‘Busting Busing Myths’

Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom claim they are color-blind but in positing possible solutions to social problems connected with a legacy of racial inequality for blacks they advance preferences for whites. [“Busting Busing Myths,” Opinion, November 1, 2005]

What else to make of the Thernstroms’ idea that whites who fled to suburbia might be enticed back to the city, and enroll their children in mostly black and brown public schools if they’re given $1,000 a month in rent subsidies?

On the promise that they’d send their presumably white kids to public schools here, the rent subsidies would kick in. They also advance the “far-fetched” solution of “evicting current occupants of rent-controlled apartments” and replacing them with presumably white newcomers who’d also get subsidized. But behind those perhaps tongue-in-cheek notions lies the Thernstroms’ studied hostility to mandatory school busing, which they detest as both impractical and, to their way of thinking about segregated neighborhoods and schools, unnecessary because, after all, “the evidence does not show that children need any particular racial mix in their school in order to do well.”

Unfortunately, the Thernstroms perpetuate myths about segregated neighborhoods and court-ordered busing, a rare court remedy for intentionally and extensively segregated school systems imposed only after proof of deliberate racial discrimination by state actors, and caused by white flight facilitated and subsidized by government.

It is also absurd for them to contend that the evidence “does not show” that integrated schools benefit black and brown children, when, in fact, where schools are not racially-isolated these students’ horizons – and those of their white peers – are broadened immeasurably and significantly. They learn, for instance, that race doesn’t have to be the determinant of their place in society – whether in residence or schooling.

The Supreme Court’s Brown ruling acknowledged as much when it cited social science evidence that enforced school segregation harmed black children’s minds and hearts in ways “unlikely ever to be undone.” The Thernstroms impugn that basic truth and ignore society’s continuing commitment to segregation.

Substituted for science are the Thernstroms’ own opinions and their fierce opposition to busing, as well as their naive perception that whites and blacks allegedly prefer neighborhood schools. Whites, we know, so preferred neighborhood schools that they moved far away from them – to suburbia, and exurbia, and left behind the poorest black and brown families, in dilapidated and dysfunctional schools. Indeed, lower expectations of black and brown children, and the concomitant relaxing of standards and staff accountability, were yet another manifestation of societal racism.

The Thernstroms have not admonished the outright indifference of governmental authorities toward integrative efforts that would help break down walls between blacks and whites in America. Thus, it is incredibly unctuous for the Thernstroms – themselves strong opponents of affirmative action – to purport to advocate government subsidies for returning whites, and for evictions of long-term rent-controlled families on the false premise that such households are contributing to blacker schools.

It’s disappointing that the Thernstroms can’t or won’t acknowledge the scourge of racism on society and the damaging effects its cousin, segregation, has had on the personality development of blacks and whites and how much human effort and social engineering it will take to get self-deluded Americans to stop rationalizing schooling black and white children in their separate educational islands.

MICHAEL MEYERS
Executive Director
New York Civil Rights Coalition
Manhattan

‘Bush Is Back’

We cannot easily dismiss the ramifications of Judge Samuel Alito’s ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. [“Bush is Back,” Editorial, November 1, 2005, and “Just Right,” Richard Garnett, Opinion, November 1, 2005]

His decision was not merely an interpretation of “undue burden” nor is our opposition to him misleading and alarmist. As a third circuit judge, Samuel Alito ruled that women be required to notify their spouses if they were seeking an abortion.

This means, for example, that an abused woman would have to risk her life by telling her batterer that she was seeking an abortion or an abandoned wife would have had to locate her absentee husband to notify him before she could have an abortion.

Fortunately, his peers and superiors had greater insight and ruled spousal notice unconstitutional. But consider: Had Judge Alito been on the Supreme Court in 1992, states would now have the right to require spousal notice and therefore give a man control over his wife in direct violation of her constitutional right to liberty.

Judge Alito’s judicial experience and qualifications are supremely overshadowed by the troubling decisions he made as a judge. His decisions would have put women’s lives at risk. That is no frivolous matter.

JOAN MALIN
President and chief Executive officer
Planned Parenthood Of New York City
Manhattan

Editor’s Note: As we pointed out in an editorial [“‘Outrageous'”] yesterday, Judge Alito was not ruling on whether he agreed with the spousal notification law, or whether it was sound policy, but whether he judged it to be constitutional under the governing jurisprudence of the time – which was based on Justice O’Connor’s “undue burden” standard.

As was also noted yesterday, the Pennsylvania law gave certain exemptions to the requirement for women to notify their husbands, including if the fathers couldn’t be located after diligent effort, or if the women had reason to believe bodily harm would result from notifying their spouses.

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