Alarmist language was used to full effect yesterday by Democratic presidential candidates and other pundits who seem to think the days of Jim Crow have returned thanks to George Bush’s Supreme Court appointments. The issue that spurred the yelps was the high court ruling yesterday that limits the use of race in determining what schools students should attend.

The mainstream media was using calamitous language to characterize the ruling. The New York Times trotted out the “bitterly divided” language they use whenever the liberal side loses a Supreme Court decision, and its editorial page called the decision “radical” and a return to 1954. And The Washington Post called it “a decision that could sharply limit integration programs across the nation.” But how accurate is that? According to The News & Observer, not very, at least in the Triangle, where the use of race to assign students was abandoned some time ago.

Juan Williams of NPR and Fox News at first knee-jerkily wrote that the decision had “come full circle” from the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954. Not exactly, Juan. We don’t have state-mandated separate racial schools anymore, even with this decision. But he finished his piece with a surprisingly sensible reaction to the decision:

Dealing with racism and the bitter fruit of slavery and “separate but equal” legal segregation was at the heart of the court’s brave decision 53 years ago. With Brown officially relegated to the past, the challenge for brave leaders now is to deliver on the promise of a good education for every child.

UPDATE: Blogger Betsy Newmark, who is a high school teacher in Wake County in her non-blogging hours, has much more on ways to seek diversity without discriminating on the basis of race.