captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: in india today, supporters of opposition leader narendra modi celebrated a decisive election victory for his hindu nationalist party and the end of the ruling congress party's long hold on power. good evening. i'm judy woodruff. also ahead, gwen ifill's roundtable discussion on the legacy of "brown versus the board of education" as 60 years later american schools are becoming segregated again. >> we went in one generation because of brown from being a country where a majority of

people accepted racial hierarchy and supremacy to where a majority absolutely reject that. we are finding too many place racially segregated and also too many places we're >> woodruff: and it's friday. communicating lessens of value to our kids. >> woodruff: and it's friday. mark shields and david brooks are here to analyze the week's news. those are just some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us.

>> i've been around long enough to recognize the people who are out there owning it. the ones getting involved, staying engaged. they are not afraid to question the path they're on. because the one question they never want to ask is, "how did i end up here?" i started schwab with those people. people who want to take ownership of their investments, like they do in every other aspect of their lives. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: firefighters

wrangled five of the ten wildfires burning around san diego, california today thanks to cooler temperatures and calmer winds. but at the marine corp's camp pendleton base, two fires flared up overnight. one grew from 600 to 8,000 acres. elsewhere, evacuees were permitted to return home to survey the damage. officials are still investigating the possibility of arson. all told, 120,000 people were under evacuation orders at some point this week. the u.s. department of transportation slapped a maximum $35-million fine on general motors today for mishandling its ignition switch defects. the problem affected some 2.6 million cars and, according to g.m., resulted in at least 13 deaths. it took the nation's largest automaker nearly a decade to order recalls after engineers discovered the defect. transportation secretary anthony

foxx said that's unacceptable. >> we know no one is perfect. but what we cannot tolerate, what we will never accept is a person or a company that knows danger exists and says nothing. literally silence can kill. >> woodruff: for its part, g.m.'s c.e.o mary barra issued a statement saying: the top health official at the u.s. department of veterans affairs has resigned. dr. robert petzel gave his resignation a day after testifying before a senate panel on the department's failures to provide adequate health care for the nation's veterans. it comes in the wake of allegations of treatment delays and falsified records at v.a. hospitals, including one in phoenix where allegedly up to 40

veterans died while awaiting care. twin blasts went off in the kenyan capital of nairobi today. at least ten people were killed and 70 more injured. police said two improvised explosive devices were detonated in a market area near nairobi's downtown. the white house condemned the bombing as u.s. ambassador to kenya requested more security and is reducing the number of staff stationed at the embassy in nairobi. in turkey, protests against lax safety conditions in the country's coal mines turned violent today. police fired water cannon, tear gas and rubber bullets into a crowd of thousands gathered in the town of soma. that's where almost 300 miners were killed in an underground explosion and fire on tuesday. the turkish government and the mine's operators denied any negligence was to blame for the disaster. on wall street today, stocks staged a late afternoon rebound.

the dow jones industrial average gained 44 points to close at 16,491. the nasdaq rose 21 points to close at 4,090. the s&p 500 was up seven points to close above 1,877. for the week, the dow slipped more than half a percent. the nasdaq gained half a percent. and the s&p was largely unchanged. jeb magruder, who was jailed for his role in the watergate scandal, died on sunday of complications from a stroke. magruder worked as an aide to president nixon and then helped run his re-election campaign in 1972. it was then that he conspired to break into the democratic national committee headquarters at the watergate and bug the chairman's phone. in later years, magruder claimed he heard president nixon order the break-in. jeb magruder was 79 years old. still to come on the newshour, an opposition party in india wins a historic victory in the world's largest democracy,

margaret warner with the latest from ukraine. has the promise been fulfilled, 60 years after a landmark ruling struck down segregated education? plus, mark shields and david brooks on the week's news. >> woodruff: in india, the results of the largest democratic election in human history came in today, sweeping into power a hindu nationalist party whose leader was once barred from entering the united states. >> sreenivasan: celebrations erupted in new delhi today. supporters of narendra modi, the new prime minister of india, danced as election results were announced. >> ( translated ): i thank all of you from my heart and i salute all of you. you all have carried out a great responsibility. today, in the history of 60

years of indian democracy, you have created a new record. >> sreenivasan: the historic >> sreenivasan: over the course of five weeks, 814 million eligible voters made their way to the polls in the most expensive general election in the country's history, to replace the current prime minister, manmohan singh. modi's opposition party, bharatiya janata, or b.j.p, dealt a decisive blow to the political dynasty of the nehru gandhi family. their india national congress party has dominated in the country since its independence. rahul gandhi fell on his sword at a concession speech earlier today. >> congress party has done pretty badly. there is a lot for us to think about and as vice-president of the party i hold myself responsible for what has happened. >> sreenivasan: gandhi failed to convince his countrymen that his party could tackle government corruption and revive india's stagnant economy. modi capitalized on voter disatisfaction with the promise of a "new india." >> ( translated ): you have given 60 years to congress, try giving me 60 months!

