An article from last Sunday's NYT magazine about the Supreme Court's upcoming decisions on the tricky issue of racial balancing programs within school districts:

In its new term, which begins on Oct. 2, the court has agreed to hear two major cases regarding the constitutionality of racial preferences in public elementary and high schools. Now that O’Connor has been replaced by Justice Samuel Alito, some liberals worry (and conservatives hope) that the end of affirmative action may once again be imminent.

The two Supreme Court cases arise out of Seattle and Jefferson County, Ky., where public elementary- and high-school students can choose, to different degrees, which school to attend. But to ensure that the schools reflect the racial balance of the school districts as a whole, administrators have used race to determine admission to the most popular schools. In both cases, parents sued when their children made an oversubscribed school their first choice and were turned down because of their race.

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September 24, 2006

The Way We Live Now

School Colors

By JEFFREY ROSEN

www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/magazine/24wwln_lede.html

When it comes to America’s always-sensitive politics of race and ethnicity, something of a tectonic shift has taken place. In just a few years, immigration has replaced affirmative action as the hot-button issue.