An Outrageous Article in the Politico Slamming CJ Roberts
By AndrewHyman Posted in Law — Comments (8) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
See this article in The Politico, which erroneously says:
In a 5-4 decision a few weeks ago, the Roberts court ruled that race cannot be a factor in the assignment of children to public schools, even when the purpose is to desegregate those schools.
I have written to the author of this article, Roger Simon:
Dear Mr. Simon:
I am an attorney in Connecticut. Your recent article, "Leahy attacks Bush, Roberts", contains an error. You wrote: "In a 5-4 decision a few weeks ago, the Roberts court ruled that race cannot be a factor in the assignment of children to public schools, even when the purpose is to desegregate those schools." That is false, and I hope you will correct it.
The Roberts opinion said that it was dealing with “a public school that had NOT operated legally segregated schools” (emphasis added). The Roberts Court did not remotely forbid race-based school assignment when the purpose is to desegregate schools segregated by law. The Roberts opinion repeated this point again and again:
“Seattle has never operated segregated schools--legally separate schools for students of different races--nor has it ever been subject to court-ordered desegregation.”
Louisville had already eliminated “'[t]o the greatest extent practicable' the vestiges of its prior policy of segregation....[and] had remedied the constitutional wrong that allowed race-based assignments.”
“For schools that never segregated on the basis of race, such as Seattle, or that have removed the vestiges of past segregation, such as Jefferson County, the way to achieve a system of determining admission to the public schools on a nonracial basis, is to stop assigning students on a racial basis.”
Please, please correct your article. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Andrew Hyman
Monroe, CT
The media is devoted to misleading, deceptive, and outright dishonest coverage of the Sup Court, especially as it relates to the conservative members. They aid leftist attempts to smear them during the nomination process, and they intentionally misconstrue the decisions they hand down once on the bench.
If the public were truly educated about the jurisprudence of the Scalias and Thomases vs that of the Ginsburgs and Stevens, then we'd win that one easily. That is why the media tries so hard to demonize the Scalias and Thomases.
and I wish Rush would quit quoting it quite so often. I think The Politico thinks they are non-partisan, but then again "non-partisan" to me equals "enemy." ;-)
You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.
"The Roberts Court did not remotely forbid race-based school assignment when the purpose is to desegregate schools segregated by law."
Interpreting SCOTUS decisions may require the services of Madame Zelda at the corner shop, but my understanding is that the 5-4 majority decided that there were no circumstances where assigning children to school by race were appropriate.
Mr. Hyman indicates that assigning children to school by race "when the purpose is to desegregate schools segregated by law" was endorsed by the majority. Jim Crow died forty years ago. There have been no de jure cases of school segregation since that time. The point of contention is in the eye of the de facto beholder. Since Leftist social engineers will always do what comes naturally to them, i.e., to find de facto "evidence" of reasons for government to dictate every aspect of human existence, it becomes absolutely necessary to speak in absolutes, no wiggle room, no fudge factors.
In this context, there will be no more government [read that undemocratic unanswerable judiciary] ordered assignment of children to schools by race. Period.
There continue to be some cities in the United States where schools in minority neighborhoods are inferior to schools in white neighborhoods. That is a sad fact. And in those cases, race-based school assignment is an appropriate remedy. Even if such inferior schoold did not exist in the United States, the prospect of race-based school assignment would remain an important tool for preventing a recurrence of such discrimination.
As Chief Justice Roberts said, a "constitutional wrong ... allowed race-based assignments." It still would.
"There continue to be some cities in the United States where schools in minority neighborhoods are inferior to schools in white neighborhoods."
Surely there are anecdotes to support any conclusion, but what is the dominant reality?
Professor Walter Williams of George Mason University, Rush Limbaugh pinch hitter without peer, once noted that the District of Columbia used to have four Jim Crow segregated high schools, three all black, one all white. Would it surprise you to learn that two of the three all black, legally segregated, pride of Jim Crow high schools, had higher academic performance than the all white high school? It's true.
What does that fact prove? That Jim Crow and legal segregation was "good" for black people? Only if the concept of critical reasoning was completely foreign to the "thinker". What it does prove is that real, evil, malice aforethought, in your face racism is not causal of "some cities in the United States where schools in minority neighborhoods are inferior to schools in white neighborhoods". There is some other explanation.