>> sreenivasan: his pro-business is popular with many indians. as chief minister of the state of gujarat for four terms, he brought prosperity to the state's main city of ahmedabad, emphasizing foreign investments and development of public infrastructure. while much of india struggles to stay on the world's economic stage, many residents look to gujarat's success as an indication of what he could bring to the rest of the country. ( translated ): there is no one else capable for prime minister's post other than modi. for country's security, it is very essential for modi to become the prime minister. >> sreenivasan: but despite the overwhelming popularity, modi has emerged as one of the most polarizing politicians across india. his nationalist party has ties to hindu fundamentalism and modi himself has a controversial past. in 2002, violent riots broke out along sectarian lines across gujarat, killing more than 1,000 people-- mostly muslims. hindu-muslim violence reached an unprecedented level since the time of the partition of india and pakistan.

modi oversaw all of this, as head of the state and is blamed for doing nothing to stop the violence. the united states revoked the leader's visa over the incidents in 2005. for now however, those issues are far from the minds of modi's millions of supporters, who are celebrating their leader's historic victory. >> woodruff: in a phone call today, president obama invited the prime minister elect to visit washington. to tell us more what the modi victory means for india and the united states, i'm joined by sumit ganguly, a political science professor at indiana university in bloomington and tanvi madan is director of the india project at the brookings institution. welcome you both to the program. tanvi madan, tell us more about who narendra modi is. >> the prime ministerial candidate in india. he is the chief minister of the

western state. he's a man who generates hope and concern amongst the voters and clearly the voters have said hope has drawn concern in this case. >> woodruff: let me turn to you, sumit ganguly. why did his message resonate with so many voters this time? >> i think his message resonated so clearly with so many voters on this particularly occasion is because of three reasons. first, the rank ineptitude of the congress party in terms of governing the country over the last five years, the anemic record of economic growth, and the widespread corruption scandals associated with the party. all these three things combined really sank the congress party and simultaneous modi's message of hope, of prosperity, of bringing employment opportunities to a whole generation of aspiring indians i

think worked exceedingly well with the electorate. >> woodruff: tanvi madan, what would you add to that? what is he saying to voters that made them want to support him? >> he seemed to run on one platform, development. i'm going to deliver good growth, governance and get things done. as sumit said, he's portraying it in opposition to the government led by the congress party and the coalition were standing for. >> woodruff: so what does he want to do differently? what is he saying he would -- because i read a couple of stories today that said many voters were for him but not sure what he'll do once in office. >> i think there are two challenges he will face, one is to actually deliver on the economic promises he has made including increasing investment. so better investment climate is something he promised. the other challenge is going to be to actually convince indians,

not just the 31% who voted for him, that he can be a truly good prime minister. >> woodruff: are those his main challenges sumit ganguly? >> i think those are his principle challenges and also he raised expectations to such a high extent. now, unless he can deliver, particularly on the promise of economic growth, i think there is going to be a great deal of disillusionment. i also wish to underscore a point tanvi made, namely there's a segment of the population particularly amongst the muslim community that a remains understandably and deeply skeptical of this particular prime ministerial candidate and on the verge of becoming the prime minister, and their reasons are quite found and he has to find a way to reassure them that, as prime minister, he will not be completely oblivious to their concerns and to their interests. >> woodruff: skeptical of him

why? >> skeptical of him because of his record in gujarat, in the wake of this terrible program that swept through the state in february 2002, he has scaresly apologized for the terrible tragedy. in fact, when he sought to apologize in response to a question, the characterization was, in my view, rather distressing because he said, yes, he felt the same sort of sorrow that one might feel if a car ran over a puppy. that's hardly the manner in which a national leader should talk about a colossal human tragedy. >> woodruff: if he has this serious thing in his past, tav i madan, why do you think he won such a big victory? >> i think the voters, at least 31% in the parliamentary system that can actually get you the

