Measured by the passion of the dissenters, today’s 5-4 vote to strike down two school districts’ use of race-based student assignments to promote integration could be the biggest Supreme Court decision of any kind in years. Justice Stephen Breyer’s 77-page dissent-which he summarized from the bench in a tone of mounting indignation, for a near-record 27 minutes-thundered that "to invalidate the plans under review is to threaten the promise" of "true racial equality" that Brown v. Board of Educ

Measured by the passion of the dissenters, today’s 5-4 vote to strike down two school districts’ use of race-based student assignments to promote integration could be the biggest Supreme Court decision of any kind in years. Justice Stephen Breyer’s 77-page dissent-which he summarized from the bench in a tone of mounting indignation, for a near-record 27 minutes-thundered that "to invalidate the plans under review is to threaten the promise" of "true racial equality" that Brown v. Board of Education established. Breyer added that the position of the four most-conservative justices "would break that promise."