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ace
race
has long been one of the most difficult issues for
the Court, as it has for the nation. In recent years, many
cases have centered on the constitutionality of affirmative
action, in which race (or gender) is considered in hiring and
school admissions. In general, proponents of affirmative
action say it’s needed to make up for past discrimination,
while opponents say it’s reverse discrimination.
The Roberts Court has been skeptical of race-conscious
decisions by the government in cases about education,
employment, and voting. In an important 2007 decision,
the Court ruled that public schools cannot explicitly take
race into account to achieve or maintain integration.
“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is
to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” Chief Justice
John G. Roberts wrote in that ruling.
The Court applied the same principle in June, ruling 5-to-4
that New Haven, Connecticut, could not throw out the
teen riGhts
w hat’s
more important: the rights of students, or the
needs of schools to keep order and maintain a safe environment?
That’s one of the key questions in the area of teen
rights in which the Court is trying to find the right balance.
In 1969, the landmark case Tinker v. Des Moines
Independent School District established that students do not
“shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or
expression at the schoolhouse gate.”
But in recent years, the Court has generally sided with
schools, particularly in cases involving drugs and school
security. In 2007, in Morse v. Frederick, the Court backed an
Alaska principal who suspended a student for displaying a
banner that said “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” at a school-sponsored
event off school property. The student said the banner was a
prank and the words were gibberish, but a majority of Justices
said the sign advocated drug use. The decision effectively cut
back the First Amendment rights of students.
However, in June the Court issued a ruling that supported
students’ right to privacy at school. Savana Redding
was 13 years old and in the 8th grade when she was
strip-searched in 2003 by school officials in Arizona, who
wrongly suspected her of having prescription-strength
Adam Liptak is the Supreme Court correspondent for The New York Times.
national
results of a promotional exam for firefighters because black
firefighters did poorly on it. The case, Ricci v. DeStefano, was
brought by white and Hispanic firefighters who did qualify
for promotions but were denied them, and said they were
victims of reverse discrimination.
“This decision will change the landscape of civil rights
law,” says Sheila Foster, a law professor at Fordham
University in New York.
Such decisions have prompted some to wonder if the
Roberts Court might be moving toward effectively abolishing
affirmative action and similar programs in the near future.
That’s what Justice Stephen G. Breyer seemed to hint at
when he wrote his dissent in the 2007 case that ended the
use of race by school districts trying to maintain integration.
Referring to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling
in 1954 that desegregated schools, he wrote: “The last
half-century has witnessed great strides toward racial equality,
but we have not yet realized the promise of Brown.” •
ibuprofen. In Safford Unified School District v. Redding, the
Justices ruled 8-to-1 that the strip search had violated the
Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches.
“It does not require a constitutional scholar to conclude
that a nude search of a 13-year-old child is an invasion of
constitutional rights of some magnitude,” wrote Justice
John Paul Stevens.
The case attracted national attention and gave rise to an
intense debate over how much leeway school officials should
have in enforcing zero-tolerance policies for drugs and violence.
Some parents were outraged by the intrusiveness of the
search, while others worried about tying the hands of school
officials charged with keeping their children safe. •
savana redding, now
19 and a student
at eastern arizona
college, in front of the
supreme court in april;
she was 13 when school
officials strip-searched
her in the mistaken
belief that she was
hiding prescriptionstrength
ibuprofen.
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