Henry J. Stern
Friday, August 17, 2007

A Quinniapac University poll has shown that a 3-1 majority of Americans support the June 28 decision of the Supreme Court that pupils cannot be denied admission to a public school solely because of their race.  The court decision was 5-4, with the four liberal justices (Stevens, Souter, Breyer and Ginsburg, JJ.) dissenting.  Judge Anthony M. Kennedy provided the swing vote, as he often does in today's divided court.  He joined Chief  Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito in the result, but not in their entire opinions.
 
The results and analysis of the Q-poll, just released, are available on line at www.quinnipiac.edu.  The website gives more complete information about the questions and the breakdown of responses than we can here.  

The public approved by a vote of 45-37 ( in percentages)  the performance of the Supreme Court, which is close to the historic low for that court..  They disapproved, however, by a heavy 64-29 margin, of the job President Bush is doing.  That result is in accord with other nationwide polls on the President's popularity at this time.
 
Congress received a 70-20 disapproval rating, the lowest score it ever received, in this poll. Although the Democrats control both the Senate and the House, the Democratic voters polled expressed disapproval of Congress by 67-23. Republicans expressed disapproval by 70-22, and independents by 72-17.
 
"Many liberals were outraged by the recent school desegregation decision, calling it a retreat from Brown v. Board of Education.  But almost three-fourths of voters approved," said Maurice Carroll. director of the Quinniapac University Polling Institute.  Mr. Carroll is well regarded for his work as a long-time political reporter for the New York Times.
 
On other issues, the poll found public support for the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade establishing a woman's right to an abortion, and disapproval of the war in Iraq. These questions showed a wide variance based on political views, with Republicans more likely to oppose Roe v. Wade and support the war, while most Democrats took the opposite view on both issues.
 
The last question, out of 39 in the poll, read as follows:  "As you know, the Supreme Court recently ruled that public schools may not consider an individual's race when deciding which students are assigned to specific schools.  Do you agree or disagree with this ruling?"
 
The results: Total 71% agree, 24% disagree; Republicans 79-17,  Democrats 64-30; Independents 71-24; Men 71-24; Women 71-24.
 
Although the Quinniapac poll is usually covered by New York newspapers, there was no mention of these poll results in any of the five dailies we saw.  This unusual outcome has led some to wonder whether the politicallly incorrect results altered the
extent of the press coverage.
 
We did find, however, an attack on the poll by Jon Cohen in a column in today's Washington Post:  Cohen says:
 
"Quinniapac's question asked respondents whether race should be a factor in school assignments, and in the absence of an alternative, few said it should. What was shown in the most recent Washington Post-ABC News poll is that giving some context to the court's decision yielded more nuance and a different result.
 
"In the poll, one primary criticism of the court ruling was included, namely that the decision would be a setback for integration efforts.  In response, 56% of all respondents said they disapproved of the court ruling in the school race case; 40% approved.  Republicans and independents were evenly split on the decision, while nearly 7 in 10 Democrats were lined up against it.
 
"So maybe the Democratic candidates aren't at odds with the public after all, especially with the majority of Democrats who oppose the substance of the Supreme Court's decision."
 
Six paragraphs back in this article, you can read the exact wording of the question asked in the Quinniapac poll. To us it seems a rather straightforward inquiry.   The Washington Post included in their question the allegation that the decision was a setback for integration, and therefore obtained a different result.  The fact is that Mr. Justice Kennedy, the decider in this case, affirmed the importance of school integration and explored other techniques that could be used to foster it other than assigning students to schools on the sole basis of their race.
  
For a pollster to maintain that the Supreme Court decision was a setback for integration is to adopt the viewpoint of the plaintiffs.  To engraft that assumption into a premise on which the polling question itself is based  is a type of push-polling, where questions are asked for the purpose of obtaining a result desired by the polltaker.. 

In fact, there are many constitutional ways to promote integration: zoning, the location of new schools, magnet programs in particular schools, and voluntary bussing.  Justice Kennedy's opinion in the Seattle case is supportive of other state initiatives to prevent racial discrimination and resegregation, which he rightly deplores..
 
The Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) was a wonderful victory for the principle of "Equal Justice Under Law", the motto engraved on the pediment of the neo-classical courthouse  in Washington. The Brown decision, which over-ruled Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), was obviously was not the original intent of the framers of the constitution, whose references to African Americans were that they counted as three-fifths of a person for census purposes, and that they could not be imported into the United States after 1808 (twenty years after the adoption of the constitution.)  In a rare historical juxtaposition, the lone dissenter in Plessy was Justice John Marshall Harlan.  His grandson and namesake was appointed to the court oney ear after by President Eisenhower unanimously struck down Plessy 58 years later.

Chief Justice Roberts, not known for humor, wrote in the Seattle case that "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."  But Justice Kennedy, also in the majority,in that case,  wrote that "The plurality's postulate that the way the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race, is not sufficient to decide these cases.  Fifty years of experience since Brown v. Board of Education should teach us that the problem before us defies so easy a solution.  School districts can seek to reach Brown's objective of equal educational opportunity.  The plurality opinion is at least open to the interpretation that the Constitution requires school districts to ignore the problems of de facto resegregation in schooling.  I cannot endorse that conclusion."  Notice well Justice Kennedy's reference that it was the plurality, not the majority, which held the views which he specifically rejected, and which the four liberal justices would certainly not accept.

There is, however, a footnote in a one concurring opinion which we call to your attention.  "Nothing but an interest in classroom aesthetics and a hypersensitivity to elite sensibilities justifies the school districts' racial balancing programs."   That opinion is by Mr. Justice Thomas.

The conclusion we draw from the words of most of the justices is that Brown is alive and well, probably healthier than Roe v. Wade, whose future may depend on the 2008 Presidential election.  Justice Kennedy and the Chief Justice have made clear their attachment to Brown.  Those who would reverse that historic landmark would be highly unlikely to be nominated by a future President, or to receive Senate confirmation if their names were submitted.  

It is unfortunate that the Supreme Court is as polarized as it appears to be.  During Chief Justice Roberts' confirmation hearings, the hope was widely expressed that the new Chief Justice, a relatively young man of apparently genial disposition, would help to bring different points of view together in a more congenial court.  As of the summer of 2007, that goal seems no closer to being reached.



#403  8.17.07   1299wds