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.
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
What this quote means
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.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
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.'
More from David Boies
All quotes →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.
Similar quotes
It's not how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five. It's whether or not our work fulfills us. Being a teacher is meaningful.
Schools are not intended to moralize a wicked world, but to impart knowledge and develop intelligence, with only two social aims in mind: prepare to take on one's share in the world's work, and perhaps in addition, lend a hand in improving society, after schooling is done.
From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' my first collection was of John Bunyan's works in separate little volumes.
Likewise, there is no evidence that texting teaches people to spell badly: rather, research shows that those kids who text frequently are more likely to be the most literate and the best spellers, because you have to know how to manipulate language.
I wanted to be the exception to the other kids, but in the right way._x000D_ _x000D_ We have a lot of suffering in our part of the world, but that suffering is, in a way, a blessing. _x000D_ _x000D_ Obviously, I could not afford to go to school without a scholarship, so that meant I had to excel in order to get one.
Whoever touches the life of the child touches the most sensitive point of a whole which has roots in the most distant past and climbs toward the infinite future.