Think about the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). The upholder of all good by interpreting the Constitution of the United States when the law may contradict what the document contains. But what if the Supreme Court was not fair? What if, instead of interpreting the Constitution to adhere to the “supreme law of the land,"it operated on the basis of people's ideas about how the world should be?
The search for a neutral principle, a rule grounded in law and not personal belief, when discussing the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education is a difficult task. The immediate considerations of the case which deal with obtaining racial equality for black people is an easy principle of immediate conclusion however, this principle is not neutral. It fails to consider the barriers that the Brown case eliminated for black people in which an additional barrier on the lives of white people appeared in the form of affirmative action laws. The question then arises: what is the neutral principle that can be applied to the Brown case?
How can a case that benefited black people by eliminating racial segregation in schools, in a time in which many white people opposed integration, have a neutral basis of law? Derrick Bell, in “Brown v. Board of Education and the Interest-Convergence Dilemma”, contends that in order to find the answers to these questions we must consult the principle of interest convergence.
Interest convergence, Bell notes, is a principle “translated from judicial activity in racial cases both before and after Brown”. This suggests that the principle has an element of neutrality as it has been applied to decisions that both positively and negatively affected black people. Interest convergence theorizes that the interests of black people concerning racial equality will not be fulfilled until the interests of black people and white people converge.
Bell offers three points to suggest interest convergence in the time surrounding the Brown decision: immediate humanitarian credibility in other countries, the irony of discriminatory treatment of black vets returning from WWII supposedly fighting for freedom and equality abroad, and establishment of an industrialized south which was believed to be barred by state-sponsored racial segregation.
Bell recognizes that the factor of morality concerning racial desegregation would not be sufficient in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, or any other, in bringing about racial reform. What truly will allow for decisions to be made that significantly effect the status of black people in America is a convergence of interests among black people and white people which will create an element of consent among the general population, allowing the Supreme Court to make a decision that both considers the application of law and works upon a set of neutral principles within the population.
Bell then cites an interesting point concerning the needle moving less aggressively toward racial equality that supports the theory of interest convergence. He notes that, following the decision in the Brown case, the Supreme Court has made it more difficult to reach racial balance as evidenced by increased structures of the standards required to prove discriminatory action including intent by school officials. Bell suggests this as evidence that the interests of black and white people have once again diverged which will complicate the search for true racial equality.
Bell’s purpose in presentation of the theory of interest convergence is an attempt to describe what seems to be an unnatural phenomenon; the end of racial segregation in a time period in which race was still very salient and even more was a confirmed basis for discrimination against black people in nearly every facet of their lives. If the Supreme Court maintains that it acts on neutral principle, Bell suggests that the Court does so because it seeks to apply the law in a way that satisfies the interests of both black and white people which can only happen if the interests of the two come together. Bell even notes that the continuation of the search for racial balance may be halted by the divergence of white and black interests; black people desired integration to improve educational standards for their children but have instead run into issues with de facto segregation as a result of white flight and school systems with large black populations that are ineffective.
Although it is most likely correct that, more than any other time in history up to Brown v. Board of Education, the interests among blacks and white drew closer together than any other time in history, even this explanation is insufficient in the determination of the ending of racial segregation. Racial segregation as a subsidiary of Jim Crow laws was an institution of nearly 100 years moved by racial violence and outright debilitating discrimination applied on to black people.
It is hard to claim that overarching societal issues that also existed in other times during Jim Crow segregation suddenly became a concern for both black people and white people simultaneously and in great enough fervor and number to suggest the conclusion of a long-standing racial institution. Black people fought in World War I are returned to the same Jim Crow laws instituted in 1880s that those who fought in World War II returned to. America being the champions of the elimination of Communism and discriminating against American citizens was a major issue, but the elimination of racial discrimination in America in a society in which black people are discriminated against all across the world, as sufficient for the reassurance of those in third world counties that American society was better than Communist society.
Even more, the accomplishment of the industrialization of the South could have done without the elimination of racial segregation. Jim Crow laws gave white people control of industry that held a status quo which forced black people into agricultural and service roles; all that would be required to destroy this system without the elimination of racial segregation would be a consensus among upper- and middle-class whites to field industrial occupations to black people. So far, the consideration has been to eliminate the premise that the interests of the races had even converged at a level sufficient to enact change, but it can also be contended that even if the interests of blacks and whites did converge, this would not be a sufficient requirement for the elimination of racial segregation or the destruction of any other racial barrier or imbalance.
The continual premise that Bell relies on in the theory of interest convergence is that the Supreme Court rightly decides on arises utilizing neutral principle. If this can be applied to many of the cases that the Supreme Court decides, Brown v. Board of Education is not one of those cases. The decision given out in Brown v. Board of Education set the precedent against racial segregation in schools calling this “separate but unequal” eliminating the issue of de jure school segregation and even taking a step further in establishing that any separated facilities had an element of inequality. The decision in this case was so far ahead of the times of the racially turbulent times of the Jim Crow south that it is hard to attribute any principle of neutrality to this decision. Essentially, this decision cannot be determined as a neutral decision; it was a progressive, liberal decision meant to change the blatantly inhumane treatment of individuals who had been persecuted for over 100 years.
Derrick Bell’s interest convergence theory is an interesting perspective used to explain the decisions of Brown v. Board of Education. However, Bell’s premises do not consider the element of lack of neutrality in the decision. The Brown case decision was not unanimous because it operated on neutrality nor was it unanimous because the interests of white people and black people converged causing every Justice on the Warren court to apply his personal beliefs for the advancement of black and white people as a whole. The unanimous Brown v. Board of Education decision came about as a sure attempt by the justices of the court to be progressive in the advancement of racial equality among American people. Consider this: the Supreme Court isn't fair. Whether conservative or liberal, the SCOTUS is progressive.
