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[AJE]

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Kathleen Brose, president of Parents Involved in Community Schools, fought back tears as she discussed her victory.

"It's been seven years. A lot of people have moved on, but I don't want another parent to go through what I did -- what we did," she said during a news conference.

Her daughter Elisabeth, now 22, wanted to attend Ballard High School, the closest high school to their Magnolia home. But she wasn't able to get into the school -- or into Roosevelt or Nathan Hale either.

She was assigned to her fourth choice -- Franklin -- but the school didn't have an orchestra for Elisabeth to play her cello. So she ended up at her fifth choice, Ingraham, for a year. She later transferred to a new school that opened at Seattle Center, The Center School.

The move was upsetting to the girl, who couldn't attend high school with her friends from junior high. Children are taught not to judge people by their skin color, yet students were denied access to certain schools because of their race.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19487601/

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070724/...egregration_dc
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FOR THOSE WHO FORGOT OR DON'T KNOW THIS CIVIL RIGHTS DEBATE:

BROWN VS. BOARD OF EDUCATION

Segregation of white and Negro children in the public schools of a State solely on the basis of race, pursuant to state laws permitting or requiring such segregation, denies to Negro children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment -- even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors of white and Negro schools may be equal.

The background:

The Supreme Court ruled against the "seperate but equal" descision of Plessy vs. Ferguson when it decided in favor of Brown vs. the Board of Education. Linda Brown was a young school girl attending a segregated school in Topeka, Kansas. Although she lived only four blocks from a public school she could not attend it because it was for "whites only" and she was bused to a "blacks only" school five miles away. Her parents and others filed a class action lawsuit and won. Testimony from psychologist Kennth B. Clark conducted research with young black school age children and discussed the feeling of inferiority that segregation influenced. Clark also said that segregation had a "detrimental effect on personaility development and diminshed the motivation to learn". This had a tremendous impact on the court's decision of the case. The nine justices decided that it was necessary to look beyond the tangibles to the effects of seperation and decided that segregated schools were "inherently unequal". The importance of this decision was that it was a unanimous one, all nine justices, led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, voted the same. This was a strong statement compared to previous decisions on civil rights and it was this unamious voice that also led to a large scale enforcement of civil rights in the United States.

MY THOUGHTS: I thought 21st century America was supposed to be a nation of equality between cultures this just isn't right to incorporate racial segregations within the schools. Our Y-Z generations should be able to attend whatever districts they want to pursue higher education, this portrays a negative example toward our youth saying you’re to be categorized based on the color of your skin. I know I came from a small country town but I'm well aware of the trauma that’s been inflicted in US History because of our ethnicity. I'm afraid this issue will insight further slander, violence and mortality thanks to racial discrimination.