Brown v. Board of Education
Back in 1953, a nine-year old black girl named Linda Brown was prevented from enrolling in an all-white elementary school in Topeka, Kansas. The Brown family sued the Topeka Board of Education, and over 60 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court handed out its decision in the historic Brown v. Board of Education case. Chief Justice Earl Warren penned these famous words: "In the field of public education, the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place."
The eight justices did not set a timeline for desegregation, but neither did they envision that over the years it would still be the norm in many schools across America.
According to a recent ProPublica report, "In 1963, approximately 1 percent of black children in the South attended school with white children." The report noted that by the 70"s, the South had advanced to 90 percent of black children attending desegregated schools." This kind of progress has come to a halt and, in many places, has been rolled back. It appears that due to lax enforcement or outright removal of federal desegregation orders, in the South and elsewhere children of color attend schools where 90 percent of their peers look like them.
Information released from the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights revealed that one-fourth of schools with majority black and Latino enrollments do not offer Algebra II, and one-third of those schools don't offer chemistry. Black and Latino students are 40 percent of the population at schools that offer gifted programs, students from these backgrounds are only approximately 26 percent of the gifted enrollment.
These statistics are only the tip of the iceberg regarding racial inequality in our schools. There should be some serious thinking of why the country has turned away from the goal of Brown v. Board of Education and embraced deepening polarization and inequality in our schools. Moving forward we must establish how to apply the vision of Brown v. Board of Education in the transformed, multiracial society of today.