In 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregating school children by race was unconstitutional. As a result, districts across America spent the rest of the century integrating schools.

In Portland, though, segregation is back in vogue. A group called Albina Vision Trust began promoting the idea of a Center for Black Student Excellence (CBSE) in the summer of 2020 and persuaded the Portland Public School Board (PPS) to set aside $60 million for that concept in its $1 billion construction bond that voters approved a few months later.

Five years later, none of the $60 million has been spent because advocates have never been able to explain how one single building would advance Black excellence in a district serving more than 40,000 students spread over 152 square miles. A recent Oregonian editorial asked the same question, asking “how this center will finally help the district advance student achievement.”

Nonetheless, the PPS Board has announced a plan to buy a new building in North Portland for the CBSE. No details are available, but the purchase will be discussed by the Board at its next meeting on September 9.

In the famous 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. School Board of Topeka, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote for a unanimous Court that, “in the field of public education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place.”

But PPS no longer cares about equality. The new goal is “equity.” Just don’t ask them to explain it.