School integration in the United States
In the United States, school integration (also known as desegregation) is the process of ending race-based segregation within American public and private schools. Racial segregation in schools existed throughout most of American history and remains an issue in contemporary education. During the Civil Rights Movement school integration became a priority, but since then de facto segregation has again become prevalent.[1]
School segregation declined rapidly during the late 1960s and early 1970s.[2] Segregation appears to have increased since 1990.[2] The disparity in the average poverty rate in the schools whites attend and blacks attend is the single most important factor in the educational achievement gap between white and black students.[3]
Legal action[edit]
Throughout the first half of the 20th century there were several efforts to combat school segregation, but few were successful. In the early 1950's the NAACP filed lawsuits in South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware to challenge segregation in schools.[9] At first the decision was split with Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson believing that Plessy v. Ferguson should stand. However, after his death he would be replaced by Earl Warren who differed in opinion on the case.[10] However, in a unanimous 1954 decision in the Brown v. Board of Education case, the United States Supreme Court ruled segregation in public schools unconstitutional. The NAACP legal team representing Brown, led by future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, argued that racially separate schools were inherently unequal, as society as a whole looked down upon African Americans and racially segregated schools only reinforced this prejudice.[11] They supported their argument with research from psychologists and social scientists in order to empirically prove that segregated schools inflicted psychological harm on black students.[12] These expert testimonies, coupled with the concrete knowledge that black schools had worse facilities than white schools and that black teachers were paid less than white teachers, contributed to the landmark unanimous decision.[12]
Implementation[edit]
Brown II[edit]
After Brown vs. Board of Education ruled that school segregation was unconstitutional, the implementation of desegregation was discussed in a follow-up Supreme Court case termed Brown II.[28] Though the NAACP lawyers argued for an immediate timetable of integration, the Supreme Court issued an ambiguous order that school districts should integrate with "all deliberate speed."[25][29]
Integration in response to Brown[edit]
On August 23, 1954, 11 black children attended school with approximately 480 white students in Charleston, Arkansas. The school superintendent made an agreement with local media not to discuss the event, and attempts to gain information by other sources were deliberately ignored. The process went very smoothly, followed by a similar action in Fayetteville, Arkansas, the same fall. The following year, the integration of schools in Hoxie, Arkansas, drew national coverage from Life Magazine, and bitter opposition from White Citizen's Councils and segregationist politicians ensued.[30] Although integration allowed more Black youth access to better-funded schools, in many areas the process also resulted in the layoffs of Black teachers and administrators who had worked in all-Black schools.[31][32]
Opposition to integration efforts occurred in northern cities as well. For instance, in Massachusetts in 1963 and 1964, education activists staged boycotts to highlight the Boston School Committee’s failure to address the de facto racial segregation of the city’s public schools.[33]
In 1965, the first voluntary desegregation program—the Urban-Suburban Interdistrict Transfer Program—was implemented in Rochester, New York by Alice Holloway Young.[34]
Opposition to integration[edit]
Various options arose that allowed white populations to avoid the forced integration of public schools. After the Brown decision, many white families living in urban areas moved to predominantly suburban areas in order to take advantage of the wealthier and whiter schools there.[35][36] William Henry Kellar, in his study of school desegregation in Houston, Texas, described the process of white flight in Houston's Independent School District. He noted that white students made up 49.9 percent of HISD's enrollment in 1970, but that number steadily dropped over the decade.[37] White enrollment comprised only 25.1 percent of HISD's student population by 1980.[37]
Another way that white families avoided integration was by withdrawing their children from their local public school system in order to enroll them into newly founded "segregation academies".[38] After the 1968 Supreme Court case Green v. County School Board of New Kent County hastened the desegregation of public schools, private school attendance in the state of Mississippi soared from 23,181 students attending private school in 1968 to 63,242 students in 1970.[39] [40]
The subject of desegregation was becoming more inflamed. In March 1970, President Richard M. Nixon decided to take action. He declared Brown to be ''right in both constitutional and human terms'' and expressed his intention to enforce the law. He also put in place a process to carry out the court's mandate. Vice President Spiro T. Agnew and George Shultz, then secretary of labor, were asked to lead a cabinet committee to manage the transition to desegregated schools.[41]
One overlooked aspect of school desegregation efforts is the persistence of structural racism as reflected in the composition of elected school boards. Long after their schools had desegregated, many continued to operate with predominantly white trustees.[42]