majority, believe he can actually focus on the development side of his platform and stay away from what they think will be these other issues that would be a concern. but some of his base might actually push him -- >> reporter: might push him -- push him towards a more hindu nationalist approach as opposed to a growth first approach. >> woodruff: hindu nationalist approach. explain what that would mean to an american audience. >> it would mean essentially saying india is a country first and foremost for hindus and others have to fit in, in a message of tolerance and inclusiveness, which today in his speech he said he would gosh on. >> woodruff: we reported, sumit ganguly, president obama already invited him to come to the u.s. for a visit. how do you think that will

change india-u.s. relations? >> much depends on what mr. modi can do to foster a more conducive economic climate, make it more attractive to american investors, and also tackle a number of ongoing issues in india-u.s. relations which remain in abeians. for example, the legal regime that was created for a foreign investment in the india nuclear power industry in the wake of the u.s.-india nuclear agreement of 2008. it has such draconian provisions that no american company is going to dare invest in india, and this has been a seriously contention issue in india-u.s. relations, and the past government sought to softton law but really didn't succeed, and this is something that the obama administration obviously is going to look forward to. and i can think of a whole host of other similar issues where

there are important differences between yaind and the united states, primarily in the economic realm, and if modi is serious about grasping the economic nettle, these are some of the issues he will have to tackle. >> woodruff: tanvi madan, quickly to wrap up, what should we look to to measure the new shape of the u.s.-india relationship under him? >> i think the first thing we will see is who he actually appoints to certain key positions. we'll have to look at who he appoints national security natiy advisor, foreign minister, defense minister, but, also, broadly, what is the messenger he sends on the economic side and the foreign policy side, not just the u.s.-india relations but other relations including pakistan and china. >> woodruff: tanvi madan and sumit ganguly, thank you both. >> thank you. >> woodruff: president obama

spoke with france's president francois hollande today and the two agreed that russia will face significant additional costs for what the white house calls provocative and destabilizing behavior in ukraine. our own margaret warner heads back to ukraine tomorrow and joins me now to discuss this week's major developments in the country's crisis. margaret, you're off. before you go, tell us what the state of play is because, just a few days ago, the post-separatists had what they call a referendum and they say a lot of people want independence. >> the immediate results were not promising, judy. neither side stood down. the kiev government kept their forces in the east and pro-russian separatists who were armed kept the buildings and more people were killed. but there was a dramatic development i heard was coming this weekend is finally the people of eastern ukraine who say to pollsters they actually want to stay part of ukraine rose up in the form of thousands

of miners, steel and coal miners, all employed by the soup rich oligarch showed up to join the local police in patrolling these streets and all they had was their hard hats. they quadrupled the size of the local police, had been totally outgunned and ottomanned by the separatists, and the separatists melted away. in one city, in a critical city on the route between russia to crimea. so it is risky, however, because the separatists did not surrender their weapons. they could come back, regroup, come back and try to fight these miners, in which case you would enter a civil strife of a kind we haven't seen before. >> woodruff: meanwhile the central government in kiev have been taking steps to try to come together with the separatists? >> to show they're listening to eastern ukraine saying it wants more time and decentralization. get the governors elected and keep more of their revenue.

we started a round-table discussion in kiev wednesday called moderated by the pan-european security group that the u.s. belongs to as well as russia and ukraine, and headed by a very prominent german diplomat, and they got almost everybody to participate, all the presidential candidates, people from all regions including the east but not armed separatists. i asked the u.s. officials about that yesterday because that's what the headlines were about and he said you all are missing the point, they weren't invited. there was one on mouse note which is they're going to take the show on the road to the east. tomorrow try to meet in donetsk, but officials yesterday said security is an issue. you can't take all the leaders of ukraine over there if it's not safe. they're going to a different city. >> woodruff: you have been you talking to u.s. and ukrainian officials. where do they see russia and

what putin wants. >> they don't know. everyone's given up trying to figure out what putin is up to. they think he's totally running the show so discount what the foreign minister says. no doubt he pulled back last week. said why don't you delay the referendum on independence. maybe the may 25 election is the step in the right direction, but he has not moved forces or taken out specialists said to be advising, these are said to be russian experts trained in insurgent operations advising the separatists, so he's keeping his options open. the fear is he will either try to destabilize the situation in eastern ukraine that this may 25 election which is so key to restore our legitimate government with kiev looks ill illegitimate because it's not representative, and so the u.s. and europe are trying to send clear signals that if you do

