Was the Court Right?

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The question for modern scholars becomes: Did the methodology used in the past work, and/or what about the methodology worked or failed, and what is the future of the Civil Rights Movement in 21st century America? Now, that question is not meant to imply complete failure, or success; actually, history seems to support a combination of both arguments. Yet, despite positive outcome, many would caution not to read too much into the post-Brown era.

The late Bob Carter, former federal judge and deputy to Justice Thurgood Marshall stated: We thought that segregation was the box that we were in. In other words, blacks thought that when segregation was over, the walls would come tumbling down and the scales would fall from white people's eyes. Whites would see that blacks were really people; they would integrate and everything would be fair. Well, that didn't work out. Racism was too deep in

the culture of the country (Paulson, 2004). At some levels, it is amazing because racial and ethnic segregation actually intensi�ed throughout the 1990s everywhere but particularly in the North. This resegregation process happened in spite of the fact that the United States claimed to be more diverse than ever in its history.

To explore this, let's return to where modern desegregation started: the schools. In the 1990s more than 70% of all black students attended schools where the population was dominated by people of color. While white students attended schools where less than 20% of the students were from other racial and ethnic groups, on average, blacks and Latinos attended schools with 53% to 55% students of their own group. Between 1968 and 1998, the black population in public schools increased by nearly 6 million while the white population declined by nearly 6 million -- coincidence?? (Or�eld).

Now we can not exclude from this discussion the role of white �ight in the resegregation of schools. Eric Bickford (1992) in examining the movement of Whites to suburban communities after World War II, concluded that: there is merit to the push hypothesis (that the movement to the suburbs was substantially affected by changing social conditions in the central cities) at some level. While the effect may or may not be huge, it likely did exist. In the face of increasing fragmentation between neighboring municipalities, it provides a framework for understanding the current con�ict between cities and suburbs as a function of the underlying reasons for which they exist in the �rst place. By accepting the idea that elements of racism have played a part in community formation, we understand that we must �rst address those lingering elements.

In any case, while the legal caste distinction dictated by Jim Crowism was dismantled, the reality was very different. Most black American schoolchildren still attend predominantly black public schools that reportedly offer fewer amenities than predominately white public schools. Just looking at the 2011-2012 Academic Year Report Cards issued by the Ohio Department of Education, there is a stark difference in school district performance.

District State Indicators

Met out of 26

Performance Index

(0 - 120)

Adequate Yearly

Progress

District Designation

% Black/Hispanic

White

% Population Classi�ed

Econ. Disadvantaged

Dayton 3 75.6 Not Met Academic Watch

65.7/3.2/25.1 94

Centerville 26 106 Not Met Excellent With Distinction

5.8/2.0/80.3 12.9

Cincinnati 11 88.5 Not Met Continuous Improvement

65.4/3.0/25.3 72.6

Cleveland 0 75.4 Not Met Academic Emergency

67.7/13.8/14.6 100

Columbus 4 80.5 Not Met Continuous Improvement

58.1/6.8/27.4 83.3

Spring�eld 1 81.5 Not Met Continuous Improvement

24.5/3.9/61.5 79.5

Kettering 26 103.4 Met Excellent with Distinction

4.3/2.3/87.3 38.1

Beavercreek 26 104.4 Met Excellent 3.5/2.6/83.4 14.2

Please note, there are undoubtedly multiple reasons that account for the disparity between a Dayton and a Centerville Public School District. The chart above is overly simpli�ed and could easily form the foundation of a complete doctoral dissertation. Parental involvement, tax base, quality of teachers, resources, family economic status, are all factors that must be considered within the context of this topic.

Understanding that, evidence seems to suggest that most, if not all, of the factors indicate a negative correlation with race. For example, family involvement tends to be less present in an urban school district, and family income tends to be lower in an urban school district.

So then the question becomes whether the process of desegregation was worth it -- whether the Brown decision was right. According to Lani Guinier (2004), the fact is that �fty years later, many of the social, political, and economic problems that the legally trained social engineers thought the Court had addressed through Brown are still deeply embedded in our society. Blacks lag behind whites in multiple measures of educational achievement, and within the black community, boys are falling further behind than girls. In addition, the will to support public education from kindergarten through twelfth grade appears to be eroding despite growing awareness of education's importance in a knowledge-based society (Guinier). Some argued that when they desegregated schools they threw the blacks back a hundred years. . . if we had stayed separate, but equal, our children would be better off educationally. . .integration devastated black educational leadership and undermined the school's traditional place in black society (Fairclough, 2004).