirmative action effectively displaces the systematic meritocracy of the American university system. In other words, many whites feel that their rightful places are being stolen by undeserving minorities. This belief is patently false and racist.
Affirmative action is implemented in order to offset the institutionalized racism that plagues American society. In order for our university systems to be considered true meritocracies, one would have to assume that our society permeated by existence of white privilege all across our culture and society. But, it is.
Clearly, the American form of meritocracy cannot be separated from the various forms of racial oppression intrinsic to American culture.
Pretending that racism is dead and gone is not an effective plan to continue developing social equality in America. Telling yourself that white privilege does not exist, and that the American dream of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is all that the minorities in America need to do to get ahead, is extremely short-sighted. It is time to fully recognize the system of subtle white privilege, and instead of making its existence legal through race-neutral government, we need to implement more programs, like affirmative action, to offset the institutionalized racism that affects everyone in America.
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