CORRECTION APPENDED

Legal analysts and civil rights activists emphasized the need to protect the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision in a panel at Harvard Law School (HLS) yesterday.

The panel, titled “Is Brown Still Relevant?”, took place only days before a major ruling by the Supreme Court—which is expected this Monday—on the methods public schools can use to achieve racial integration. {SEE CORRECTION BELOW}

Panelists warned yesterday that rulings by the court in these two cases in favor of the plaintiffs—who claim that the school districts’ policies of using ethnicity as a factor in school admittances is unconstitutional—would effectively reverse the precedent that Brown established in 1954.

“What is at stake is the ability of our country, or anybody in our country, to voluntarily and consciously do anything about racial inequality. Anything that is race-conscious, they equate with racism, so all of the massive inequality is beyond the law, because addressing it becomes racist discrimination against white folks,” said Theodore M. Shaw, the director-counsel and president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense & Educational Fund, who filed an amicus brief on behalf of the defendants. “They’re hypocrites and I think we have to call them that.”

Susan Eaton, the research director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice—which sponsored the panel—said that a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs would represent “the hammer over the final nail in Brown v. Board of Education’s coffin.”

Panelists emphasized the need to address segregation in the school system.

“The court is saying that in order to end racism, we’ve got stop acknowledging race. It just doesn’t make common fundamental sense,” National Black Law Students Association Chair Michael Sterling said.

Bridgette L. Hylton, who is currently a first-year at HLS, said that the presence of Eaton, the sole white panelist, suggested that support for the issue transcended racial boundaries.

“I think it’s important to see that this is an issue that affects everyone,” she said. “Other races are interested, and sometimes that gets lost.”

The session closed with the panelists emphasizing the significance of the current cases and urging the audience to support efforts promoting integration and diversity in schools across the country.

Kimberly Jenkins Robinson, an assistant professor of Law at Emory School of Law and an HLS graduate, encouraged students to “galvanize” around a new civil rights movement.

“We need a new generation of civil rights lawyers to come out of Harvard and work on these issues.”

CORRECTION

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Monday in two cases
challenging the constitutionality of school desegregation programs. A
ruling may not come for several months. The Nov. 30 news article
"Panel: Race Still Relevant" incorrectly said that the ruling would
come on Monday.