Racial Segregation and Civil Rights in American Schools, short history and landmark cases

1. Public Schools, Race and the
Law
The Legal Legacy of Segregation and American Education

2. Racial Segregation was a response
by Southern Whites to
Emancipation and the end
of Reconstruction

3. Reconstruction had established rural public education & integrated city
school systems for African-Americans for the first time in American
history

4. “Jim Crow” Segregation was established by a twofold strategy:
1) Mob violence against African-Americans
2) Southern Democratic state governments passing laws that defied
the 14th and 15th amendments

5. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
•Plessy violated Louisiana’s Act 111, mandating
separate railway cars for Blacks and Whites.
•7-1 Decision. Opinion authored by Justice
Henry Billings Brown.
•Rejected the view that segregation violated
the 14th Amendment so long as the facilities
Homer Plessy were “Separate but Equal”
JUSTICE JOHN HARLAN’S DISSENT:
“Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates
classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal
before the law.”

7. “Separate but Equal” – Plessy unleashed de jure Segregation across the South

8. Brown v. The Board of Education (1954)
•Overturned Plessy v. Ferguson
•Unanimous decision – opinion authored by Chief Justice Earl Warren
•Combined five NAACP sponsored cases against de jure school segregation
“We conclude that, in the field of public
education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal'
has no place. Separate educational facilities are
inherently unequal.”

9. Brown II. (1955)
“All Deliberate Speed….”
School desegregation….more “deliberate” than “speedy” in
practice

10. The Little Rock Nine (1957)

12. Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward
County (1964)
County school board attempted to avoid court-ordered
desegregation by closing all of the public schools and issuing
vouchers to students for private schools. All private schools were
for Whites only.
Unanimous decision. Opinion authored by Justice Hugo Black
“The time for mere "deliberate speed" has run
out, and that phrase can no longer justify
denying these Prince Edward County school
children their constitutional rights to an
education equal to that afforded by the public
schools in the other parts of Virginia”.

13. Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971)
Unanimous decision – authored by Chief Justice
Burger
Charlotte, North Carolina had used voluntary methods
and limited busing to “neighborhood schools” to
integrate to a small degree
Built upon the Green v. County School Board (1968)
decision that said “Choice Plans” were insufficient
tool for promoting school integration
Granted the Federal courts the power to order forced
busing of students to achieve racial integration
School desegregation plans now had to consider and
remediate de facto racial segregation resulting from
housing patterns.
“Forced Busing” became one of the most explosive
education issues of the 1970’s

14. SOUTH BOSTON 1974 – Anti-Busing Race Riot

15. PONTIAC, MICHIGAN 10 School district buses were
dynamited in a racially polarized city by underground
members of the Ku Klux Klan

16. Milliken v. Bradley (1974)
Sharply limited the power of Federal courts to order busing
across school district lines simply to achieve a particular
racial balance (i.e. City –Suburbs)
Case involved 53 school districts in Detroit and its mostly white suburbs and the
issue of “white flight”
5-4 Split decision - bitterly divided – opinion authored bty Chief Justice Burger
•Courts needed to find de jure collusion between districts to segregate to order
cross-district busing
•Busing students to hit particular numerical racial targets in schools or
classrooms is not a valid reason in itself for busing
•Judges are not qualified to assume duties of regional school superintendents
or of the legislature in forcing consolidation of school systems
•The scope of the remedy must be determined by the nature of the Constitutional
violation

17. Parents Involved in Community Schools Inc. v.
Seattle School District and Meredith v. Jefferson
County (Ky.) Board of Education (2007)
School districts are prohibited from assigning
students or denying them admission to schools
based on race simply for the goal of integration
Split decision – bitterly divided – opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts
on a complicated mix of cases
•Mandatory plans need to relate to the harm caused by prior de jure segregation
•Achieving racial balance is not a compelling state interest and “patently
unconstitutional” as a mandatory goal.
•“Diversity” as a goal requires race be one part of a broader array of
considerations.
•Solutions should be narrowly tailored and districts must show they considered
“race neutral” tools and not just race based ones.

19. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896). http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=163&invol=537
2. Wikipedia. “Plessy v. Ferguson”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v._Ferguson
3. Taylor, Branch. Pillar of Fire. 1998. Simon & Schuster. New York, NY. 60-64, 181.
4. Foner, Eric. Nothing but Freedom: Emancipation and its Legacy. 1984. Louisiana State University Press.
5. http://brownvboard.org/
6. Friedman, Lawrence M. American Law: An Introduction. 1998. W.W. Norton & Co. 221-224, 296, 298-300, 304.
7. http://www.lib.umich.edu/exhibits/brownarchive/
8. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1853532
9. Wikipedia. “Brown v. The Board”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education
10. http://afroamhistory.about.com/cs/littlerockhigh/a/littlerocknine.htm
11. GRIFFIN v. SCHOOL BOARD, 377 U.S. 218 (1964 ).
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=377&page=218
12. Wikipedia. “Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swann_v._Charlotte-Mecklenburg_Board_of_Education
13. Wikipedia. “Miliken v. Bradley”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milliken_v._Bradley
14. My Wonderful World Blog. “Brown v. the Board of Education: A Geographic Review”.
http://blog.mywonderfulworld.org/2009/02/february-is-black-history-month.html
15. The Detroit News.com. 1997. “Irene McCabe and her Battle Against Busing”.
http://apps.detnews.com/apps/history/index.php?id=161
16. MILLIKEN v. BRADLEY, 418 U.S. 717 (1974). http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=418&invol=717
17. Wikipedia. “Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Involved_in_Community_Schools_v._Seattle_School_District_No._1