ACSBlog: The Blog of the American Constitution Society

Professor Paul Taylor and Attorney Sarah von der Lippe criticize the recent Supreme Court decision striking down voluntary school integration plans in a recent op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

There are many specific problems with the court's decision, beginning with its cynicism. The court pleads that it is powerless to address economic and geographic isolation, as if Lady Justice is not blindfolded, but handcuffed. It pretends that intent doesn't matter, that considering race to reduce racial isolation is the moral equivalent of standing in the schoolhouse door. And it claims to leave all relevant precedents in place, while actually undermining decades of desegregation law.

They call for increased engagement with the political system.

We must demand that federal, state and local governments provide tools to assist children in racially isolated schools. A good start would be to press Congress for legislation that makes it easier for parents to challenge these schools in court. And we must seek out, implement, and support new strategies for diversifying our schools.

And they call for each person to shoulder a commitment to making a better future.

We must accept the responsibilities that diversity and democracy place on each of us as individuals. This means more than resisting the constrained moral vision and tendentious legal reasoning of the Roberts Court, more than finding ways to integrate our schools. It means working in our everyday lives for interracial understanding, instead of for the red herring of abstract color-blindness. We owe this to our fellow citizens, and to our children, the grandchildren of Brown.

Find the combined Supreme Court decisions in Parents v. Seattle School District and Meredith v. Jefferson County Public Schools here. Go here for more commentary on the wider implications of the decision.