The Oberlin Review
<< Front page News September 21, 2007

A Critical Constitution Day at Oberlin
 
Theodore Shaw
 

“To honor the Constitution we have to be honest about it,” said Theodore Shaw in his Constitution Day lecture entitled “The equal protection clause of the Constitution: What protection now for people of color?” This past Monday he spoke to a crowd in West Lecture Hall about admiring the Constitution while recognizing its imperfections.

In 2004, Senator Robert Byrd, Democrat from West Virginia, made — as an amendment to a spending bill — a federal holiday to celebrate our nation’s constitution. Oberlin College commemorated this occasion by having Shaw, director-counsel and president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, present his thoughts alongside three professors: Clovis White of the sociology department, Pamela Brooks of the African American studies department and Ronald Kahn of the politics department. Each spoke from the angle of his or her personal expertise, examining the Constitution from all sides.

College President Marvin Krislov introduced Shaw, a man he called “a friend” and “one of the nations’ premier experts on constitutional and civil rights law.” Shaw and Krislov worked together at the University of Michigan, where Krislov was General Counsel and Vice President and Shaw was a professor in the law school. They worked closely together in the Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) case, in which the University of Michigan law school was accused of having unjust affirmative action policies. Their victory was a landmark in equal opportunity law.

Shaw began his lecture by praising Oberlin as a school he has “admired from afar for many years.”  He then dove right in, bringing up modern “threats to our constitution,” a document he called “imperfect in its inception.” To him, the Constitution promised “freedom for some, though it claimed to be for all.”

He spoke at great length about our country and its dealings with issues of race, saying, “We are in the midst of an ideological war over the meaning and place of race in our society. This country has had no issue that has bedeviled it more than the issue of race throughout its history. It may be tempting and seductive to declare ourselves colorblind and to walk away from the issue of race with the idea being we finally accomplished so much that it is no longer necessary to continue to be concerned with the issues. That would be dishonest discourse.”

Shaw noted that even from the beginning, “This country has never been honest about race.” Looking back at the Constitution, all points on slavery are “euphemistic — the language, “tortured.”

Shaw also talked about the relationships between three court cases, Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) which legalized “separate but equal” and “Jim Crow” laws, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) which integrated schools and Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978) which set guidelines for affirmative action.

To Shaw, “Brown seemed to be about undoing Plessy.” Through the dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson, the idea of colorblindness is first introduced, an idea Shaw rejects but acknowledges as “the new paradigm in American culture.”

Shaw also spoke as a proponent of affirmative action, saying that it stood on two legs, one as an increase in diversity and two as a remedy for past inequality in the history of the United States. He spoke about race-conscious measures to educate young people of color being shut down, because to some, “anything that is race -conscious is racist,” thus unconstitutional.

Shaw’s talk was followed by short speeches from White, Brooks and Kahn. White emphasized that education is becoming more segregated and that we need more meaningful dialogue. He asked, “Are we moving back to Plessy v. Ferguson?”

Brooks spoke about how “racism is so far from being over” and how it has “both new and old” manifestations in our society. She commented, “Questions have to be raised as to where we really are in protecting people who aren’t privileged.”

Kahn cited Oberlin’s traditions of diversity and legal advocacy and named several alumni in progressive politics today. He advocated giving students resources to make them excited about activism.

Throughout the lecture, Shaw emphasized, “There is so much left to do.” To combat the grim reality of race in this country, Kahn urged the audience to think positively. “No despair at Oberlin!” he said.


 
 
   

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