A Victory for Integration

By Andrea Sachs

Following a pattern of bruising defeats, civil rights advocates have become increasingly distrustful of the Bush Administration and the Supreme Court. But last week, topping a series of important decisions, the high court surprised some of its toughest critics by giving a major boost to racial integration. By a 5-4 vote, the court ruled that a federal judge can order school officials to raise taxes to pay for desegregation remedies. Furthermore, said the court, the judge can instruct officials to ignore state laws limiting the amount of school taxes.

The case arose in Kansas City following a long-running battle over the public schools. The school system, once segregated by law, is now overwhelmingly black because of white flight to the suburbs. Federal District Judge Russell Clark adopted a sweeping "magnet-school" plan proposed by the school board, designed to lure white students back. When the school district was unable to pay the costs, Clark unilaterally doubled the local property tax.

While the Supreme Court unanimously found that Clark should have ordered the local officials to raise taxes rather than doing so himself, the court split bitterly on the question of whether federal judges may intervene in matters of taxation. Writing for the majority, Justice Byron White said that to deny judges that right "would fail to take account of the obligations of local governments . . . to fulfill the requirements that the Constitution imposes on them." But Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the dissent, acidly observed, "Today's casual embrace of taxation imposed by the unelected, life-tenured federal judiciary disregards fundamental precepts for the democratic control of public institutions." Like many liberals, Colleen O'Connor of the American Civil Liberties Union hailed the decision. Said she: "It means states and cities can't plead poverty to impede legal school desegregation."

The Kansas City case was one of the more sweeping opinions handed down by the court during a busy week. Three of the other decisions, concerning possession of child pornography, the use of drugs in religious ceremonies, and warrantless arrests, involved the court's evolving body of privacy law. In addition, the high bench issued a major decision on labor relations. The rulings:

CHILD PORNOGRAPHY

While X-rated videos have become popular among many Americans, public tolerance for sexual materials rarely extends to the viewing of child pornography. The latter is a much more furtive activity. Until last week, however, it was unclear whether the Constitution permitted a state to outlaw at-home possession of child pornography. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court answered that question by upholding a tough Ohio law that makes personal possession of child pornography a crime. Writing for the majority, Justice White said that Ohio legitimately sought to "destroy a market for the exploitative use of children." The case, which arose when Clyde Osborne, 66, was prosecuted for possessing sexually explicit photographs of young males, brought forth a stern dissent from Justice William Brennan. "Mr. Osborne's pictures may be distasteful, but the Constitution guarantees both his right to possess them privately and his right to avoid punishment under an overbroad law."

RELIGIOUS LIBERTIES

In a blow to Indian traditions, the court ruled 6-3 that there is no constitutional right to take the hallucinogenic drug peyote as a religious practice. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, said that the First Amendment freedom of religion did not allow individuals to break the law: "We have never held that an individual's religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the state is free to regulate." Native American groups were quick to protest the ruling, saying that use of peyote in religious ceremonies predated the Constitution.

PRIVACY RIGHTS

An overnight guest in a private home enjoys the same privacy rights as the homeowner, the court ruled 7-2. The decision struck down the murder conviction of a Minnesota man who was unlawfully arrested without a warrant in the home where he was staying. Justice White wrote for the majority: " Society recognizes that a house guest has a legitimate expectation of privacy in his host's home."

LABOR RELATIONS

In a decision that cut across its traditional ideological lines, the court held in a 5-4 decision that the National Labor Relations Board does not have to assume that workers hired as strikebreakers are opposed to union representation. That makes it easier for a union to prove it has majority support. Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote the opinion, joined by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Brennan, White and Stevens. "Replacements may in some circumstances desire union representation despite their willingness to cross the picket line," wrote Marshall. The likely impact: employers who hire replacements for striking workers will find it more difficult to oust their union.

With reporting by Jerome Cramer/Washington