Brown vs' Board of Education : Yesterday and Today

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Brown vs. Board of Education Yesterday and Today

• SourceRosen, Jeffrey,The Lost Promise of School
  Integration, The Sunday New York Times, The Week
  in Review Section, 4-2-2000

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A Retrospective and Update Concerning the Supreme
Courts 1954 Ruling that School Segregation is
Unconstitutional
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In 1954 the Supreme Court was asked to decide the
following question Does segregation in public
schools deprive students of their right to equal
protection of the laws under the Fourteenth
Amendment?

• In 1954 the Court unanimously decided that
  Separate educational facilities are inherently
  unequal. By this the Court meant that educating
  children of different races together was the key
  to the crucial project of creating a society less
  divided by race.

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How was the Brown decision implemented?

• From the beginning the Courts were willing to
  force integration through mandatory busing.

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For all intents and purposes mandatory busing
ended in the mid-1990s. Now judges and parents
are questioning the constitutionality and value
of programs that try to create racially balanced
schools, without busing, by restricting who can
go to school where.
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Has the Promise of School Integration Been Lost?

• Are efforts to achieve racially integrated public
  schools legally and politically doomed?
• Will the central premise of the Brown decision -
  that integrated public schools are the most
  important institution in a pluralistic society
  survive the 21st century?

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In March of this year the Supreme Court upheld a
federal appeals court decision that school
authorities in Montgomery County, Maryland,
violated the Constitution when they tried to
prevent a white student from transferring to a
magnet school from his neighborhood elementary
school, which is predominantly black. The
Montgomery Case is only the most recent in a
series of decisions, going back several years,
that is making it difficult for public schools to
maintain even a semblance of racial diversity in
a judicial and political climate that exalts
choice above all other values.
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The Problem Today?

• Today the problem or question appears to be How
  to maintain racial diversity in a climate that
  exalts choice.

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Background to the Montgomery County, Maryland Case

• Montgomery County, Maryland is 53 white.

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Glen Haven Elementary School, Montgomery County,
Maryland

• White enrollment at the Glen Haven elementary
  school dropped from 40 in 1995 to 24 in 1998.

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When Montgomery County acted to stop this rapid
decline in white enrollment

• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth District
  in Virginia rejected the countys policy that no
  student could transfer out of a school to a
  magnet school, for instance, if the transfer
  would adversely affect racial diversity, unless
  he or she could prove some kind of unique
  personal hardship.
• In making this decision The Court concluded that
  the Constitution prohibits racial balancing
  from being used as the decisive factor in school
  assignments.

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The Supreme Court and Racial Balancing?

• For years now the Supreme Court has restricted
  the use of race to distribute government
  benefits. These decisions have left few
  alternatives open to school districts that value
  integration.

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CONTROLLED CHOICE?

• Even one of the few successful efforts to achieve
  integration in school districts as a whole,
  called controlled choice is now in legal
  jeopardy. Controlled choice is a program in
  which all schools are open to everyone,
  regardless of where they live and parents rank
  the schools in order of preference. But each
  school must have a balanced racial mix.
• Controlled choice programs will be doomed if
  the Supreme Court ultimately decides that racial
  integration for its own sake cant justify
  race-based admissions policies.

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Control or Entice?

• In this this new era only strategies that entice
  parental choice, rather than control it, can
  receive constitutional approval.

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Choice Plans?

• Choice plans that allow black parents to send
  their children to white suburban schools exist.
  Although 20 states allow this kind of choice, few
  provide for the subsidized transportation that
  would enable minority parents to avail themselves
  of this opportunity.

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VOUCHERS?

• Because money is necessary to allow poor parents
  the same opportunity to escape failing inner city
  schools as richer parents enjoy, this perhaps
  accounts for the growing support among minorities
  for school vouchers.

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Do Vouchers Promote Integration?

• Voucher schools tend to be more racially
  integrated than the public schools.. In
  Cleveland, for instance, 20 of voucher
  recipients attend private schools that reflect
  the racial composition of the city as a whole,
  while only 5.2 of Cleveland public school
  students are in comparably integrated schools

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What is more important to Americans, racial
diversity or raising academic standards?

• In a 1998 survey conducted by Public Agenda
• 82 of 800 black parents said raising academic
  standards was more important than achieving more
  diversity and integration.
• Although overwhelming, these numbers do not tell
  the whole story. In the same poll, 80 of black
  parents and 66 of 800 white parents said it was
  very important or somewhat important to them
  that their children attend an integrated school..
• Conclusion? It appears that only those without
  the means to choose an education that is both
  integrated and adequate are willing to settle for
  quality.

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To Sum Up

• The Brown decision ideally assumed that the
  removal of state-enforced segregation would be
  enough to integrate schools around the country
  This view proved to be naïve and untenable.
• But now that the legal and political tolerance
  for even mildly coercive forms of integration
  appears to be evaporating, the hope of integrated
  public schools may soon be a distant memory.