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MARC
MORIAL & URBAN LEAGUE DISMAYED AT SUPREME COURT RULING ON SCHOOL PLANS: 29/6/2007
(MaximsNews.com,
U.N.)
UNITED NATIONS - / www.MaximsNews.com@
U.N./ - 29
June 2007 –
Marc Morial and leaders of the
National Urban League and its affiliates in Louisville and Seattle expressed
dismay in yesterday’s 5-4 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that struck down
the use of race in school-assignment plans of both cities.
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“Today’s
decision striking down school-assignment plans in public schools in
Seattle
and
Louisville
sets a very unfortunate precedent that could end up legalizing
re-segregation nationwide by raising the bar for achieving racial
diversity,” said National Urban League President Marc H. Morial.
“It threatens
to turn the clock back to the days before Brown
v. Board of Education, the landmark decision that outlawed school
segregation in the first place.”
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In
the two cases, Parents Involved in Community
Schools v.
Seattle
School District No. 1. and Meredith v.
Jefferson
County
Board of Education, et al., filed by two individual students denied
their first choices, the high court ruled that local school officials depended
too heavily on race as a factor in school assignment.
“The
nation’s highest court seems hell-bent on penalizing communities such as
Louisville
that have made great progress in breaking down racial barriers and found a
consensual and voluntary way to maintain racial diversity in their schools,
giving all students – not just ones in affluent neighborhoods – greater
access to quality education,” Morial observed.
Benjamin
K. Richmond, president and CEO of the Louisville Urban League said that he was
“understandably disappointed.”
“This
decision threatens to set our city’s schools back 30 years to the days of
one-race neighborhood schools before the era of court-enforced desegregation,
“he said.
“Fortunately,
Louisville
has come a long way since then. The district’s plan emerged from consensus.
There was no hue and cry against it. So, I’m confident that our community will
not let this decision derail our commitment to equal access to quality education
by all students,”
Richmond
added.
Seattle
Urban League President and CEO James Kelly said: “It is a sad day. But,
the bottom line is today’s decision will not deter our efforts in
Seattle
to ensure that every child gets an equal chance at an equally good education.
Our nation cannot expect to get to that goal in one-size-fits-all plans so we
must continue to persevere and formulate the best solution possible for our own
communities.”
The
silver lining, if any, Morial noted, is that swing vote Justice Anthony Kennedy
“left the door slightly ajar” regarding the use of race in school assignment
plans. “That obviously begs the question ‘What kind of plan will be
considered constitutional?’”
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