Still Separate, Still Unequal? (An Introduction)

Fifty-five years ago, the United States Supreme Court declared that providing “separate but equal” educational opportunities to students based on race denied students of color the equal protection of the law.  As Chief Justice Warren wrote:

To separate [elementary- and secondary-school children] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. We conclude that in the field of public education, the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954).

Subsequent to that decision, though certainly not "with all deliberate speed," progress was made towards the goal of desegregating the public schools in the United States.  However, as documented by the Civil Rights Project, we are now a good decade or so into a period of rapid resegregation.  A 2003 report by the Civil Rights Project stated that 1 out of every 6 African-American children in the United States now attends a school where less than one percent of the population is white.  The table below is from the most recent report from the Civil Rights project.  The percentage of African-American students in predominantly (>50%) minority schools dropped from 77% in 1968 to 63% in 1988, but by 2005 the percentage had rebounded to 73%.  Today, nearly three out of every four African-American students in the U.S. attends a school that is majority-minority.  The rapid resegregation is most pronounced in the South.

Five years ago, at an event recognizing the 50th anniversary of the Brown decision, I had the honor of serving on a panel with Theodore M. Shaw, then the director-general counsel and president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund (LDF).  Offering his take on the desegregation struggles, Shaw said something to the effect of "I'm tired of chasing white people."  Around the same time, the New York Times a interviewed Dr. Cornel West and Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (yes, THAT, Dr. Gates!).  Reflecting on the 50th anniversary of the Brown decision, Dr. Gates said:

What we're talking about really is how to deal with the conflict between quality and community. Many of our friends on the left would have us believe that all black people want their kids bused out of the inner cities. [But] what they want from busing is quality. If we could make predominantly black schools excellent, would that be a satisfactory goal? I say yes, because I don't think there's anything magic about being around white people. I think it's good for a multicultural society to have integration. But unless we have economic integration, we're not going to have residential integration. And unless the schools have quality, we're not going to have economic integration.

I distinctly remember struggling to wrap my head around what I was hearing and reading from prominent African-American scholars. I believed in the intangible benefits of integrated schooling and I was hopeful. Just one year earlier, the Supreme Court held that achieving student body racial diversity was a compelling governmental interest, at least in the law school context.

Then, two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively ended policy efforts to remedy or curb the resegregation of schools.  In a 5-4 decision in the case of Parents Inolved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 et al., the Court held that student assignment plans aimed at racial balancing were unconstitutional.  Some commentators have suggested that efforts to desegregate on the basis of race are not entirely impossible, pointing to Justice Kennedy's concurring opinion which suggested that race may be considered to ensure equal educational opportunity.  Yet, even the most adamant advocates for racial desegregation have a hard time getting past Chief Justice Roberts' proclamation that "[t]he way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."

To that, CJ Roberts, I say, "right on!"  In fact, while much of the progress that was achieved by eliminating legally enforced (de jure) school segregation has been erased by de facto housing segregation patterns that beget de facto school segregation, it is also clear that students of color continue to be denied equal educational opportunities within the institution of schooling. That is, while the post-Brown focus was and continues to be between-school and between-district segregation by race, more subtle forms of racial discrimination have persisted and proliferated within schools and districts, even in the most “integrated” schools and districts.

In the coming days, I will be exploring issues of within-school segregation.  Specifically, I will be writing about:

• The overrepresentation of students of color in special education (Tuesday)
• The underrepresentation of students of color in gifted and talented programs (Wednesday)
• The underrepresentation of students of color in STEM initiatives (Thursday)

On Friday, I plan to wrap it all up and offer critical commentary and policy recommendations.  I hope you'll join me for some courageous conversations about race and schooling.