Resurrecting the Promise of Brown: Understanding and Remedying How the Supreme Court Reconstitutionalized Segregated Schools

Abstract

The Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education held that separate education facilitates were “inherently unequal.” After tolerating substantial delay and evasion of the requirements Brown, the Court eventually required school districts to dismantle the dual systems by eliminating all traces of separate schools and creating integrated schools. In contrast to numerous scholars that have contended that many of the Court’s later school desegregation decision withdrew from or grew weary of school desegregation, this Article argues that the effect of many of the Court’s leading school desegregation decision was to reconstitutionalize segregated schools. Furthermore, the Court’s recent decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 will exacerbate this effect by making is substantially more difficult for school district to remedy such schools. This Article concludes with a proposal for how the President and the U.S. Department of Education could implement a comprehensive plan to resurrect Brown’s promise to tend separate and unequal schools.

JEL Classification: I00, I20, I21, I22, I28, I29, I30, I31, I32, I38, J70