School-by-skin-color is a bad lesson for kids
Re “If it works for the Cabinet ...” editorial, Sept. 8
The Times criticizes the Bush administration for opposing race-based student assignments because “in many places the only way to bring students of different races together is to take account of race.” This statement isn’t relevant to the cases at hand.
The administration argues in its Supreme Court briefs that the Seattle and Louisville, Ky., school systems failed even to consider race-neutral means that could have worked just as well as racial quotas, including the use of magnet schools. The more fundamental problem is that the end does not justify the means of racial discrimination. Telling a child that he must go to this school rather than that school simply because of skin color is a poor way to bring students of different races together -- and teaches children that they are defined by their skin color.
ROGER CLEGG
President, Center for Equal Opportunity
Sterling, Va.
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