One More Step Towards The Dream

It was rumored that the Roberts SCOTUS would be producing some refreshingly constitutionalist decisions this term. It has, for the most part, though not to the degree to match the expectations raised.

This appears to have continued in the racial preference ruling announced today. Though from the way the New York Times phrases it, you'd think that Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito had white hoods to go with their black robes:

With competing blocs of justices claiming the mantle of Brown v. Board of Education, a bitterly divided Supreme Court declared Thursday that public school systems cannot seek to achieve or maintain integration through measures that take explicit account of a student’s race.

Voting 5 to 4, the court, in an opinion by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., invalidated programs in Seattle and metropolitan Louisville, Kentucky, that sought to maintain school-by-school diversity by limiting transfers on the basis of race or using race as a “tiebreaker” for admission to particular schools.

Both programs had been upheld by lower federal courts and were similar to plans in place in hundreds of school districts around the country. Chief Justice Roberts said such programs were “directed only to racial balance, pure and simple,” a goal he said was forbidden by the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection.

“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” he said. His side of the debate, the chief justice said, was “more faithful to the heritage of Brown,” the landmark 1954 decision that declared school segregation unconstitutional. “When it comes to using race to assign children to schools, history will be heard,” he said.

The Chief is right, of course. Equal protection means, well, EQUAL PROTECTION. The law is to be impartial vis-a-vie race. Discrimination against any particular group is verbotten, and so is discrimination in favor of any particular group, even if racists of the opposite stripe try to justify it by the previous decades of discrimation that group suffered. "Racial justice," in other words, is just like any other kind of justice: individual, not collective.

Roberts' words are so refreshing precisely because they are so commonsensical. And of course, common sense has no place in the contemporary Democrat party, as last night's Donk presidential confab ritualistically reiterated:

HILLARY!: For anyone to assert that race is not a problem in America is to deny the reality in front of our very eyes. This decision turned the clock back on Brown vs. Board of Education. We have come a long way, but we have a long way to go. The march is not finished...

SENATOR HAIRPLUGS: Still the defining issue... People criticized me for being awful tough on Justice Roberts and Justice Alito. The problem was, the rest of us weren't tough enough on them.

RICHARDSON [BILL....GOVERNOR OF NEW MEXICO]: "Leadership is about being authentic. It's about speaking honestly... " Richardon’s answer meanders as much as any other… Cites himself as the first Latino.

Donna Brazile gives an approving nod.

Edwards panders a bit by thanking the Howard Bison, a guaranteed applause line. Goes on to cite two Americas, two public school systems in America, two health care systems... race plays an enormous role in health care disparities. All of us have work to do. I'm making sure that for people of color, their voice is heard and their vote is counted.

OBAMA: Cites Thurgood Marshall and founders of Howard - if it had not been for them, I would not be standing here today... Their idea was not that racial equality was not just good for African-Americans, but for America as a whole....

KUCINICH: Criticizes those who say, "pull yourself up by your bootstraps, then they steal your boots." Calls for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing educational
equality. Eliminate No Child Left Behind. Take away resources from war and military buildup and make sure every child gets a quality education.

GRAVEL: This is fairest debate we've had thus far. Racism was here when . Goes to criticize war on drugs. Compares to prohibition. Pledges to end war on drugs, says it savages our inner city. Compares Iraq to Vietnam, and says drugs are a public health issue.

DODD: Thanks Howard U. The shame of all this is that long before this decision came down, shame of resegregation has been going on for years in this country... No issue
is more important to me than education. This is the key to equal access in our education. Calls court decision "a major step backwards." As president, I would use any tools available to me to make sure we reverse this decision of today.

There's actually a remarkable consistency between today's Dems, those of the mid-twentieth century, and those of the post-Civil War period. They all share the common thread of repressing and exploiting black Americans for economic and political gain. Dislodging the new brand of Donk racism will be as difficult a struggle as dislodging the old version was. That George W. Bush will leave behind a SCOTUS that took this large step back toward true racial equality and reconciliation may end up being his only lasting accomplishment.

That this large step wasn't a giant leap can be blamed on Justice Kennedy, whose reputation for sweeping, grandiose jurisprudential "creativity" suspiciously evaporated on this case:

Today's Supreme Court decision in the race-based school assignment cases turns out to be a disappointment. Chief Justice Roberts wrote an excellent opinion explaining why the two plans are unconstitutional, and four other Justices agreed with the result. However, one of them, Justice Kennedy, would not sign on to a key part of the Roberts opinion - the part that says assigning students to schools by race cannot be justified as a means of achieving a racial balance in particular schools that reflects the school district's racial demographics. This leaves the door open for school systems to develop different types of plans for assigning students by race for that purpose, and then to try and persuade sympathetic lower courts that the plan in question does not run afoul of what Kennedy said in his concurrence.

Just as with the campaign finance case earlier this week where Chief Justice Roberts refused to go the full mile and throw out McCain-Feingold as the unconstitutional anti-First Amendment abomination it clearly is, here Justice Kennedy stopped the 5-4 majority from making this a truly landmark decision invalidating the very concept and practice of discriminating in favor of minorities on the basis of race. All that was struck down were these two local school "diversity" programs, while their thousands of siblings across the country remain fundamentally unscathed.

It was another nibble when what is needed is huge, gaping, great white shark-sized bites. With the kind of justices President Hillary! is going to appoint, time is of the essence.

If justice delayed is justice denied, the Roberts SCOTUS had better get the lead out while it still can.