A blow to diversity.

Byline: The Register-Guard

In the landmark 1954 case Brown vs. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court helped keep a troubled nation from drowning in a festering pool of prejudice by ruling that segregated schools were "inherently unequal."

In a case involving school diversity plans in Seattle and Louisville, Ky., the Supreme Court last month struck a blow at the intent and spirit of Brown - and the ideals of racial equality and desegregation that many Americans hold sacred.

The 5-4 ruling says neither black nor white students may be turned away from a particular school simply because of their race. While that sounds benign, it turns the Brown decision on its head and invites legal challenges in as many as 1,000 school districts that have adopted integration strategies.

With an insidious irony, the majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, cites excerpts from Brown to justify its decision.

While it's true that the court ruled in Brown that no child should be denied a spot in a school based in race, the current court ignored the historical context of a 1954 America in which segregation laws were used to deny equal educational opportunities to blacks. Now, race-based policies are used not to promote segregation, but to do just the opposite - promote integration.

As has often been the case recently, Justice Anthony Kennedy provided the conservative majority's fifth vote. But he also wrote a separate opinion that holds out a possibility that schools might use means other than racial classifications (such as income, attendance boundaries or language skills) to promote integration. School officials, Kennedy said, should not "ignore the problem of de facto resegregation in schooling" and may adopt "race conscious measures to address the problem in a general way."

In years to come, parents should remind their children that there was a time in this nation's history when the Supreme Court moved mountains of ignorance and prejudice by compelling state and local governments to promote racial integration.

The Roberts court has done just the opposite, manipulating the inspired legal logic of Brown to open the door to schools that now choose to pursue segregation.