In what could be considered the understatement of the year, John Payton said this about what has to be a major setback for diversity opponents: “This is an important victory.”
Payton, who is president and director–counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, was referring to a stunning decision by a California appellate court to uphold a school assignment diversity plan instituted in Berkeley, Calif.
The Berkeley Unified School District policy takes into account the demographics of the neighborhood where the students live, including the racial makeup of the neighborhood, education level of adults in that neighborhood and average household incomes.
The issue of race has been at the core of a long line of cases, including two that found there way to the United States Supreme Court in 2007.