that you cross the line and we impose stronger sanctions. as you reported, president obama said that today, that was the if you remember one takeaway from the readout the white house took. i'll cover next week can they pull off the may 25 election and what are the forces pulling and tugging in both ways. >> woodruff: we'll be looking for the report. we'll see you there monday night. >> look forward to it. >> woodruff: thank you. >> woodruff: saturday marks 60 years since the landmark supreme court decision that declared separate schools for black and white students unconstitutional. gwen ifill recorded a conversation about the anniversary earlier this week. but first, some background. >> ifill: the case was named for linda brown, a third grader in topeka, kansas forced to travel more than an hour each day to an all-black elementary school, rather than attend the all-white school located just blocks from her home.

government-sanctioned racial discrimination was the law of the land in 1954. the supreme court's "plessy v. ferguson" ruling half a century earlier had ruled that, as long as separate facilities were considered equal, segregation itself was not a violation the constitution's equal protection clause. but the browns-- linda and her two sisters-- who were joined by families of students in four states and the district of columbia said no. their class-action suit eventually reached the supreme court. retired baltimore public school principal john stokes was one of the original plaintiffs in the virginia case included in the brown litigation. >> it was separate, but it was never equal. >> ifill: he describes the conditions at his overcrowded all-black high school in farmville, virginia as "deplorable," with no running water or indoor plumbing, and a potbelly stove that leaked soot into the classroom. >> we knew we were being programmed for failure, it was

very obvious. we could not only see it, we could smell it, and when that soot settled down from that flue, we could taste it. we could actually taste it. so we knew we had to do something to make a change. >> ifill: after stokes helped organize a schoolwide walkout, the n.a.a.c.p took notice, asking the more than 100 students involved to join the broader suit. chief counsel thurgood marshall, who would later become the supreme court's first african- american justice, led the oral arguments before the court. on may 17, 1954, in a unanimous decision crafted by chief justice earl warren, the high court declared: >> ifill: when the ruling came down, stokes celebrated, cautiously. >> i said, "the war has just

begun." i said these folks are not going to sit down and take this lightly. and they didn't. >> segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. >> ifill: indeed, the separate but equal debate was far from over. opposition to the ruling was fierce, especially in the south, and anti-integration protests sprang up in communities around the country. but the brown ruling proved to be the turning point that led to the unraveling of jim crow laws, and paved the way for the passage of the civil rights act a decade later. 60 years later, just how far have we come in eliminating segregated education and increasing opportunity? for a deeper look at the many answers to those questions, i'm joined by cheryl brown henderson, whose father along with 12 other topeka parent filed the original suit brought by the naacp. now president of the brown foundation for educational

excellency and research. sheryll cashin, georgetown university law school, is the author of "place not race" a vision of opportunity in america. catherine lhamon, assistant secretary of civil rights at the u.s. department of education, and journalist and author ronald brownstein is editorial director for media and columnist for national journal. welcome to you. i read the words of chief justice earl warren in the browne browne decision brown v board of education "it is doubtful any child could be expected to succeed in life if denied an education. such an opportunity where the state is undertake ton provide it is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms. catherine lhamon, 60 years later, the majority of all large school districts in america are majority non-white. have we fulfilled that promise? >> we've come far but not far enough. that's the depressing reality that has to light a fire under

all of us and certainly under me and the work that i do and we need to be working to deliver on that promise. but there are so many things that are different that are better in the 60 years since brown was decided. my mother was 10 when brown vs. board of education decided. he attended racially segregated schools before and after. but it changed her life experience. i didn't attend segregated schools and my children don't and i'm grateful for that. i work every day to make sure other people's children can also learn in the educational environments that brown decision promised. >> ifill: cheryl brown, 60 years later, how do you look at it? >> i look at the promise. we talk about the fact the segregated school systems exist still and that's a function of i think the pushback in brown v

board because power preceded nothing. what power did is decided we would red line and have certain houses and work hard to make sure schools were not segregated. in the statement you read which is my favorite part of the decision, we have to be concerned about educating our kids. african-american parents were only concerned about making sure their children had the best education possible. i think sometimes we scapegoat our children by suggesting they're not sitting next to somebody of a certain ethnicity that they can't possibly be given a good education. i think we can't be lost of while we're pursuing the goal of diversity, we can't get lost in educating our children where we find them. >> ifill: sounds like you're saying integration for its saying i can is not what the case was about.

