A Case of Cognitive Dissonance

The op-ed by Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post this morning (“A Slide Toward Segregation) would likely stoke serious debate around any water cooler in the country. It talks about the legacy of Brown and the current Supreme Court cases in Seattle and Louisville on school desegregation. She points out the recent trend in the federal government against any policy that explicitly recognizes race as a factor. Race has always been an uncomfortable topic in America – its legacy and current divisions fly in the face of our founding principals, creating a nationwide case of cognitive dissonance.

Prior government policies focused on changing behavior, attempting to create integration through programs like busing, in order to reconcile our belief in equal opportunity with the existence of a segregated school system. According to Marcus’ piece, the current federal government is pushing to eliminate race as a factor in government policy, a strategy which seems to assert that if we don’t include race in any official decisions, then equal opportunity exists. In school reform, it seems that people on the ground have all but given up on the idea of integration as a solution to our separate and starkly unequal school system, and instead have taken on the challenge of building successful and high quality schools in minority neighborhoods – focusing on the unequal, and not separate, side of the equation.

Should we, as a country, simply accept de facto segregation, or should we establish policies to create integration, even if those policies require us to candidly use race as a deciding factor? Cases like Seattle and Louisville will guide how this country resolves the dissonance between our stated commitment to equal opportunity and the reality of our school system.