Legal Commentary

The Washington Post is reporting that a federal judge in Mississippi has ordered a school district to stop allowing white students to transfer out of a predominantly African-American school into a smaller, predominantly white school, actions that had the effect of significantly increasing the racial identifiability of the two schools. It also appears that the school clustered white students into predominantly white classrooms, though I can't tell from the article (which is the only information I have seen about the case) whether this was the court's finding or simply the Justice Department's allegation.

Regardless of the latter issue, the finding about school transfers is a disheartening reminder that much of what we've learned as history is in fact still with us.  It evokes the controversy last year surrounding the Louisiana judge who refused to perform a mixed-race marriage.  These may be scattered, low-level actions (although query whether the actions of an institution like a school district can be described that way).  But even if they are, they demonstrate that what we all thought we had learned and at least officially digested hasn't completely taken.  I don't know if the recent flap over Virginia's Confederate History Month proclamation, sans mention of slavery falls within this same category.  But as we ponder an allegedly post-racial America it is important to keep these incidents in mind.  At the very least, they merit mention when we teach the implementation of Brown, Loving, and Palmore v. Sidoti, so students don't think we're teaching ancient history.