Ernie Chambers is Nebraska's only African-American state senator, a man who has fought for causes including the abolition of capital punishment and the end of apartheid in South Africa. A magazine writer once described him as the 'angriest black man in Nebraska.'Imagine my surprise to read, further on in the article, that legal challenges are expected.
He was also a driving force behind a measure passed by the Legislature on Thursday and signed into law by the governor that calls for dividing the Omaha public schools into three racially identifiable districts, one largely black, one white and one mostly Hispanic. The law, which opponents are calling state-sponsored segregation, has thrown Nebraska into an uproar, prompting fierce debate about the value of integration versus what Mr. Chambers calls a desire by blacks to control a school district in which their children are a majority.
The impelling force behind this measure is the perfectly valid desire of some Omahans to have neighborhood schools that reflect values widely held in those neighborhoods. Also, it seems that parents have given up on school integration as practiced up to now as an utter failure, which, you know, isn't unreasonable after 20-30 years during which, if their experience has been like the experience of most every community I'm aware of, hasn't improved anybody's schools and hasn't brought assorted racial communities together, either.
Alas, the adoption of this measure makes it look as if Omahans think it's desirable to keep racial communities apart. I assume that's not the case, but maybe I'm naive or something. It'll be interesting to see what happens when it's challanged, which seems inevitable.
