Monday, June 05, 2006

SCOTUS to decide on race-based preferences in schools...

This is big. I mean, the outcome of this could finally turn the hideous practice of affirmative action on its head:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court said Monday it will decide the extent to which public schools can use race in deciding school assignments, setting the stage for a landmark affirmative action ruling.

Justices will hear appeals from a Seattle parents group and a Kentucky parent, ruling for the first time on diversity plans used by a host of school districts around the country.

[snip] and

"Looming in the background of this is the constitutionality of affirmative action," said Davison Douglas, a law professor at William and Mary. "This is huge."

Arguments will likely take place in November. The court's announcement followed six weeks of internal deliberations over whether to hear the appeals, an unusually long time.

In one of the cases, an appeals court had upheld Seattle's system, which lets students pick among high schools and then relies on tiebreakers, including race, to decide who gets into schools that have more applicants than openings.

If SCOTUS decides the way I think that they will in this case, Martin Luther King's dream of an America where a person is judged by the content of character vs. the color of skin will be much that much closer to reality.


(Filed under multiculturalism)