sheryll, was it worth it? >> absolutely. we had to dismantle jim crow, right? and the decision paid enormous psychic benefits. in one generation we went with brown from being a majority of the country accepted racism to where a majority of the people absolutely reject that. where we've fallen down post-brown is we haven't built enough strong multi-racial constituencies for public integrated education. but i want to say it's not hopeless. the hartford area, which is very segregated res detentionly, there's a movement called the chef movement where all races have gotten together and said we like diversity, support it and created 31 magnet schools in that metropolitan area that enables people of all colors to access high-quality education decoupled from where they live.

so there are strategies that work but you have to be overt at building constituencies for the right policies. >> ifill: but it is still true that if your school system is 80% black, you don't have the same resources as if you were 90% white. so is it because the world is changing or because the law didn't live up to its promise? >> the decision was a genuine hinge in history. it put us on track to be the nation we are now, a truly diverse, multi-world nation. the numbers are dramatically different. before brown, 1 in 4 african-american had a college degree. now it's about the same. no one would claim opportunity is equal at this point. very different circumstances. the reality is roughly two-thirds the three-fourths of african-american and hispanic

kids attend schools in which a majority of the student body are qualified -- classified as low income. you talk about the resources. the resources issue is not only the amount of dollars coming into the school, it's the community resources, the parental resources and kind of the challenge we have in education is the school -- the students that need the most often get the least in terms of the quality of the teachers, experience. so that's a challenge. the nature of the challenge is changing, the demography is changing the challenge. this is the future workforce, a majority of the k-12 system starting september nationwide, not only big cities, will be kids of color. this is the last class ever probably in the u.s. history of k-12 students that will be majority white. >> ifill: what happened to all the deliberate speed in creating the environment k-12 especially that the brown decision promised? >> what our history showed was a lot of delegation and very little feet. it took full ten years before we

began to see real integration at all. material progress in 1965 to neighbor 19 # 0 where we saw real change in integration in the schools and then a very significant backlash. you know, that was -- that's significant in terms of the numbers and what kids' experiences are in schools today. it's also significant in terms of the opportunities that we see for our kids and i think all of us have been talking about what it's like to be a child in school today. my office when we do our investigations now, we are finding too many places racially segregated and also finding too many places where we're communicating a message of very little value to our kids. we're saying you're not who we expect to see succeed in school, you are not who we're delivering resources to for not having equitable distribution of teachers, of high courses in our schools. we disproportionately discipline the students. it's directly contrary to the brown message, federal proms and

the law enforcement that's what we need to change. >> ifill: sheryll cashin, you've written a book of talks that makes a case of what happens in k-12. what happens going on to higher education and given what we've seen play out in affirmative action, how do you make the playing field level. >> universities have an obligation to mitigate separate schooling. i argue place not race. 42% of americans of all races live in middle class neighborhoods and that's down from 65% in 1970, and increasingly there's a commonality of experience between working class struggling whites and kids of color. if you're in a high-opportunity setting, you have access to selective, high quality k-12 education. everyone outside that context gets a different deal. i'm arguing there are strivers

from all neighborhoods and universities should give a leg up in admissions to high-achieving students who've done the best they can with underresourced schools. but i also think post-brown, post-civil rights america, we need to have an overt discourse where we link the common struggles of communities of color to struggling whites in order for us to -- you know, frankly, you talk about backlash, where we are today is there's a lot of white resentment, a lot of whites feel that the post-civil rights gains that you talk about came at their expense, and there are a lot of people out there, politicians, media, who stoke that resentment, and that's the true challenge for progressives. >> ifill: let me ask cheryl brown henderson about this because, if indeed we are falling short or this inequity is such that the playing field is not yet level, why do you think that is? >> the backlash began

immediately and it was relentless and hasn't let up. for example the southern manifesto and some of the documents coming out of our leaders in congress, and then schools closing. what greater mention can you send than i'm going to close public schools for five years as in virginia rather than allowing african-american students in. so this has been relentless. and thurgood marshall, one of the comments i found really profound, he said brown was never about sitting next to white children. it was about having access to the resources. >> as i say, no one would say this is the same country as 60 years ago. obviously many things changed. to me, one of the most important things that changed is the demock phi is overwhelming in terms of the debate. when we think about things like equality of opportunity, usually, it's been framed as an argument of fairness. if we are the country we say we are in the declaration of independence, everyone should have a chance to go as far as their talents take them. i think that is still true but no longer i think the central argument. over the next 50 years, the

