The Times Herald-Record published an article a week or so ago which speculated that a recent Supreme Court decision prohibiting the use of race as a criteria for public school assignment could have an impact on the Newburgh school district. There was some interesting commentary about the article in the Record's online discussion forum.

In the Record article Paul Brooks writes "In the recent decision, the majority Supreme Court justices frowned on racial balancing," which dilutes the venom of the language used by the judges. Scalia and Alito joined Roberts' opinion, which called racial balancing "patently unconstitutional" (by quoting the 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger). Kennedy wrote a separate concurring opinion but cautioned "The plurality opinion is too dismissive of the legitimate interest government has in ensuring all people have equal opportunity regardless of their race."

It's easy to see how school districts would have gotten the idea that racial balancing would be OK. In his dissent, Breyer points out that in a previous decision the court had said:

"School authorities are traditionally charged with broad power to formulate and implement educational policy and might well conclude, for example, that in order to prepare students to live in a pluralistic society each school should have a prescribed ratio of Negro to white students reflecting the proportion for the district as a whole. To do this as an educational policy is within the broad discretionary powers of school authorities." Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. of Ed., 402 U. S. 1, 16 (1971)

In the majority opinion Roberts explains that this prior statement is not something the current court needs to pay attention to.

This would make terrific material for a Social Studies class -- assuming that actual, real-life events which affect the lives of students are permitted in the curriculum.