We're now segregating our schools based on economics; we're segregating our schools based on where a child's parents live. And it has the same corrosive effect of destroying people's opportunity as racial segregation did.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the detrimental effects of economic segregation in schools on children's opportunities, akin to the harms of racial segregation.
David Boies draws a parallel between economic segregation in schools and the historical injustices of racial segregation. He argues that when schools are divided based on the socio-economic status of families, it results in significant disparities in educational opportunities for children. This segregation not only limits personal growth but also perpetuates systemic inequality in society, undermining the principle of equal opportunity that education should provide.
In practice
In a speech about education reform, one might say, 'As David Boies pointed out, our current system is perpetuating inequality, similar to how racial segregation harmed opportunities in the past.'
One of the things that the court held in Brown v. Board of Education is that government can't impose a badge of inferiority on some of its citizens. Yet that is exactly what Proposition 8 does with respect to gay and lesbian couples in California.
It's terribly important that we extend the promise of equality that the Supreme Court and that the district court articulated in the DOMA case and in the Perry case to all Americans in all 50 states.
The very purpose of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution is to protect minority rights against majority voters. Every court decision that strikes down discriminatory legislation, including past Supreme Court decisions, affirming the fundamental rights to marry the person you love, overrules a majority decision.
We put fear and prejudice on trial, and fear and prejudice lost.
Unlike people of my generation, my children and my grandchildren have grown up living with, knowing, people who were outwardly gay and lesbian. And they have learned that they're just like us... And when you see that they're just like us, the rationale for discrimination melts away.
I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in.
If your words aren't truthful, the finest optically letter-spaced typography won't help.
Literature is news that stays news.
Much literary criticism comes from people for whom extreme specialization is a cover either for grave cerebral inadequacy or terminal laziness, the latter being a much-cherished aspect of academic freedom.
They're all so highly educated, you know. Education is a great shield against experience. It offers so much, ready-made and all from the best shops, that there's a temptation to miss your own life in pursuing the lives of your betters. It makes you wise in some ways, but it can make you a blindfolded fool in others.
How is it that little children are so intelligent and men so stupid? It must be education that does it.
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