From Topeka to Kansas City

摘要

Kansas city is just down the road from topeka, where the crusade against school segregation began with what became the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision of 1954. Kansas City may henceforth be known as the end of the road for the crusade that went awry. Last week the Supreme Court began to pry loose the grip of judicial arrogance from Kansas City, where a judge's unbridled willfulness has produced one of the most spectacular abuses of power, and failures of policy, in American history. After nine years and a cost of approximately $1.5 billion, a program with the one goal of increasing the non-minority enrollment in the city's schools has produced a school system in which such enrollment is lower than ever—below 25 percent. Furthermore, test scores are down, the dropout rate is up and the principles of separation of powers and self-government have been violated. The only good that has come of this is Justice Clarence Thomas's concurring opinion when the Court emphatically reasserted that "local autonomy of school districts is a vital national tradition."