u.s. v. g.o.p.

atul gawande @ the new yorker:

this kind of obstructionism has been seen before. after the supreme court’s ruling in brown v. board of education, in 1954, virginia shut down schools in charlottesville, norfolk, and warren county rather than accept black children in white schools. when the courts forced the schools to open, the governor followed a number of other southern states in instituting hurdles such as “pupil placement” reviews, “freedom of choice” plans that provided nothing of the sort, and incessant legal delays. while in some states meaningful progress occurred rapidly, in others it took many years. we face a similar situation with health-care reform.