TALKING POINTS: School Desegregation

In its upcoming term the United States Supreme Court will consider what efforts local school systems may voluntarily take to promote diverse schools and avoid racial segregation. In deciding these cases, from Louisville, Kentucky, and Seattle, Washington, the Court will determine whether these communities’ efforts promote the goals of the Constitution’s equal protection clause, or violate that clause’s guarantee of equal protection under the law. Oral arguments for both cases will be heard on December 4^th.
Washington Date Line Article

COMMUNITY

Community is a widely shared value, which means that we’re all in it together. Our nation’s greatest strength is the diverse talent and background of our people, and the nation benefits most when we come together across lines of difference in pursuit of the American Dream. Louisville and Seattle are local communities working together to promote inclusion, understanding, and quality education for all.

These cases are about local communities building schools that reflect our nation’s highest values. They’re teaching our kids to live together, learn together, and play together in an increasingly diverse world. That’s good for our kids, and it’s good for our country. And it’s fully consistent with our Constitution.

• These communities are taking modest efforts to bring our kids together across differences. By choosing inclusion instead of separation, they are building the kind of community that we all want to live in: a community of cohesive, well-educated, and prosperous young people prepared for the future.
• These communities understand that we’re all connected in our country, and that our fates are linked. The better we know and understand each other, the better we can live and work together, and the stronger our country will become.
• These are parents and education leaders in local communities deciding what kind of environment should prevail in their schools, what kind of values their schools should reflect.

And in deciding that schools should be inclusive and racially diverse—as their communities are and as our nation is—these communities are reflecting values that our nation has embraced for over half a century.

The Opportunity Agenda: Community

VOLUNTARY SCHOOL DIVERSITY

These cases are about voluntary school diversity.

• All kids go to school, and every child in these districts has a seat at the educational table. These cases are about whether that seat is in a racially segregated classroom, or whether communities can try to make schools inclusive, reflecting the diversity of our cities and our nation.
• These programs were voluntarily adopted by these communities, and apply when parents and students choose to attend or transfer to schools other than their local schools. The programs use modest measures to promote a diverse education, while giving priority to parental choice and neighborhood schools. In Louisville, for example, 95% of elementary students attended their neighborhood school or their first-choice neighborhood school. In Seattle the program affected only about 300 of the community’s students, and 80% of incoming ninth-grade students attended their first-choice high school.
• Louisville, Kentucky Fact Sheet, NAACP LDF
  
• Seattle, Washington Fact Sheet, NAACP LDF
  
• The leaders of these communities had a choice to make: they could create segregated schools, or they could create inclusive diverse schools that teach our kids how to learn, play, and solve problems together. They made the right choice morally and under our Constitution. Duke University News
• The Supreme Court has held that promoting a diverse education is a compelling governmental interest—among our most important common goals as a society. That’s what these communities have done, and they’ve done it through modest efforts that are narrowly tailored to achieve their important goal. Improving education for all children.
• NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
  

BENEFITS OF INTEGRATED/DIVERSE EDUCATION

• Research shows that the critical-thinking skills of all students improve in racially diverse classrooms. Diverse learning opportunities make all students better problem solvers and communicators.
• Kids in diverse schools are less likely to develop racial stereotypes or prejudice than kids who aren’t in daily contact with people of other races. They’re more likely to have friendships with kids from other races, and they’re more willing to live and work in integrated settings.
• Americans for a Fair Chance
  
• Americans of all races support integrated schools. Public-opinion polls show widespread support for the ideal of integration, and the majority of parents whose kids are in integrated schools say that those schools have improved the quality of their child’s education.
• Public Agenda Poll
  
• Our society and world are increasingly more diverse. Our emerging workers, entrepreneurs, and leaders have to be prepared to function easily in diverse environments. These schools are giving kids that preparation, and it’s good for our prosperity as a nation.
• American Civil Liberties Union
  

Documenting Segregation

• Our schools are more segregated now than they were 20 years ago. A 2005 study examining racial isolation of African American and Latino students in the nation’s 239 largest school districts found that, despite considerable integration through the mid-1980s, virtually all large school districts have experienced increasingly lower levels of integration. Since 1986 African American and Latino students have become more segregated from whites. This trend will not reverse itself without proactive solutions like the ones that communities like Louisville and Seattle are using.
• Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
  

Brown v. Board of Education and Our Civil Rights Legacy

Information on Brown v. Board of Education

• It is important to root these cases in today’s America, while connecting them to our country’s historic march toward equal opportunity for all. Brown’s strongest application is in explaining why these programs clearly realize the goals of the 14th Amendment and are constitutional.
• As the Supreme Court recognized in Brown, the 14th Amendment’s purpose is to bring us together as a country and to teach us about each other. Brown made clear that our Constitution rejects segregation and embraces diversity. That’s what these communities are doing, and these programs embody our country’s highest constitutional values.
• The Supreme Court recognized in Brown v. Board of Education that the purpose of the equal protection clause is to bring us together as a nation of diverse peoples. That’s what these teachers, parents, and education leaders are doing, as they provide a vision of unity and cooperation for their children that we can all be proud of.

