The National Newspaper Publisher Association,
also known as the Black Press of America, is a 65-year-old federation of more than 200 Black community newspapers from across the United States. Since World War II, it has also served as the industry’s news service, a position that it has held without peer or competitor since the Associated Negro Press dissolved by 1970.
Hazel Trice Edney, NNPA’s Washington Correspondent, begins a recent article with the following misinformation:
WASHINGTON (NNPA) –Although the U. S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of affirmative action in the University of Michigan Law School case three years ago and Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, Black leaders say affirmative action and school desegregation are among the most important issues facing Black America in 2007 – both being at risk.
Brown v. Board of Education had nothing whatsoever to do with affirmative action. It did, however, bar assigning students to schools on the basis of their race, which can be read (as indeed I read it) to, well, bar assigning students to schools on the basis of their race.
It’s a bit of a stretch to say the Supreme Court ruled in favor of affirmative racism in the U Mich Law School case three years ago, too. Four of the nine ruled that the program was unconstitutional, and a fifth ruled it was just barely constitutional today, and would likely become unconstitutional automatically if it continued unabated for 25 years or so. Short of striking the program down, I don’t know how much less “in favor of” race preferences the court could have been.
haha, wow. i doubt the author even read (or understood) brown. anyway, xlrg’s comment isn’t entirely correct. obviously the grutter court ruled “in favor” of affirmative action, even though no real consensus was reached, and even though o’connor said she didn’t expect the practice to continue for more than 25 more years (thomas thought this meant that affirmative action would be illegal in 25 years). the court didn’t mandate affirmative action, but as a practical matter, the decision was “in favor” of the practice, at least to the extent that michigan’s law school was allowed to continue using it.