Devo Was Right

We must repeat!

We must repeat!

We must repeat!

We must repeat!

Okay, let's go!

WASHINGTON, June 28 — With competing blocs of justices claiming the mantle of Brown v. Board of Education, a bitterly divided Supreme Court declared Thursday that public school systems cannot seek to achieve or maintain integration through measures that take explicit account of a student’s race.

Voting 5 to 4, the court, in an opinion by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., invalidated programs in Seattle and metropolitan Louisville, Ky., that sought to maintain school-by-school diversity by limiting transfers on the basis of race or using race as a “tiebreaker” for admission to particular schools.

Both programs had been upheld by lower federal courts and were similar to plans in place in hundreds of school districts around the country. Chief Justice Roberts said such programs were “directed only to racial balance, pure and simple,” a goal he said was forbidden by the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection.

“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” he said. His side of the debate, the chief justice said, was “more faithful to the heritage of Brown,” the landmark 1954 decision that declared school segregation unconstitutional. “When it comes to using race to assign children to schools, history will be heard,” he said.

This is what the Bush Supreme Court gets us; five people who believe protecting white privilege is somehow combating racism. (Well, I'm sure they know it's all horseshit. Let's say that they're good at saying they're combating racism.) I'm sure we'll be hearing all kinds of screaming from the right about "activist judges" on this one, right?

Oh, wait. They're loving this. Stupid me. (Malkin: "Equality wins!" Excuse me while I puke.)

I love how "color blind" Conservatives are when they're racing to protect their stuff, while conveniently forgetting that, contrary to Tony Snow's beliefs, racism is still a big goddamn problem.

In September 2006, a group of African American high school students in Jena, Louisiana, asked the school for permission to sit beneath a "whites only" shade tree. There was an unwritten rule that blacks couldn't sit beneath the tree. The school said they didn't care where students sat. The next day, students arrived at school to see three nooses (in school colors) hanging from the tree...

The boys who hung the nooses were suspended from school for a few days. The school administration chalked it up as a harmless prank, but Jena's black population didn't take it so lightly. Fights and unrest started breaking out at school. The District Attorney, Reed Walters, was called in to directly address black students at the school and told them all he could "end their life with a stroke of the pen."

Equality wins.

More at Lawyers, Guns and Money and Pandagon. (Update: Look at Feministing, as well.) If that didn't depress you enough, take a look at Think Progress to see how well Bush's little elves "I have no agenda" Roberts and Alito have done in their first year. Expect many, many more of these "5 to 4's" in the future.

Questions for all you who don't know much better, but should
Maybe the time's come to use what you've got for some good.