WHEREAS:
AFSCME stands proudly in defense of the unanimous 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education that outlawed segregation in public schools, and opened the door to a more integrated and equal society; and

WHEREAS:
In its 2006-07 session, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear two school voluntary desegregation cases from Seattle, WA and Louisville, KY. In these cases the Court will rule on what measures, if any, public school systems can take to maintain school integration. The question of whether Brown v. Board of Education will live or die hangs in balance; and

WHEREAS:
If the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down these two voluntary programs, school desegregation programs in hundreds of school districts across the nation would be ended immediately. For the first time in this U.S. history, a comprehensive nation-wide legal ban on school integration measures would go into effect. Voters would not even be allowed to vote in referendums to integrate their own school systems, including with magnet schools programs which attempt to reflect a district's racial composition; and

WHEREAS:
A loss in these cases would mean that districts which have implemented voluntary integration policies for decades would be forced by law to re-segregate their schools. Segregated, separate, and unequal education would become the law of the land; and

WHEREAS:
These integration programs are vital to the future of the black, Latino, and other minority communities and to public education as a whole. A loss in these cases would open a period of rapidly deepening segregation and inequality in American society and accelerate the far right-wing's goal of breaking up public school systems into separate, unequal, and increasingly privatized fragments, and increasing the nation's racial polarization.
 
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:
That AFSCME rejects all attacks on the historic victory of Brown v. Board of Education and defends the school integration plans in Louisville and in Seattle; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:
That AFSCME will join with the AFL-CIO in an amicus brief in support of these two school desegregation plans; and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED:
That AFSCME strongly supports efforts to defend these plans.

SUBMITTED BY:
John Riehl, President and Delegate
Michael Mulholland, Secretary-Treasurer and Delegate
Lekita Thomas, Unit Chairperson and Delegate
Nathan C. McKinney, Unit Chairperson and Delegate
Andre Batie, Vice-President and Delegate
AFSCME Local 207, Council 25

Michael Caldwell, Delegate, Local 2920
Emily Kunze, President and Delegate, Local 2920
Alanna L. Reyes-Ali, Delegate, Local 2920
AFSCME Local 2920, Council 25

Gina M. Thompson, President and Delegate
AFSCME 1642, Council 25

Robert Stokes, President and Delegate
AFSCME Local 23, Council 25

Arlene Kirby, President
AFSCME Local 1206, Council 25

Phillip Douglas, Vice-President and Delegate
AFSCME Local 312, Council 25

Pat Allen, Vice-President and Delegate
AFSCME Local 1023, Council 25

Michigan