Racism and
Segregation in
USA Schools
How does the issue of
intolerance, injustice, racism and
inequity affect schools and
society?
Activity
• Isms…
• Racial line- handout
Who gets a piece of the American
“apple pie”?
History of segregation
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Fourteenth Amendment prohibited individual states from denying any citizen his or
her fundamental rights, and, further, it extended the right of due process in legal
matters.
1892, Plessy v. Ferguson challenged the 14th amendment
Early in the 20th century movement to bring about equality to the segregated Black
schools in the south
17 states mandated segregation by law
1954- Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision “separate is not
equal” Southern apartheid was unconstitutional and illegitimate
1954-1964 fight against almost uniformed opposition and resistance to the
mandate
1960’s- Martin Luther King led hundreds of protests in both the north and the
south against segregated conditions
Congress spent a decade to decide whether or not to cut off funds for schools
that defied the Supreme Court’s decision
1964- President Kennedy asked Congress to prohibit discrimination in all programs
receiving federal aide- 98% of southern Blacks were still in totally segregated
schools
14th amendment
All person born or naturalized in the United States, and
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of
the United States and of the State wherein they
reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which
shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens
of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any
person of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law; nor deny to any person within its
jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.
History….
• Late 60’s and early 1970’s strong movement towards
desegregation-during this period the south moved from
almost total racial separation to become the nation’s most
integrated region
• In part desegregation was achieved through busing programs
• 1968- Election of Richard Nixon was a turning point leading
to the change in position of desegregation and encouraged
the Supreme Court to slow down or reverse its
desegregation policies
• 1974 law passed against desegregation between city-suburban
lines and equalizing funding across school districts
• Carter legacy tried to reinstate more desegregation laws
working with desegregating housing with school integration
policy but was hampered by Congress
Desegregation through busing
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Schools in many parts of the country continued to be segregated by race.
Neighborhoods retained racial imbalances
Boston, schools were constructed and school district lines drawn intentionally to segregate racially the
schools. In the early 1970s, a series of court decisions found that the racially imbalanced schools trampled
the rights of minority students
Racial integration achieved by transporting children by school bus to a school in a different area of the
district.
The "forced" adjective was a derisive term
Court-ordered busing to achieve school desegregation was used mainly in large, ethnically segregated
school systems, including Boston, Massachusetts; Cleveland, Ohio; Kansas City, Missouri; Pasadena,
California; Richmond,Virginia; San Francisco, California and Wilmington, Delaware.
Charlotte, North Carolina (from 1969) and Savannah, Georgia (from 1970) students were often
transported many miles from their homes, passing one or more schools before arriving at their assigned
campus. The Charlotte and Savannah plans are noteworthy in that most students were affected, and that a
majority of blacks as well as whites would not attend their neighborhood school for two decades. (The
two plans ended in the 1990s.)
Proponents of such plans argued that with the schools integrated, minority students would have equal
access to equipment, facilities and resources that the cities' white students had, thus giving all students in
the city equal educational opportunities.They also pointed out that the United States Supreme Court had
found that separate but equal schools are inherently unequal.
Milliken v. Bradley
• In a 5-to-4 decision, the Court held that "[w]ith no
showing of significant violation by the 53 outlying
school districts and no evidence of any interdistrict
violation or effect," the district court's remedy was
"wholly impermissible" and not justified by Brown v.
Board of Education. The Court noted that
desegregation, "in the sense of dismantling a dual
school system," did not require "any particular racial
balance in each 'school, grade or classroom.'" The
Court also emphasized the importance of local
control over the operation of schools.
History…
• Reagan brought a rapid repeal of the federal desegregation
assistance program and a shift in the Justice Department’s
position, opposing desegregation policy- theories that it had
not worked and it should be canceled after only a few years
• 1980’s Supreme court started to advocate this position
through policy
• Nixon, Reagan and Bush policies succeed in creating a
Supreme Court that had a fundamentally different opinion
about civil rights.