INTENTION TO DIVERSIFY

• Years of experience show that many communities can’t achieve inclusive diverse schools without making that an explicit goal and working toward it intentionally. These communities consider race only when not doing so would result in harmful segregation in a particular school.
• We can let race divide and separate us, or we can come together across lines of difference. In considering race only when and where necessary to prevent segregation, these schools are choosing to bring us together.
  
• The Diversity Advancement Project
  
• Research shows that segregated neighborhoods flow in large part from past and present housing discrimination. In Seattle, for example, Asian Americans tend to be concentrated in the south, due in part to early land-use policies and discriminatory zoning. In creating schools that look like America, these communities should have the freedom to break down those historic barriers.
• Kirwan Institute on Race and Ethnicity
  

Manual: School Desegregation by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund

Harvard University Civil Rights Project Release: 553 Scholars sign letter to urge Supreme Court to allow voluntary desegregation to continue

Brief in its entirety signed by scholars

Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund Parent/School Partnership Program

Talking Points, Iran and US

Is Iran’s nuclear program legal and for power generation, or is Iran’s program shrouded in secrecy and duplicity?

Under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran can have a nuclear program but cannot create or maintain a nuclear arsenal. Iran would like to build 15 nuclear power plants and 2 nuclear research plants. During the Iran/Iraq war, two nuclear power plants that Iran was building were destroyed by Iraq. They are being rebuilt in Bushehr by a Russian contractor. Reports on Iran from the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), indicate that although Iran is reporting regularly on its nuclear program, some operational information is being withheld and uranium enrichment is continuing despite international pressure.

IAEA News Center

How are superpower countries, who can have nuclear weapons under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, responding to Iran’s lack of cooperation with the IAEA?

Iranian leadership has stated that there should not be a monopoly over nuclear power. However, Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in the seventies, agreeing to not create a nuclear arsenal or maintain a nuclear weapons program. The US has been adamant about Iran halting its nuclear program immediately. In the UN Security Council, a sanctions resolution seems far from attainable with the US being blocked from taking action by China and Russia, who do not want to see stiff sanctions and possible military action against Iran. France and Britain have tried to negotiate a compromise, but neither side seems willing to give in their positions. How can the US find a compromise with China and Russia to allay fears that Iran is developing a nuclear arsenal while maintaining peace and allowing Russian contractors to continue working to build nuclear power plants in Iran?

SwissInfo News

Why has Tehran called for talks with the US after nearly four decades of separation?

With Iraq next door, Iran could be concerned about the status of Iraq’s political instability. Iran may be willing to talk to the US about Iraq and help with the Shiite insurgency, but may expect a favor in return. The US could use Iran’s influence with Shiite groups in Iraq to create more stability.

Is Iran a fundamentalist Islamic state?

Iran is often characterized in the media as an extreme Islamic state, run by radical Shiite clerics. However, the Iranian President is elected through universal suffrage, the right of all adults to vote regardless of race, sex, belief or economic or social status. The President of Iran does not have the same influence as the President of the US. The Supreme Leader of Iran heads the military and has the sole ability to declare war. The Supreme Leader is chosen by the Assembly of Experts, a group of 86 clerics that meet one week annually and are elected through universal suffrage.

There are many human rights concerns in Iran today. The status of women in Iran has been historically much more equal in Iran than other surrounding countries. Women were afforded many equal rights to men in 1970, including the right to vote, get an education, own property and run for political office. Since the Gulf War in 1991, women’s status has been pulled back and women have felt the sting of sanctions against Iran. There are many ties between the US and Iran. Many students have studied at American Universities and have taken their education and experience to their careers and communities in Iran.

Wikipedia on Iran

How could the outcome of the midterm elections change US foreign policy in the Middle East?

The US has hit a stalemate in pushing for stricter sanctions against Iran. The US is not interested in finding a middle ground and the UN Security Council will move forward without a compromise. Israel’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has announced that the US midterm elections were a victory for Iran, not just the people of the US. With a new Secretary of Defense and a Democratic majority in the House and Senate, is there an opportunity for the US to change course in Iran, and also in Iraq?

IPS News Agency

Other Links:

UN Resolution 1696

Time line for Iran’s Nuclear Program

IAEA information on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

Iran an Emerging Threat?

Iran conducts War Games in response to US Naval presence in Persian Gulf