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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Supreme Test of Voluntary Integration

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Monday, December 4, 2006   

New York, NY - The nation's highest court takes up the thorny issue of school integration today for the first time since 1995. At issue are voluntary integration plans adopted in Louisville and Seattle, and whether those efforts to promote racial inclusion violate the Constitutional goal of equal protection. Ted Shaw, with the New York based NAACP Legal Defense Fund says the stakes go far beyond racial fairness in the classroom.

"Our adversaries argue that anything that is race-conscious is racist. That (attitude) could have devastating effects; it would mean scholarships to minority students, pipeline programs into corporate America or PhDs, all out the window."

Shaw claims that despite the 1952 U.S. Supreme Court decision (Brown vs. Board of Education) promising equal access to quality education, the numbers show that since the 1970s, America's schools are returning to racial isolation.

"Nearly 40 percent of Black and Latino students attend intentionally segregated schools where the population is between 90 and 100 percent minorities. That's the reality of our country today; we honor 'Brown' in principle, but not in practice. This is the last gasp of 'Brown' that we are trying to preserve."

According to Shaw, the issue comes down to whether school boards can look out for the greater good.

"These school districts are opting for voluntary integration plans and there ought to be some deference to that local control. This is going to be a very important case with respect to telling us where the Roberts Supreme Court may be going on issues of race."

Parents of some white students counter that the diversity policies violate their children's individual rights.


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