ISSUE: Court ruling on school desegregation

OUR VIEW: Decision leaves desegregation priority, or lack thereof, in hands of trustees

The U.S. Supreme Court has further muddied the water on the role of race in the nation's education system.

A divided court in late June struck down school integration plans for two cities, saying that by classifying students by race, school districts are perpetuating unequal treatment. The ruling is similar to a previous decision made with regard to electoral districts, which disallowed drawing lines based solely on ensuring certain racial percentages.

In siding with the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas, the court's only black member, wrote a separate opinion endorsing the ruling and taking issue with the dissenters' view that the ruling undermines the historic Brown vs. Board of Education case.

"What was wrong in 1954 cannot be right today," he said. "The plans before us base school assignment decisions on students' race. Because 'our Constitution is colorblind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens,' such race-based decisionmaking is unconstitutional."

Chief Justice John Roberts asserted in his majority opinion that by classifying students by race, the school districts are perpetuating the unequal treatment the Brown decision outlawed. "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race," Roberts said.

Reality is even with specific desegregation plans, the objective of ensuring that people of all races are educated equally and together is a difficult one to meet. Desegregation in many instances simply does not happen for a number of reasons, not the least of them being socioeconomics and where a person lives.

Attendance zones and other measures are only so effective. Private schools and school choice plans have further led to resegregation. Some contend a voucher system for funding attendance at private schools could change that, but proponents face the counter argument that such use of public dollars would only further undermine public schools and leave the poorest of students in them.

America is at a crossroads when it comes to integration. The Supreme Court 53 years ago decided segregation was not the law of the land. Will integration remain a priority?

The new court ruling not so much sanctions resegregation as it says that race cannot be the deciding factor in determining where children go to school. It remains to be seen exactly how race can be weighed with other factors in attempting to see that schools are not segregated.

In siding with the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy provided perspective, saying race may sometimes be a component of school efforts to achieve diversity.

To the extent that Roberts' opinion could be interpreted to foreclose the use of race in any circumstance, Kennedy said, "I disagree with that reasoning."

"A district may consider it a compelling interest to achieve a diverse student population," Kennedy said. "Race may be one component of that diversity."

Kennedy seemed to suggest that race could be a factor in deciding where to build a new school or how to draw school attendance boundaries.

For now, it appears determining how much of a priority desegregation will be falls to trustees in individual districts -- and ultimately to the voters who decide on which people and positions to support in board elections.

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