Volume 153, No. 107 covering the 1st Session of the 110th Congress (2007 - 2008) was published by the Congressional Record.
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“SUPREME COURT DECISIONS” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the Senate section on pages S8739-S8740 on June 29, 2007.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
SUPREME COURT DECISIONS
Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, over half a century ago, in Brown v. Board of Education, a unanimous Supreme Court stuck down laws requiring racial segregation in our public schools. Yesterday's decision limiting voluntary efforts to desegregate public schools is false to Brown's promise of equality by making it far more difficult for local school boards to bring students of different races together in the classroom.
The landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education called on us to honor not only the requirements of the Constitution but also of our consciences. America was made stronger as a result. Although the Brown decision initially met with intense resistance in many parts of the country, it eventually came to be recognized as one of the Court's finest hours.
Yesterday's decision, however, makes it far more difficult to achieve equal educational opportunity for children of all races. Brown was a giant step in ending racially segregated public schools, but achieving integration takes more than a court decision. It takes good will, vision, creativity, common sense, and a firm commitment to the goal of educating all children, regardless of race. Above all, it takes a realistic assessment of local communities to determine what will work to bring students together.
That challenge is difficult to meet, because in many parts of the Nation, neighborhoods continue to be highly segregated by race and national origin. Without specific efforts by local school boards to promote diversity, public schools often reflect the same racial segregation as the neighborhoods around them. As over 500 prominent social scientists who have studied residential segregation explained in their brief in the Seattle and Jefferson County, KY, cases, without voluntary efforts, neighborhood schools cannot achieve the integration that we as a society recognize is so important.
The benefits of integration, both for individual students and for society, are enormous. Children who participate in classes attended by students of many races enjoy greater parental involvement in public schools, and greater cross-cultural understanding. It helps close the racial gap in education by helping African-American children achieve greater academic success. One of the Nation's leading conservative judges, Alexander Kozinski, described Seattle's integration plan as an
``eminently sensible'' ``stirring of the melting pot,'' which helps children learn to interact as citizens of our common society. Without integrated schools, children will not learn these important lessons. That's a result we cannot afford.
Local school boards such as Jefferson County's have transcended the legacy of Jim Crow segregation to achieve not only enhanced opportunities for students but greater cooperation, participation, and genuine friendship between children of different races. We should honor that achievement. We should also ensure that school districts such as Jefferson County's, that do not want to return to the days of all-White and all-Black schools, receive the support and information needed to continue that success.
The Court's ruling undermines the important goal of racial integration by ignoring the real world consequences of its decision. Ironically, Chief Justice Roberts, who helped form the majority on this decision, stated at his confirmation hearing that this was something he would not do.
My first question to John Roberts at his confirmation hearing was about Brown v. Board of Education. I asked whether he agreed that the Court in Brown properly based its opinion on ``real world consideration[s] . . . at the time of its decision.'' ``Certainly, Senator,'' he responded, ``you have to look at the discrimination in the context in which it is occurring.''
Yet his plurality opinion in yesterday's decision ignores the context of Brown that Chief Justice Roberts said at his hearing was so important. In fact, Chief Justice Roberts would have gone even further than a majority of the Court and argued to outlaw virtually any use of race in voluntary efforts to integrate public schools.
The central tragedy in Brown was society's abandonment of African-
American children to second-class schools. Every child relegated to such schools is harmed. Chief Justice Roberts' opinion disregards that reality by defining the only harm in Brown as the consideration of race in assigning children to school. The harm to these children is not less just because their segregation is the result of housing patterns rather than discriminatory laws. The cruel irony of the Chief Justice's view is that it would undermine Brown by ensuring that thousands of minority children would continue to attend segregated schools. Fortunately, a majority of the Supreme Court understood that we cannot afford to ignore the harm to students in segregated schools.
Despite professing moderation and promising to uphold precedent, the Court's newest members have already voted to radically limit the Clean Water Act. They have argued that the Environmental Protection Agency has no power to control air pollution, and overturned a 7-year-old precedent on a woman's right to choose. More recently, they cut back on workers' ability to hold companies responsible for pay discrimination, ignoring the intent of Congress by imposing unreasonably narrow deadlines for pay discrimination claims. But their decision striking down voluntary integration is the most sweeping proof that they failed to be candid about their extreme views when they testified before the Senate in their confirmation hearings.
Fortunately, the views of the newest Justices, which would have made voluntary integration almost impossible, were not shared by a majority of the Court. The majority recognized that local school boards have a compelling interest in preventing de facto racial segregation in public schools, so long as they do so in a way that is narrowly tailored to meet that interest. Although the majority wrongly concluded that the carefully crafted programs in Seattle and Jefferson County, KY, were not permissible, it made clear that local school districts still have the ability to create racially inclusive public schools.
Congress is not powerless to address this important issue. We should support school districts that desire to achieve diversity in their public schools within the limits of the Court's ruling. I plan to hold hearings in the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on the effects of the decisions. It is my hope that those hearings will shed new light on the best way to support schools that want to continue our national progress toward integration in public education.
The words of Brown ring as true today as they did half a century ago. On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court declared that ``education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. . . . It is the very foundation of good citizenship. . . . In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education,'' and that opportunity
``is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.''
These words could have been written today. It is up to us to revitalize them for the years ahead. The promise of Brown will never be fulfilled until America opens opportunity to all, not just to some.
Brown showed that even against great odds, we can change America for the better. We must renew our commitment to genuine educational equality for all children in America. Despite yesterday's decision, we must not falter, now or ever. Separate can never be equal. We must continue the racial progress of the last 50 years. Only then will America truly become one Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
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