estimates of all the net growth in the workforce will be minority workers. the number of white people working in 2030 is projected to be smaller than today. in that world, ultimately, there is not a question of fairness but self-interest. if we don't do a better job in getting more of these kids into the middle class, who will pay the taxes, buy the houses, generate the economic activity through household formation? there's a self-interest argument here to kind of an older white middle class that ultimately has a stake in helping more of these kids succeed because without more of them succeeding it will be awfully hard to sustain social security and medicare they're relying on. >> ifill: where are the available governmental, political tools to get to the root of it, whether fairness or being competitive? >> it's my job to enforce the federal civil rights laws in schools all over the country for 49 million public school students and institutions of higher education. we are aggressively will to make

sure the promise of brown is for everyone. and the farm bill experience, which was timely. we shut down in the state of virginia for five years the public schools in that community because they didn't want to integrate there. ist's an ugly past history but such an indicator of who we are as a country and what we can become because as a nation we came together with children in ohio saving our pennies and saving money to start new schools to create a school system for one year that was not that public school system, it was privately funded, integrated teachers coming from all over the country to teach kids who had been out of school five years with serious losses in learning to bring them back to make enormous gains and came together as an integrated community and say this is who we are as a nation, regardless of wholly who we said we will be, this is as a nation what we've become. that's a lesson for all of us. >> no one doubts all of this would be a lot easier if you were not dealing with schools that were segregated and poverty

concentrated. roughly three-quarters of african-american kids and two-thirds of hispanic in schools are low-income and makes things harder. but as you say, you cannot wait to solve that problem. there are plenty of big urban districts where there are a lot of resources. the issue isn't only the amount of money spent in the schools, it's how it's spent, what kind of resources they get and what kind of resources the kids can draw on at home, in their community, helping parents work better with kids. would it be easier to equalize opportunity if you didn't have as many kids studying in poverty? sure. but can you say we can't do anything till that's solved in i don't think you can say that. >> ifill: we've run the gamut. have we run to the limits of governmental and judicial intervention? >> no, but it is true that you have a lot of large school districts with concentrated poverty in the center, but there are innovations out there -- i

go back to the chef example. many of the suburbs surrounding hartford had said we will take a certain number of kids to come into our school. there are others, the metro program of boston, so there's cross-district solutions, there are also innovations that you can do in terms of changing the finance system, you know. why is it? we haven't really tried these many places but why is it that states require schools to be funded based on property taxes? >> ifill: cheryl brown henderson, since your life span and the arc of your life traced brown v board, i want to know whether on the 60th anniversary you find yourself optimistic or pessimistic about where we are now. >> optimistic. brown dismantled the legal framework for any kind of

discrimination, whether against women or people with disabilities or whatever, and did a huge thing for this nation. so i try to look at it that way because it was all about opportunity and it succeeded when it comes to that, opened the doors to legal cases and the legislation that came after. so i'm optimistic. what we didn't do that i would love to see us do in terms of being optimistic is to have some sort of reconciliation. i look at nelson mandela and what happened in south africa. he was amazing. where's the courage to have that kind of reconciliation and that dialogue? after brown v. board, we missed a huge opportunity. i taught school in the '70s at one of the schools that was segregated where my mother and sister and kids went, i taught there post-brown. but i discovered my white colleagues didn't want to be there, still 95% african-american. so we missed an opportunity to sit the educators down, talk about reconciliation, their job, children being children, education as a value and they

being charged with the responsibility of imparting that education. so why are we even pondering -- why are we still dragging our feet when they put that word in the decision? why that word when it means painstakingly slow? the only thing that scares me, too, is when you look at parents involved in community schools back in 2004, and the supreme court ruled against them, that was voluntary. so if people are going to come along, challenge voluntary programs and have a court that would strike down those voluntary programs, that's frightening to me. >> ifill: one of the things we can do is keep looking backward and forward as we acknowledge these series of anniversaries we have been doing the last year or. so cheryl brown henderson, ronald brownstein, sheryll cashin and catherine lhamon, thank you all so much for a great conversation. >> thank you. >> woodruff: online we have a tale of two city high schools only four miles apart-- one, a vibrant model for diversity, and

the other, isolated by race and poverty. that's on our education page. and to the analysis of shields and brooks. that's syndicated columnist mark shields and "new york times" columnist david brooks. welcome, gentlemen. so we just heard gwen's discussion. it is 60 years after the brown vs. board of education ruling, and we know, mark, that, yes, there has been dramatic changes in the aftermath of that, but we also know and we've got a graphic to show this that much -- some of the country, maybe even much of the country is still segregated. here you see, this is a chart showing the difference between 1968, 2011, big drop in the percentage of african-american students attending majority black/latino schools in the south where segregation was most prevalent. you know, here, it's a draw.

