人兽性交

More than 40 years after winning a school desegregation case in Alabama, he found himself in a courtroom arguing once again for the integration of the very same school district.

鈥淚 never envisioned that I would be fighting in 2017 essentially the same battle that I thought I won in 1971,鈥� Clemon聽told The New York Times Magazine. 鈥淏ut the battle is just not over.鈥�

Since 2013, the mostly-white Birmingham suburb of , has been trying to from the larger Jefferson County public school district, where black students outnumber white ones by several thousand. Gardendale is just one of 71 mostly white communities across the country that have attempted what鈥檚 called school secession since 2000, according to a recent by EdBuild, a nonpartisan group dedicated to improving state funding of education.

Commumities that have successfully seceded have produced districts that are so segregated, it鈥檚 as if Brown v. Board of Education never happened.

Parents in Gardendale 鈥� where Rickey Reeves鈥� granddaughter attends middle school 鈥� would create a nearly all-white district if they managed to secede from Jefferson County, where the Reeveses live. Last year, Reeves testified before a federal judge in Birmingham about what Gardendale鈥檚 secession would mean for his family. As Nikole Hannah-Jones for The New York Times Magazine:

Unlike most of the younger parents lined up on the Gardendale side, the [Reeveses] were old enough to have a long view of the school system and the fight for equality. As Gardendale presented its case, Rickey Reeves鈥檚 mind kept flicking back to his own experience with the degradation of segregation. He thought about how his wife had lived two blocks from the nice, white high school, but how, carrying her books, he walked her each day two miles to the broken-down black school. He reflected on how his own school got only hand-me-down textbooks that were no longer good enough for white children. ...

He and his wife had to battle against discrimination their entire lives, and they watched as many of the gains they fought for have eroded. They knew that behind Birmingham鈥檚 new skyscrapers and fancy restaurants that served polenta instead of grits, the Old South still lurked. Racism had gone underground but not away.

Clemon had no illusions, either. Early in his career, he argued the very school-desegregation case that resulted in the 1971 court order Gardendale to integrate. He went on to become the state鈥檚 . By December 2016, however, he was standing in front of a judge, fighting to stop the re-segregation of Gardendale schools.

鈥淚t鈥檚 something we Americans like to call coming full circle,鈥� Hannah-Jones. 鈥淏ut a circle returns to its beginning, and so, as is almost always the case when it comes to race in America, the victories would not be complete, nor would they be permanent.鈥� When Judge Madeline Hughes Haikala issued her in April of this year, the ruling wasn鈥檛 as clear cut as either side expected.

鈥淸T]he Court finds that race was a motivating factor in Gardendale鈥檚 decision to separate from the Jefferson County public school system,鈥� Haikala, who still allowed the effort to move forward by granting Gardendale ownership of two elementary school, but not the high schools. In an unusual offering clarification, she worried that ruling against Gardendale would leave the black students who were bused in to satisfy an existing聽desegregation order vulnerable to marginalization and discrimination.

Haikala that if Gardendale fulfilled a number of requirements, she would reconsider their request for full separation in several years.

What is likely, however, is that Gardendale鈥檚 desire to split off from its larger, majority black public school district will not have abated. As Hannah-Jones , 鈥淎mericans saw schools as the primary drivers of opportunity and success, and white Americans had no desire to share access to the best schools and educational resources for which they鈥檇 always held the monopoly.鈥�

The 人兽性交 still sees schools as the primary drivers of opportunity and success. That鈥檚 why we are suing Mississippi, which has steadily rolled back the state鈥檚 constitutional mandate to operate a 鈥渦niform system of free public schools鈥� for all children. Today, Mississippi鈥檚 schools are anything but 鈥渦niform,鈥� and black students learn in buildings that are both decrepit and receive grades of 鈥淒鈥� or 鈥淔鈥� by the state.

It鈥檚 just another example of how opportunities for students of color are often shortchanged in this country, and why what is unfolding in Gardendale isn鈥檛 just an Alabama issue. As Haikala in her ruling:

The Supreme Court鈥檚 holding in Brown is simple and unaffected by the passage of time: when black public school students are treated as if they are inferior to white students, and that treatment is institutionalized by state or municipal action, the resulting stigma unconstitutionally assails the integrity of black students. That racial stigma is intolerable under the Fourteenth Amendment. That was true in 1954, and it is true today.

We couldn鈥檛 agree more.

The Editors.

P.S. Here are some other pieces we think are valuable this week:

• by Eli Hager for The New York Times
• by Liliana Segura for The Intercept
• By Claudia Rankine for The New York Times
• by Sorayya Khan for Longreads

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