So what, you say? Who cares about conditions in the District of Columbia forty years ago? What possible relevance could that have to 2007 Anno Domini?
The highest per capita student spending in my home state of New Jersey is in...the city of Newark, a "minority neighborhood" by any reasonable definition. Perhaps because of that highest per capita student spending, Newark has near the lowest academic achievement, and the highest drop-out rate and that of children having children.
By contrast, next door Jersey City, just as much a "city of color" as Newark, does not rate the same river of tax dollars from Trenton as its "needy" neighbor. However, parents of children in Jersey City send their children to Catholic schools, staffed by some of the lowest paid teachers, with the lousiest pension plans, in the state, but have opposite results! High academic achievement. Great graduation rate. Far fewer teen pregnancies.
What's wrong with this picture?
P.S. Here's another quote from the Roberts opinion:
In 2000, the District Court that entered that decree dissolved it, finding that Jefferson County had "eliminated the vestiges associated with the former policy of segregation and its pernicious effects..."
That was not 40 years ago.
"the vestiges associated with the former policy of segregation and its pernicious effects"
I do not doubt that Mr. Hyman quotes the District Court accurately. But I suggest that the District Court's finding of "pernicious effects" of segregation may have been, as Thomas Sowell called it "The Vision of the Anointed".
Consider pages 80-81 of Sowell's book:
"As in other areas where violations of societal norms have led to disasters, the first order of business for the anointed has been to turn the tables on society, which must itself be made to feel guilty for what it complains of. Blaming a 'legacy of slavery' for the high levels of unwed teenage pregnancy among blacks, and the abdication of responsibility by the fathers of the children, clearly performs that function. Whether it is actually true is another question -- and one receiving remarkably little attention."
"Going back a hundred years, when blacks were just one generation out of slavery, we find that the census data of that era showed that a slightly higher [emphasis by the author] percentage of black adults had married than had white adults. This in fact remained true in every census from 1890 to 1940. Prior to 1890, this question was not included in the census, but historical records and contemporary observations of the Reconstruction era depicted desperate efforts of freed black men and women to find their lost mates, children, and other family members -- efforts continuing on for years and even decades after the Civil War. Slavery had separated people, but it had not destroyed the family feelings they had for each other, much less their desire to form families after they were free. As late as 1950, 72 percent of all black men and 81 percent of black women had been married. But the 1960 census showed the first signs of a decline that accelerated in later years -- as so many other social declines began in the 1960s. This new trend, beginning a century after Emancipation, can hardly be explained as 'a legacy of slavery' and might more reasonably be explained as a legacy of the social policies promoted by the anointed, especially since similar social policies led to similarly high rates of unwed motherhood in Sweden, where neither race nor slavery could be held responsible".
In the actual text, there are three footnoted references documenting Sowell's assertions.
Conservatives must insist without reservation on a color blind and 100% meretricious society, no more, no less. Any wiggle room, any "if there is evidence of 'pernicious effects'" will inevitably result in government directed racism, as typified by the court ordered school busing throughout the nation, the Boston case in particular reaching SCOTUS (which affirmed the busing) in the 1970s. Boston never had Jim Crow.
Judging from past MSM actions, I am reasonably certain this is not an error - it was a deliberate attempt to plant the impression in the public mind that John Roberts is a racist. A huge part of liberal activism is the deliberate and continuous repetition of false information, i.e. lying for "justice."
This story is going to be cited by another and another and another until the story soon becomes an established part of the narrative; John Roberts, like all Republican Supreme Court Justices, is a secret member of the Klan, hates women, etc.
It's how they operate.
Ever wondered exactly how it came to be that so many people believe that Eric Shinseki was "fired" for his testimony to Congress? What about the "fact" that Scooter Libby was convicted of revealing the identity of America's greatest intelligence asset; Valerie Plame? Or that Bush said that Iraq posed an "imminent threat?"
The reason is simple ... the repeating of a lie loudly and often enough soon makes it become part of what "everyone knows" until saying the truth gets you looked as a mad man.
George W. Bush: He's A Folder ... Not A Fighter.