Still separate,still unequal

As same-sex couples in Massachusetts head to the altar today for the first state-recognized gay marriages, we should remember the case that inspired a state supreme court edict that "separate is seldom, if ever, equal."\nFifty years ago today, the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed racial segregation in public schools in Brown v. Board of Education. Contradicting the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling, Chief Justice Earl Warren read aloud the court's unanimous decision which ruled Plessy's "separate but equal" standard "has no place" in public education and was "inherently unfair." \nThe groundbreaking Brown decision signaled a dramatic shift in American jurisprudence and precedent. The second-class citizenship of many Americans faced its first major post-Reconstruction defeat and catalyzed the burgeoning civil rights movement. \n Half a century after this landmark case, there is little doubt that Brown was not the cure-all for scholastic inequality. \n In far too many places, the notion of equal opportunity in education is still far from reality. Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., commenting on the Brown anniversary in The New York Times, said the growing black middle class tends to move into the white-dominated suburbs and subsequently their children may escape the dilapidated and mismanaged schools that the poor children must endure in the inner-city. \nThe barrier that was that used to be intentionally drawn down racial lines has changed -- it is now drawn unintentionally between the middle class and the poor, exacerbated by socio-geographic disparities that affect the educational system today.\nWe believe the current de facto socio-economic segregation between the haves and the have-nots encumbers our nation's most important endeavor -- the education of our youth. \nWe must ensure that all American children have the chance to succeed by granting them equal access to high-quality public education. Today, for the most part, the have-nots do not attend the same school, or even the same types of schools, as the haves. The separation and inequality is not as cut-and-dry as it has been before.\nThe solutions to inequality will neither be immediate nor easy. We still must persuade others that there is work left to do. More money for public schools, greater teacher incentives in troubled schools and a change of mentality of citizens. "Insisting on a change in attitude, behavior and morals," in Gates' point of view, will be required to help bridge the gap.\nIf the haves abandon the have-nots indefinitely, there will be no hope. \nToday we can celebrate the dream of Brown, but today we also must understand that our work is not yet finished. Today we realize Brown's tremendous influence in hopes of improving our tomorrows. And today we stand firm that providing minimal or substandard resources has no place in the American education system.