A Step Back

On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down one of the landmark decisions of the 20th century. In Brown v. Board of Education, the court unanimously declared that the Jim Crow doctrine of separate, but equal had no place in education. Separate schools, the court wrote, are inherently unequal.

The decision in Brown v. Board of Education was the culmination of years of work by endlessly persistent lawyers for the NAACP to legally dismantle segregation. It was a bit of a shock, therefore, to see news this week, nearly 52 years to the day after the Brown decision, that NAACP lawyers were back in court suing on the exact same issues.

Earlier this year, the Nebraska state legislature passed a bill that would divide the Omaha Public Schools into three smaller districts. The new districts, drawn based on geography, create separate districts with different majority populations -- one district would have mostly white students, another mostly African-American, and the third mostly Hispanic students. To be sure, the plan is far from a return to legally-enforced separation of the races in schools, but still, it set off alarms across the country that an official return to segregated education was afoot.

Adding even more intrigue to the Omaha plan is the fact that it was proposed by Nebraska's only African-American state senator, Ernie Chambers, a man once described as "the angriest black man in Nebraska." Chambers, arguing that the plan would allow black educators to control schools in black neighborhoods, received the support of 30 conservative legislators from mostly white suburbs and ranching counties to push the measure through. Despite warnings from the state attorney general of potential constitutional problems with the plan, Nebraska's governor signed the bill immediately.

The reaction from the NAACP was swift. Within a month, NAACP litigators had filed a law suit to prevent the plan from being enforced, arguing that it intentionally separates students based on race in clear violation of the Constitution.

While the constitutional merits will now be left to the courts, there can be no doubt that the Omaha plan is a direct repudiation of the Brown ideals. It not only says that separate schools are allowable, but that separate schools may actually be preferable for the African-American community. Having been proposed by a black lawmaker -- rather than a white legislator who would surely have been dismissed as racist -- the plan reflects disillusionment among some in the black community with a half-century of efforts at integration with little to show.

The tension between integration and black control of black schools captured by the Omaha plan is nothing new. Even at the time of Brown, there were those in the African-American community who argued against efforts to combine separate black and white school systems for fear of losing influence in the education of African American students. Fifty-two years later, that debate continues in Omaha.

The legacy of Brown is complex. Its goal of undoing legally-sanctioned segregation has been achieved along with many unintended, and often negative, consequences. However, efforts like the Omaha plan threaten to undo the good that Brown did accomplish. Efforts to formally divide communities along racial lines undermine all sense of a broader community. Separate school districts send the dangerous signal that working across racial lines is unnecessary and unwanted. The citizens of Omaha would be better served by efforts that recognize the common stake they all share in the future of their city.

Fortunately, Omaha's school authorities and business community recognize what is at stake. Their motto: "One City. One School District."