Jack Greenberg, the Alphonse Fletcher Professor of Law at Columbia University and the former co-counsel with Thurgood Marshall on the Brown v. Board of Education case, said Tuesday that reports of the oral arguments in the recent U.S. Supreme Court cases on school desegregation have made him pessimistic, but hopeful that the one or two justices who have the reputation of being inhospitable to integration will vote to uphold the plans.
In an online talk on Newsweek.com, Greenberg said that if the school districts in Seattle and Louisville, Ky., lose their cases, affirmative action and integration will suffer a major setback.
“But it may be that some other techniques can be worked out that can achieve similar results, like economic integration, or integration according to standardized test scores,” said Greenberg, who has argued before the Supreme Court in more than 40 cases. “It’s hard to say whether the outcomes would be the same and, indeed, whether communities would embrace such plans.”
The talk was held in connection with The E-Guide to Public Service at America’s Law Schools, a free online resource that provides a range of information about public interest programs and curricula at more than 115 law schools.
Asked if he felt the need for a continuing role for affirmative action in higher education, the former director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund said, “I strongly believe that [affirmative action in higher education] should continue for reasons much like those set forth by Justice [Sandra Day] O’Connor in the University of Michigan case.”
Greenberg said the effect of the rising Hispanic and Black middle class on affirmative action efforts is not clear right now. Although civil rights organizations from both communities have worked together, he said most Hispanics don’t have the moral argument that arises out of the history of slavery that Blacks have.
