Sorry for my prolonged absence from the blog.

Yesterday's Supreme Court decision striking down the Louisville and Seattle de-segregation plans weren't a huge surprise given the Court's 30-year unease with affirmative action. I think diversity in schools is an important goal, and I think a lot of school districts feel the same way. One mechanism for achieving diversity that would pass constitutional muster, and which I wouldn't be at all surprised to see enter the limelight, is school placement (and affirmative action) based solely upon wealth. Given the unfortunate fact that wealth correlates strongly with race and ethnicity, some school districts will look to wealth as a proxy for race/ethnicity when devising school placement plans.

I don't necessarily like the idea, in general, of government officials using one categorization (wealth) for another (race) because it seems dishonest, but I think there will be a strong temptation to do so. Personally, I think integrating students of different economic groups is educationally and socially desirable in its own right.

I haven't yet read the opinions to see if any of them address this issue specifically.