Black Leaders Hit Affirmative Action Ruling

 By Robert "Rob" Redding Jr.

Publisher

June 28, 2007, Updated 5:00 p.m. - Black leaders today assailed the 5-4 decision reached by the U.S. Supreme Court rejecting the racial diversity plans of school districts in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle.

Sen. Barack Obama, an Illinois Democrat and candidate for president, called the ruling "an obstacle to opportunity."

“Today’s Supreme Court ruling has placed a serious obstacle in the way of achieving the vision of America," Obama said. "This wrong-headed ruling underscores the critical importance of a president’s appointments to the Supreme Court and a Justice Department’s commitment to civil rights enforcement. It is the but the latest in a string of decisions by this conservative bloc of Justices that turn back the clock on decades of advancement and progress in the struggle for equality."

Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, a Michigan Democrat and the head of the Congressional Black Caucus, agreed.

"Today, the Supreme Court rejected reason, rationality and respect for all Americans in its decision limiting access to education for all Americans," she said. "In rejecting school diversity plans that made race a factor - but not the sole or most important factor - in Louisville and Seattle, the court tears at the very fabric of unity in our nation.  We can, and we must, do better for our children and grandchildren."

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Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat and former head of the Congressional Black Caucus, called the ruling a "major setback" for blacks.

"Today's school integration ruling was a major setback for this nation's movement toward school diversity," Cummings said.

The Louisville-Jefferson County plan was implemented after the school system emerged from a 25-year desegregation plan (1975-2000) overseen by the federal courts, Cummings said in his statement. The goal was to maintain the racial integration the county had achieved. The Seattle school district relied on race only at the end of a lengthy process of allocating students among the city's high schools.

Rep. Barbara Lee, a California Democrat, called the ruling "shocking." 

This decision "threatens to turn the clock back on half a century of advances in racial equality in education," Lee said.  

Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones, a Ohio Democrat, agreed.  

"As a former judge and prosecutor I am extremely disappointed in our high court," Jones said. "Their decision to strike down integration programs in these school districts is not only a slap in the face to the progress that the Brown v. Board of Education decision has brought us, but sends us hurtling back to the time of Jim Crow laws."

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