ATLANTA
Spelman College President Beverly Tatum has championed racially diverse relationships for most of her life: as a child growing up in New England, as a young professor teaching about the psychology of racism, and as an author writing about cross-racial interaction.

Her perspective as a self-titled "integration baby" led her to predict the June 28 Supreme Court decision striking down voluntary integration efforts in two public school districts.

"The current composition of the Supreme Court...increases the possibility that the Court may side with the Department of Education and rule that any use of race as a selection criteria is unconstitutional," she wrote in her latest book, "Can We Talk About Race?" which was published in April.

The topic of resegregation has been on many minds following the high court's decision. The high court voted 5-4 to strike down school integration plans in Louisville, Ky. and Seattle.

While the decision does not affect several hundred public school districts under federal court order to desegregate, it does jeopardize similar programs in hundreds of cities and counties using voluntary integration as a means to diversify their schools.

The court's majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, asserted that classifying students by race perpetuates the unequal treatment outlawed by the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision which banned the "separate but equal" education system.

"What was wrong in 1954 cannot be right today," wrote Justice Clarence Thomas, the court's only black member, in a separate opinion. He added that a colorblind Constitution means "such race-based decision making is unconstitutional."

Yet such a view ignores the important role of integration in society, Tatum argues in her essay, "The Resegregation of Our Schools and the Affirmation of Identity." Without it, she wrote, much of the progress made during the civil rights era could be lost as interracial contact decreases.