Jim Crow laws remain on the books.

• Position: Law & Justice

A half-century after the Supreme Court found the principle of "separate but equal" educational facilities to be unconstitutional, laws passed to ensure racial division in public schools remain on the books. At least eight southern states have kept segregationist laws and those statutes continue to influence educational policy, according to a University of Arizona, Tucson, report, "Still on the Books: Jim Crow and Segregation Laws Fifty Years After Brown v. Board of Education," which calls for legislative review and repeal of provisions in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Among the old laws still present in state statutes are: the Alabama Constitution allows parents to choose to send their children to schools provided for their race only; a Georgia ordinance designed to permit teachers at segregated private schools to join desirable state pension programs; Louisiana has statutes to authorize the termination of integrated public schools as well as the payment of salaries of teachers who are imprisoned for resisting integration; Mississippi retains a precept allowing closure of neighboring public schools if they are integrated; Missouri law refers to a separatist reform school for "Negroes"; South...