Today the Supreme Court “struck down public school choice plans in Seattle,
Washington, and Louisville, Kentucky, concluding they relied on an
unconstitutional use of racial criteria…”
CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin described the scene at the Supreme Court today…
TOOBIN: Boy, Tony, 15 minutes ago the Supreme Court was at
war with itself in a drama that is rarely seen inside that room. You
had two justices basically shouting out, not literally, but talking
about the very premises of what it means to be an American. That was
what was at stake in the court today. And the drama and the anger and
the passion was something that’s rarely seen in that courtroom.
Chief
Justice John Roberts saying that the students who didn’t get — the
white students who didn’t get the school of their choice in Louisville
and Seattle were equivalent to the black students in Brown v. Board of
Education who were denied access to integrated schools in Topeka,
Kansas. [Justice] Stephen Breyer responding, “You have got to be
kidding me, that the efforts in good faith of these schools in
Louisville and Seattle to integrate their schools, to make sure that
there’s diversity, how dare you compare that to the discrimination of
Jim Crow?” It was a fascinating illustration of just how divided this
court is at this point.
SNIP
This is a decision that says school districts
cannot use any racially — racial factors to decide how to assign kids.
This is a victory for conservatives. Justice Breyer used a phrase,
“Never in the history of the court have so few done so much so
quickly.” And he was talking about Chief Justice Roberts and Justice
[Samuel] Alito making this court a far more conservative institution in
just one year. And at that phrase, “And never have so few done so much
so quickly,” both Justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts looked over
at Breyer and went, whoa, that’s pretty personal by the standards of
the Supreme Court. (my emphasis)
Sad day
Justice Breyer’s dissenting opinion is HERE
UPDATE: Pete Williams of NBC News reported, in something that is quite rare for the court, Justice Beyers took 21 minutes to read his dissenting opinion