BAMN - Presentation Background

On Monday December 4th, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear two school desegregation cases from Seattle, WA and Louisville, KY.  At stake is every effort to achieve integration in American education.  B.A.M.N. is calling on every supporter of integration and equality, every American who desires a nation free of inequality and injustice to march on the United States Supreme Court on the day that these two cases are heard.  This presentation will discuss the importance of these cases and the importance of the fight for equality and integration to the future of the youth of America. 

If the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down these two voluntary programs, school desegregation programs in several hundred school districts across America would be ended immediately.  A loss in these cases would outlaw all desegregation measures nationwide including affirmative action programs for higher education; states would be barred from taking steps to integrate.  For the first time in this nation’s history, a comprehensive, nation-wide legal ban on voluntary school integration and affirmative action measures would go into effect. 

In defeating the attack on integration and affirmative action at the U.S. Supreme Court we can begin to lift the nation out of the far too prevalent depths of racist segregation and inequality.  A victory can put California and the nation back on the road toward integration and equality. 

These cases are vital to the future of the public schools of Los Angeles.  Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has a very successful longstanding school integration plan that would be dismantled if the Louisville and Seattle integration plans are struck down.  UCLA has suffered tremendous declines in underrepresented minority enrollment as a result of the ban on affirmative action programs.  This forum will discuss building a fight that can desegregate all of American public education and the leading role Los Angeles can and must play.