from 78 to 34%. but we see drops in the midwest and west. mark, is it surprising that in the northeast the percentage of african-american students has risen? >> i don't know if it's surprising, judy. i think that sheryll cashin -- first of all, remember this on that decision, it was 9 to 0. if you want to see a great politician at work, it was earl warren. thank god you had a governor who had actually been through the process. he assembled the 9-0. i think sheryll cashin put it well in your discussion with the panelists and that is it's a question of place, not race. we're talking about income inequality, we're talking about property inequality. that's essentially what leads to school patterns and school populations. >> i suspect they would have been surprised if we had gone

back and asked what do you expect over the next 50 years, i suspect they would have thought there would have been a little more progress than we experienced. there was a supposition that once you took away some of the legal barriers the social barriers would follow more quickly than they have. this is measurable not only in schools but social interaction, when you measure how many people are having real interactions with people of different races, we've made surprising little progress, especially in the first few years after brown and the civil rights act, but in the last couple of decades, it's surprisingly slow, and that the because of the fact birds of a feather flock together and say we aid in part because of the discrimination but in part because of a loss of emphasis on integration, that there was in the '70s and '80s less emphasis on integration, more multiculturalism and things like that. and you have to keep pushing and pushing. maybe people under 20 will begin to see a shift but progress has

been slow. >> woodruff: what kind of pushing? >> we're in a non-affirmative action regime based on race but you have to push still based on other things, based on companies, universities, schools, i think, do have to pay attention to this, and not only getting people in, but once in, ensuring the social interactions there and there's not segregation in the cafeterias. >> no, but segregation is encouraged by colleges. >> woodruff: student housing. by student housing, cultural housing and all the rest of it. i want to point out that all the gender racial subgroups in the country, the highest per capita, those enrolled in college, is black women. black women enrolled in colleges and universities is a higher level than white women, asian women, white men. black men are enrolled in a hiring level per capita than white men. we've quadrupled the number of

black college graduates in less than a generation. so there is good moves, and i am curious that we have to pause anand reflect on the good news. >> woodruff: on the gender aspect. >> and the racial aspect as well. >> woodruff: well, complete change of subject, and that is presidential politics 2016, david. we saw both former president clinton, former secretary of state hillary clinton come out swinging this week after karl rove who, of course, was former president george w. bush's top political strategist suggested secretary clinton miffed brain damage from a fall she took while still in government. >> he said she was in the hospital and we should get to the bottom of all this. >> woodruff: is this the kind of exchange we're going to see where, in fact, president clinton said to gwen in an interview, he said, we can just expect this from republicans? >> yeah, well, a couple of things going on. first, i hope rove was just

speaking off the cuff because it was pretty stupid what he said, inaccurate and stupid. the response was interesting. because there has been, among the professional people like us who watch this thing for a living, there have been some whispers among people who know what they're talking about that maybe she won't run, but the way the clintons came out swinging made it look like she was going to run. if you have a race in a democratic primary, playing with karl rove, that's good and working with the koch brothers, that works well. so may be more forward leaning about this deal than anybody who thought they weren't. and i still think that i'm less bullish on her chances. i think it's likely she'll get the nomination if she runs but less bullish than others around here because i think the party has moved to the left, the deblasio mayor's race in new york, even the race in newark where the more leftward candidate won, i think the party

shifted a little away from her and i think there's some shot it's won't be a cakewalk for her. >> 330 days in the hospital, wrong. three days in the hospital. and that she was wearing glasses only given to people with traumatic brain injury, that was karl rove. i never saw dr. rove making house calls like this (laughter) it's a little bit like putting heroin in the bloodstream. you let out a bubble or rumor and let it go. oh, where did it come from? somebody hears it, a couple of months later, something of the sort. it's symptomatic of a texas candidate, a congressman in texas, in a karl rove climate, who had a very difficult opponent and said i'm going to accuse my opponent of being romantically and sexually involved with barn yard animals. and said you can't do that,

