Reply to tired of "diversity for Deal and Wilson" as an argument

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Reply to "tired of "diversity for Deal and Wilson" as an argument"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=jsteele][quote=Anonymous]Deal and Wilson are located in the core of residentially segregated upper northwest.  I am tired of the idea that the rest of the City is here to benefit Deal and Wilson by providing local children with a multiracial, multiclass learning experience. We offer them diversity?

And I like it even less when people from schools with more diverse populations or from other areas of the City cite Deal and Wilson's interest in diversity to allow their family, their school to feed to them.

Arguments like "Hearst is full of out boundary black students so it has to be allowed to feed to Deal to provide them diversity.". Or Eaton or Shepherd or Ward 6 to Wilson for that matter.

Upper northwest residents and those who just want to go to school there jump on this when diversity is icing for the cake for Upper Northwest and losing these students into this single feeder pattern is a detriment to the rest of the City.[/quote]

You can be as tired of the argument as you like, but you had better get used to it. It is a simple fact that boundaries that have the effect of eliminating minorities from Deal or Wilson will result in an instant lawsuit -- and a very winnable one at that. 
[/quote]

The Supreme Court's PICS (Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, 551 U.S. 701 (2007)) ruling might have fundamentally altered the landscape here.

If the boundaries of Deal or Wilson are redrawn to preserve AA enrollment a the expense of non-AA kids who live closer to the schools, those boundaries can and should be challenged by neighborhood families, and those families will likely prevail.

First, the argument that policies meant to keep schools integrated are aimed at redressing the effects of segregation from the 1950s and 1960s is no longer credible.  Until recently, DC had been majority AA for decades.  Every mayor of DC has been AA since Lyndon Johnson appointed Walter Washington in 1967.   The majority AA population has controlled the political agenda of the DC government for decades.  The Supreme Court will recognize gerrymandering of the Deal and Wilson boundaries for what it is -- an attempt to dampen the impact of gentrification and the increasing non-AA population.

Second, integration, in and of itself, is not a compelling state interest that would support racially-motivated gerrymandering of the Deal and Wilson boundaries.  From Wikipedia concerning the PICS decision:

[quote]Part III B[9] (joined only by a plurality of the Court) rejected the notion that racial balancing could be a compelling state interest, as to do so "would justify the imposition of racial proportionality throughout American society, contrary to our repeated recognition that "[a]t the heart of the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection lies the simple command that the Government must treat citizens as individuals, not as simply components of a racial, religious, sexual or national class."[20] Allowing racial balancing as a compelling end in itself would "effectively assur[e] that race will always be relevant in American life, and that the 'ultimate goal' of 'eliminating entirely from governmental decisionmaking such irrelevant factors as a human being's race' will never be achieved." [21] An interest "linked to nothing other than proportional representation of various races . . . would support indefinite use of racial classifications, employed first to obtain the appropriate mixture of racial views and then to ensure that the [program] continues to reflect that mixture."[22][/quote]

The Equal Protection clause of the constitution cuts both ways.  Unless the Deal and Wilson boundaries are drawn using a compass, they should be scrutinized and potentially litigated for discriminatory intent.[/quote]

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