School Desegregation Litigation: Crossroads or Dead End?
14 Pages Posted: 9 Sep 2010
Date Written: 1993
Abstract
The purpose of racial integration was to ensure that African-American children obtained equal access to the quality of education received by whites and denied to Blacks because of their skin color. After Brown, civil rights activists assumed that school districts would capitulate to court-ordered desegregation and open allwhite schools to Black children. Integration, however, did not occur without struggle. Lives were lost. White segregationists terrorized Black children and their families who sought to enforce the desegregation principle. And now, recent studies suggest that racial mixing itself does not necessarily ensure the academic success of Black children; in some instances, it may hinder success.
Therefore the question becomes: Are we at a crossroads or a dead end on the issues of whether and how to achieve school integration? If we are at a crossroads, what are the roads available and which ones should we choose? If we have reached a dead end, will we encounter the same circumstances when we turn back as we did on the journey forward?
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