• Rehnquist Court- positive policies taking race into account
for the purpose of creating integration were suspect – lower
courts began to forbid voluntary desegregation programs
• 1981- significant federal aid aimed at helping interracial
schools succeed ended
Benefits of desegregation
• End deeply rooted patterns of illegal separation of students
• Evidence that it changes test scores
• Students from desegregated schools benefit in college-going,
employment and living in integrated settings as adults
• Increase human relations
• Minorities from integrated schools experience far greater
graduation rates, college-going
• Students become bicultural
• http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research/diversity/ca
mbridge_diversity.php
Brown vs. Board of Education..
• 50 years after the US Supreme Court ruled that
segregated schools are “inherently unequal”, schools
across the country are still separated by race and
class. And the problem is getting worse (Orfield,
Harvard Civil Rights Project).
Today….
• Number of Black and Latino students in the nation’s
public schools is up 5.8 million
• Number of white students has declined by 5.6 million
• Low birth rates
• Massive immigration
• Latino students- 2 million in 1968 has grown to 6.9
million (245% growth in thirty years)
• Black students- 1968 3x more than Latino but in
1998 there were seven Latinos for every Black
student
Today…
 By 2050 whites will be at 49% and if whites continue
to sustain the educational authority and power then
this has huge implications for the nation’s social
structure. Population groups are shifting towards the
lower achieving group the test scores of Black 17
year olds is at the place of White 13 year olds.
• A study at the Harvard University Civil Rights
Project finds that public schools in the USA are resegregating, leaving a vast gap in resources and
opportunities between white and non-white
communities.
• The period of growing desegregation coincided with
the most dramatic narrowing of the test score gap
ever recorded for Blacks and whites.
• In the 1990’s racial gaps in achievement have been
growing and the high school graduation of Black
students is decreasing.
• 10 % of white children live in poverty while 35% of
Black and Latino children live in poverty
• 1/6th of the nation’s Black students are educated in
schools and districts that are almost completely nonwhite
• The country is moving toward a greater inequality
and more reinforcement of economic and social
privilege
Educational Finance
• 1973- US Supreme Court overruled the judgment of
the district court in Texas that had found the
inequalities of education finance in that state to be
unconstitutional
• The Equal Protection Law does not require absolute
equality…
Educational Finance…
• However, segregated minority schools are
overwhelmingly likely to have to contend with the
educational impacts of concentrated poverty- 50% or
more of the student population eligible for free or
reduced lunch
• White segregated white schools are almost always
middle class
• Legacy of unequal education, income, and the
continuing patterns of housing discrimination.
States rebel
• Monterey, California
• Chemistry lab with no chemicals
• Literature classes with no books
• Computer classes where we sit there and talk about what
we would be doing if we had computers
• Classes where students were required to stand or sit on
window sills because there were not enough chairs
• Classes without regular teachers where the subs let the
students watch movies and “everybody” failed the final
exam
Educational Finance
• Cost of building new and safe schools for children in
urban settings has been estimated by the General
Accounting Office at $100B and $200B if adequate
wiring for the internet would be installed.
Educational Finance
• In 31 states, districts with the highest percentage of
minority children also receive less funding per pupil
than do districts with the fewest minority children
• 25 thousand students served by Head Start up to
now will not receive it now
Special Education…
• The growth of special education, with a
disproportionate number of Blacks parallels the
growth of desegregation (Asa Hilliard, Georgia State
University).
Special Education
• Blacks are more than three times as likely as whites
to be given short-term suspensions
• They are 67% more likely than whites with emotional
or behavioral problems to be removed from school
on the grounds of being dangerous.
Special Education…
• In the 1970’s African Americans were 16% of total
enrollment but 38% of students identified as mentally
retarded.
• More than 20 years later…African American children
constitute 17 percent of total enrollment and 33% of
students considered cognitively disabled (mentally
retarded)
• Nationwide, Blacks are more than three times more
likely to be identified ad mentally retarded than
whites and more than twice as likely to be labeled as
emotionally disturbed..
