Roberts court eviscerates Brown v. the Board of Ed

An unmitigated tragedy. Severely limits VOLUNTARY desegregation programs.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-legaljun29,1,1367303.story?track=rss

Voting 5-4, the court, in an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., invalidated programs in Seattle and metropolitan Louisville 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. 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.

His side of the debate, the chief justice said, was "more faithful to the heritage of Brown," the 1954 decision that declared school segregation unconstitutional. "When it comes to using race to assign children to schools, history will be heard," he said.
. . .
Justice John Paul Stevens wrote a dissenting opinion. He said the chief justice's invocation of Brown vs. Board of Education was "a cruel irony" when the opinion in fact "rewrites the history of one of this court's most important decisions."

Here's some uplifting analysis of the court's swing to the right:

Rightward Ho!
Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen
CBS News

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/06/28/opinion/courtwatch/main2995058.shtml

Whether you believe the Supreme Court is heading toward a precipice or redemption, there is no longer any doubt it is moving, rapidly and intensely, toward the right.
. . .
No one should be surprised. It was as predictable as humidity in Washington in August. President George W. Bush promised during the 2004 election that he would, if given the opportunity, turn the Court rightward — and on this promise, at least, he has succeeded. Senate Democrats, especially those on the Judiciary Committee, saw this trend coming, too. They warned over and over again during the Alito and Roberts confirmation hearings that the nominees were playing possum; hyping up their humility while downplaying their ideology. In the case of Alito, especially, they were correct.

It doesn't matter whether you call these folks the Roberts Court, or the Kennedy Court or the Alito Court. The result is a Supreme Court that this past term consistently sided with big business interests over consumers; with employers over employees; and with law enforcement goals over individual rights. It is a Court that is more conservative than was the Rehnquist Court, which was more conservative than its predecessor, the Warren Burger Court, which of course was more conservative than the Earl Warren Court. When a Reagan appointee like Justice Kennedy is the last best hope for moderates, you know where you can find the gravity of the Court.

ADDENDUM 6/2/07

I heard additional analysis over the weekend, including the distressing observation that Roberts had asserted during his confirmation hearing that he was committed to increasing the rulings based on consensus, but, in fact, this court issued more 5-4 rulings than any court session in (I think) 30 years. Typical for the Bush administration - promising one thing while doing quite the opposite.