Separate and unequal schools

THE SCHOOL funding ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court returns us to 1964 when Malcolm X observed that 10 years after the Supreme Court decision outlawing segregated schools, the federal government had yet to enforce it. He asked, "If the federal government cannot enforce the law of the highest court of the land when it comes to nothing but equal rights to education for African-Americans, how can anyone be so naive to think all the additional laws brought into being by the Civil Rights Bill will be enforced?" It also takes us to 1963, when Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, "The Negro had been an object of sympathy and wore the scars of deep grievances, but the nation had come to count on him as a creature who could quietly endure, silently suffer, and patiently wait." No one can be naive any longer. A half-century after Brown, students of low-income school districts in our state are the creatures told to patiently wait. The students sued for faster funding to catch up to wealthier districts. Even though SJC Chief Justice Margaret Marshall agreed that "sharp disparities" still persist, the state won her over with the $30 billion it was forced to spend on ed reform. She said, "I cannot conclude that the Commonwealth currently is not meeting its constitutional charge." Given the wealth of Massachusetts, the conclusion was a stake through the ideal of equal rights. It was particularly stunning since the same court that legalized gay marriage joined forces with the conservative education movement to make it official that disparity is the expected American condition. The victims are no longer just "the Negro" of King's and Malcolm's day. The plaintiffs represented a multicultural outpouring of people who see that neglect of schools in black neighborhoods was just a canary. Today, all but the youth in the toniest suburbs are at risk. [more]