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42 ¦ SEPTEMBER 7, 2020 CLOSING ARGUMENTS

EDITORIAL BOARD

Applying ‘Sheff’ to a Root Cause of Our
National Crisis: Segregation
The unjustifiable death of George Floyd at the
hands of a white police officer in Minneapo-
lis has caused mass demonstrations around
the country. Much of the focus is properly on how
to prevent such outrageous police misconduct and
whether the role of the police needs to be restruc-
tured.
We suggest much of the focus also should be
on the root cause of the race problem in Ameri-
can Society. When we turn our focus there, police
misconduct is more of a symptom than a cause. If
we are going to solve the problem of race in our
society, we must strive for the integration of the
races throughout all aspects of society—in hous-
ing, in schools, and in work.
One of those three, schools, is particularly sus- the context of school finance as far back in 1977 in
ceptible to solution under state constitutions. Horton v. Meskill, the Minnesota Supreme Court
Every state, ironically unlike the United States did not do so until 1993, in Skeen v. State. More
itself, has a provision in its constitution making important, Horton was applied to school desegre-
education through high school a fundamental gation in 1996, but Skeen was not so applied until
right. In Connecticut, that fundamental right led 2018 in Cruz-Guzman v. State. The case is now in
the Connecticut Supreme Court in 1996 in Sheff the pretrial stage before a Minnesota trial court.
v. O’Neill to declare de facto as well as de jure seg- That the Minnesota courts have not followed
regation by race to be unconstitutional under the the lead of Sheff until just recently has had the pre-
State Constitution. Numerous initiatives taken dictable result concerning the current generation
by the state in response to Sheff have raised the of students in public schools in the Twin Cities
percentage of Hartford students receiving an in- Metropolitan Area: intense and dramatically in-
tegrated education from about 10% in 1989, when creasing segregation by race. In 1995, there were
the suit was brought, to almost 50% today. six schools with 1,081 students attending a school
Sheff of course does not address the two other in which more than 90% of whose students were
major components of an integrated society—hous- non-white. In 2015, there were 100 schools with
ing and work—but it has had a major impact on 39,902 students attending a school with more than
creating an integrated society in the Hartford Met- 90% non-white. Other statistics could be cited, but
ropolitan area in the third major area—schools. you get the picture.
So why not try Sheff in Minneapolis? In fact, that School desegregation in Minneapolis—and
is starting to happen, but Minnesota is way behind around the country—is a goal worth fighting for
Connecticut. While the Connecticut Supreme now. It treats one of the causes rather than the
Court declared education a fundamental right in symptoms of the current crisis.
¦

CONNECTICUT
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