When population shifts - brought about by fair housing laws, affirmative action and landmark school desegregation rulings - political power is challenged as well.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
While housing discrimination and segregation in 2005 still affect millions of people, that's not the way it has to be. Some things can change and should.
We're now segregating our schools based on economics; we're segregating our schools based on where a child's parents live. And it has the same corrosive effect of destroying people's opportunity as racial segregation did.
For a long time, the Court has moved toward outlawing all forms of racial preference, including affirmative action, and Obama seems accepting, even supportive, of the change.
Affirmative action works but we're going to need to muster all our political resources if we are to keep it in place.
Sixty years after Brown v. Board of Education, it's time for us to take a hard look at the separate and unequal conditions that still exist in our schools and our communities and rededicate ourselves to fulfilling the promise of equal opportunity for all.
School reform is not enough. The notion of schooling itself must be challenged.
We demand that segregation be ended in every school district in the year 1963! We demand that we have effective civil rights legislation - no compromise, no filibuster - and that include public accommodations, decent housing, integrated education, FEPC and the right to vote.
We are now operating a school system in America that's more segregated than at any time since the death of Martin Luther King.
School choice is the civil rights issue of the 21st century.
The 'niche' effect of charter schools guarantees a swift and vicious deepening of class and racial separation.