congressman, you have no evidence of proof, and they said, i know, i just want to see him deny it. that's like this. it was stupid and did help the clintons and can tell us something about the high level we expect in 2016. >> it won't be an issue if she runs. if you can run, your health is fine, and, so, if she's running and she can do it the way every candidate has to do it, her health will not be an issue. >> woodruff: what about david's other point that maybe hillary clinton, assuming she does decide to run, may not have that easy past of a nomination? >> i think inevitable is the campaign strategy. everybody's for hillary, why? because everybody's for hillary, because she's in all the polls. i think there is a restlessness in the democratic party against the obama administration, although unspoken in large part, but the fact that all of the people who brought this country

to its knees in the wall street crisis continue to go to dinner parties and fly out in private jets and get welcomed to the white house and they pay fines, which is basically monetized financial crime. just pay a check. nobody goes to jail. and elizabeth warren is probably the catalyst for that, the most logical point. somebody will pick that up. mrs. clinton may very well try to move in that direction, although coming as a senator from new york, it will be a departure. >> woodruff: and we have an interview with senator warren on the "newshour" monday night. you were putting in a ploy. the tearnghts david, they won a senate primary in the mid-term election seans but don't seem to be on as strong a path, whatever you want to call it, the mainstream, the establishment of

the republican party seems to be doing better. what's going on? >> especially in this case in nebraska this week, the tea party candidate says he's a yale ph.d. and the other harvard law degree. these are not classic outsiders, i would say, but i do think the party has become more nervous of losing seats. the voters -- it's less over ideology and more over approach. it's can you come into washington and do politics, do governance as opposed to being sort of a commentator when you get here. so i do think the side of the party that says, you know, let's pass legislation, and they're plenty conservative, but they have the momentum now. and i think the governor was a

major turning point. >> ted cruz and mike lee were staunch supporters of the nebraska winner and their message was we need reinforcement to fight the entrenched leadership in washington. >> woodruff: this is in nebraska. >> in nebraska. i think the tea party had its most important victory and we can see it every day and that was in kentucky. mitch mcconnell went hat in hand and asked rand paul for his endorsement, and rand paul was fa a national figure, a imagine leader of his party, endorsed mitch mcconnell and probably there be security the -- thereby secured the fact mcconnell would be renominated. that's how important the tea party is, that mention mcconnell opposed in 2010 when he ran is now his supplecant in his death.

we'll have much more opportunity to talk about the tea party. we thank you both. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day. india elected a new ruling party with the hindu nationalist party winning in a landslide. firefighters tamed five of the ten wildfires burning in southern california, thanks to cooler temperatures and calmer winds. and the u.s. department of transportation slapped a maximum $35-million fine on general motors for mishandling its ignition switch defects. on the newshour online, a 13,000-year-old wisdom tooth has given scientists new evidence for the origin of early americans. the tooth belonged to a teenage girl whose remains were discovered in an underwater cave in mexico. read what divers found there on our science page. all that and more is on our web

site, newshour.pbs.org. and a reminder about some upcoming programs from our pbs colleagues. gwen ifill is preparing for "washington week," which airs later this evening. here's a preview: >> ifill: eric shinseki is on the hot seat at the v.a. the behind the scenes debate on immigration. what the latest round of mid-term primaries tell us about the next ones. and the clintons come out swinging. what, is it 2016, already? later tonight on "washington week." judy. >> woodruff: and on tomorrow's edition of pbs newshour weekend, rick karr reports from ohio on the battle over red light and speed cameras as lawmakers consider legislation that would ban their use. we'll be back, right here, on monday. we talk with senator elizabeth warren about her new book, "a fighting chance." that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. have a nice weekend. thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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. this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. brought to you in part by. >> thestreet.com feature herb greenberg who reminds investors that risk is real. with herb greenberg's reality check resurging stocks in terms of risks, you can learn more at thestreet.com/reality check. maximum fine, general motors will pay $35 million, largest penalty possible for the ten-year delay of its ignition switch recall. is the automaker now in the clear or are more fines on the way? and warren buffet, john paulson, some of the world's smartest investors are buying up shares of verizon, what do they see in this stock that others may not? and caps on coverage, some heal