Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree explains why voting in the 2006 elections is so important.
"We may be, by next year, back to a pre-1950s Brown vs. Board of Education, when it comes to issues of race and racial opportunity."
Tavis: Big story here in L.A. the other day that connects to this notion of education in America, certainly post-secondary education. I think most of us in this city were taken aback the other day when we found out, learned from the "L.A. Times" that of the almost 5,000 freshman entering UCLA this coming fall, only 96 of them are African American. It's the school where Jackie Roosevelt Robinson went.
Charles Ogletree: Absolutely.
Tavis: Tom Bradley, the mayor of this city, went to UCLA. And Ralph Bunch, and others. How do you have 96 African Americans out of a class of almost 5,000? A school like UCLA? What's happening on the education front?
Ogletree: Well, it's bad news and worse news. The bad news is that Proposition 209, from a decade ago, has literally closed many of California's schools to African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans. The numbers are just dwindling, and they're getting worse. Not only are there fewer people coming, there are fewer people who want to come, because they see that we're closed sign out there, but it's getting worse.
On Monday, June fifth, the Supreme Court just granted cert, which means they're gonna hear two cases on affirmative action. One from the state of Washington; one from the state of Kentucky. These two cases are where schools voluntarily had an integration program to diversify their education opportunity. Three years ago, we won the Michigan case. Five to four, Justice O'Connor? She's gone. Chief Justice Roberts is there now. Justice Alito is there now. It's a different Supreme Court.
And we may be, Tavis, and by next year, back to a pre-1950s Brown vs. Board of Education when it comes to issues of race and racial opportunity. This is the worst it's ever been. That's why the 2006 elections are important; 2008 elections are important; why the local elections are important.
Because we're losing that battle, and that's one of the things I'm very involved in at Harvard with the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute. We're looking at the problem of achievement of African Americans. Because we're getting worse, rather than better.
Tavis: Let me ask you - I don't ask this question out of naiveté. I ask it to give you a chance to explain to those who might not understand how this works. When you say the 2006 elections are important, the 2008 elections are important, help the audience understand how you juxtapose that argument of the importance of these elections with the fact that we all know that Supreme Court Justices serve for a lifetime, and to your point about O'Connor being gone now, and it being a new court.
Does it really matter what happens in these election cycles if the folk on the court have a conservative bent, and one, looking at their voting record, historically, could believe that they are gonna turn the clock back on Brown vs. Board, given their conservative views, why, then, do elections matter?
Ogletree: Well, one thing you asked me, just before the 2004 election, why was it important? And I told you that the next president, elected in 2004, will probably appoint two, three, or four Supreme Court Justices that can change the whole way the legal system works. And that has happened; President Bush was elected in 2004; he's already filled two positions.
I suspect, since he doesn't leave office until January 2009, and we're in 2006, he might have two more appointments before the end of 2009. That's why the elections matter. Who's in the White House will determine who's on the Supreme Court, number one. And secondly, when you talk about legislation, whether it's the Voting Rights Act that's coming up for reauthorization in 2007, issues of affirmative action, all those things are impacted by federal legislation. And Congress can have a big impact on that.
President Johnson, we forget it was 1965 when he said, "You can't expect the Negro to have the same opportunities as Whites when they are carrying chains; when they're running that hundred-yard dash." I urge your listeners to go back and read President Johnson's speech from 1965 about the disparities between Blacks and Whites; how bad they were then; and look at where we are 41 years later.
It is shocking what he said at Howard in 1965, Howard University, and what we find in 2006. That's why elections are important; political officials are important. And the only way we're gonna have diversity in places like California and other places is for people to see that, in order for us to move forward, we each have to have equal opportunity.
What should be done to diversify higher education?
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