Special Education
Lifetime consequences…
• More than half of the African American students as
compared to 39% of the White young adults (who
have been in special education) are still not employed
three to five years out of school.
• Arrest rate for African Americans with disabilities is
40% as compared to 29% of Whites
School choice…
• After the Civil War, Blacks fought for access of the
great “equalizer”, public education
• Under slavery, in a practice that continued with
indentured children in post slavery years, it was
common for Black children to be “loaned” out as
apprentices in exchange for cash to support private
tuition of their “owner’s” children. In other words,
for at least three centuries, white children of gentry
were educated as a direct result of the wages
provided by Black children who were deprived
education
School Choice
• We forget at our own peril that the voucher
movement was, and remains, a movement that
abandons public education rather than fights for the
rights of all.
• The conservatives pushing vouchers are not
committed to better public schools for all. They are
seeking to funnel money to private schools.
• Fright and Flight- with the advent of school
integration, it is the public schools that are the
“threat” with sex education and multiculturalism
School Choice
• Choice left to itself will increase stratification (Gary
Orfield)
College opportunities
• As high paying factory jobs of the industrial economy
disappear, a college education is critical to ensure a
life without poverty… affirmative action has been
under attack and race conscious admissions have
been take to court
College opportunities
• New York City and Chicago populate 10% of the
country’s African American male students who fail to
graduate with their entering classmates
• In districts in which white students make up the
majority, nearly 80% of the students graduate in four
years
College opportunities
• Enrollment of minority students at a number of our
most prestigious public universities has dropped
alarmingly
• 350 African American freshmen enrolled at the
University of Michigan out of an entering class of
almost 6,000 students-the lowest number of African
Americans in 15 years and a decline from nearly 500
three years earlier
Teaching..
• Quality teaching is the key to eliminating racial and
economic achievement gaps…
• Teachers lack the training, resources, and alternatives
for dealing with children
How can teachers address racism and white
privilege-in their classrooms, personal lives, and
educational institutions?
• Washington State- Student play
• “Reading Poverty: A critical reading of work and
hunger in the United States”
• “Colonialism and Post-Colonialism in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo using Barbara
Kingslover’s novel, The Poisonwood Bible”
• “Looking for love and language in Zora Neal
Huston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.”
• Write the truth: fifth graders research how many U.S.
Presidents owned slaves and demand that their history
textbooks address the issue
• What does it mean to be qualified and how do we measure
success. (capitalistic) What if we were to rethink our
assumptions in the context of standardized tests and
admissions requirements? What would we find?
• White privilege is the other side of racism. We must
acknowledge it. It is easier to deplore racism than to admit to
the privileges that many of us have because of it. Once we
understand how white privilege works we can take steps on a
personal and professional level to dismantle it. That which
keeps people of color off balance in a racist society is that
which gives whites power. We must acknowledge power, leave
our comfort zone and work to dismantle that power.
• Any serious effort to reopen the debate about
segregation is going to be enormously more difficult
than the dismantling of apartheid in the South.
Apartheid was so gross and open in its
manifestations that it was insustainable within the age
that following WWII.” (Roger Wilkins- George
Mason University)
• Contemporary political leaders….
• Small minded triumphalism
• Grew up in isolated worlds of white male privilege
• Have inadequate education for the responsibilities that
they hold
• The demarcation between separate worlds of
education are assuming sharper lines. There is a new
emboldenment among the relatively privileged to
isolate their children as completely as they can from
more than token numbers of the children of
minorities (Kozol, 2005)
Gary Orfield
• “The struggle was never just for desegregated
schools nor was it motivated by a desire on the part
of the Black students to simply sit next to white
students. It was an integral part of a much broader
movement for racial and economic justice.”
Journal…
Dare the School Build a New Social Order? George
Counts (1932)
Is it a school’s responsibility to construct society or to
reconstruct society? Why or why not?
References
• Gary Orfield’s work
• Jonathan Kozol’s work
• Rethinking Schools