Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Sotomayor, and race

[Tilted (Premo)]

Writing for the plurality in Parents Involved v Seattle School District (2007), Chief Justice Roberts wrote (citation omitted):

Before Brown, schoolchildren were told where they could and could not go to school based on the color of their skin. The school districts in these cases have not carried the heavy burden of demonstrating that we should allow this once again—even for very different reasons. For schools that never segregated on the basis of race, such as Seattle, or that have removed the vestiges of past segregation, such as Jefferson County, the way “to achieve a system of determining admission to the public schools on a nonracial basis,” is to stop assigning students on a racial basis. The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.

From a New York Times article (Sotomayor Reflects on First Years on Court):

On the other hand, she said she disagreed with Chief Justice Roberts’s approach to cases concerning racial equality. In a 2007 opinion in a decision limiting the use of race to achieve public school integration, Chief Justice Roberts wrote that “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

That approach, Justice Sotomayor said, was “too simple.”

“I don’t borrow Chief Justice Roberts’s description of what colorblindness is,” she said. “Our society is too complex to use that kind of analysis.”

What say you? Who's more right?

Is Chief Justice Roberts right and it's just that simple - the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race?

Or, is Justice Sotomayor right and CJ Roberts is being naive in this regard - reality is a bit more complicated, his witty dismissal of that complicated reality notwithstanding?

[vraiblonde]

He is right, she is a patronizing elitist.

[bcp (Premo)]

He is right,
has anyone even seen her birth certificate?

[ImnoMensa]

Originally Posted by bcp

He is right,
has anyone even seen her birth certificate?

Sodajerk wasn't appointed by Obama for her vast knowledge and the history of her great decisions.

She was appointed because she is a far left tool.

[Larry Gude (Premo)]

This is key;

The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.

“I don’t borrow Chief Justice Roberts’s description of what colorblindness is,” she said. “Our society is too complex to use that kind of analysis.”

So, she borrows from Orwell, then? War is peace? Up is down? Right is wrong? Sounds stupid to me. Not complex.

[JoeRider]

Of course Roberts is right. Typical liberal, taking something simple and making it seem to be something complex.

[Tilted (Premo)]

Originally Posted by bcp

He is right,
has anyone even seen her birth certificate?

I haven't, but I'd lay odds that someone has.

At any rate, I don't think there's a Constitutional requirement that Supreme Court Justices be born in any particular place (e.g. the United States). Perhaps there's a statutory one, but I doubt it.

[Gilligan (Premo)]

Originally Posted by vraiblonde

He is right, she is a patronizing elitist.

What she said.

[JoeRider]

Originally Posted by bcp

He is right,
has anyone even seen her birth certificate?

When you are hatched you don't get one.

[Tilted (Premo)]

So, what's the response to Justice Breyer's response to the Chief Justice's words (citations omitted)?

As I have pointed out, de facto resegregation is on the rise. It is reasonable to conclude that such resegregation can create serious educational, social, and civic problems. Given the conditions in which school boards work to set policy, they may need all of the means presently at their disposal to combat those problems. Yet the plurality would deprive them of at least one tool that some districts now consider vital—the limited use of broad race-conscious student population ranges.

I use the words "may need" here deliberately. The plurality, or at least those who follow JUSTICE THOMAS' "color-blind" approach, may feel confident that, to end invidious discrimination, one must end all governmental use of race-conscious criteria including those with inclusive objectives. By way of contrast, I do not claim to know how best to stop harmful discrimination; how best to create a society that includes all Americans; how best to overcome our serious problems of increasing de facto segregation, troubled inner city schooling, and poverty correlated with race. But, as a judge, I do know that the Constitution does not authorize judges to dictate solutions to these problems. Rather, the Constitution creates a democratic political system through which the people themselves must together find answers. And it is for them to debate how best to educate the Nations children and how best to administer America's schools to achieve that aim. The Court should leave them to their work. And it is for them to decide, to quote the plurality's slogan, whether the best "way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." That is why the Equal Protection Clause outlaws invidious discrimination, but does not similarly forbid all use of race-conscious criteria.

Until today, this Court understood the Constitution as affording the people, acting through their elected representatives, freedom to select the use of "race-conscious" criteria from among their available options. Today, however, the Court restricts (and some Members would eliminate) that leeway. I fear the consequences of doing so for the law, for the schools, for the democratic process, and for America's efforts to create, out of its diversity, one Nation.