Brown vs. Board of Education, the pivotal Supreme Court decision that made school segregation unconstitutional, turns 70 years old on May 17, 2024.
At the time of the 1954 ruling, 17 U.S. states had laws permitting or requiring racially segregated schools. The Brown decision declared that segregation in public schools was “inherently unequal.” This was, in part, because the court argued that access to equitable, nonsegregated education played a critical role in creating informed citizens – a paramount concern for the political establishment amid the Cold War. With Brown, the justices overturned decades of legal precedent that kept Black Americans in separate and unequal schools.
As a professor of education and demography at Penn State University, I research racial desegregation and inequality in K-12 schools. I’m aware that, after several decades of unraveling of desegregation progress, the upcoming Brown vs. Board of Education anniversary comes at an especially uncertain moment for public education and efforts to make America’s schools reflect the nation’s multiracial society.
Meanwhile, politicians and school boards have banned or removed books by authors of color from school libraries and restricted teaching about racism in U.S. history. I believe these legal setbacks amid the current political climate make finally realizing the full promise of Brown more urgent.
Resistance to Brown ruling
The Brown vs. Board of Education decision did not immediately change the nation’s public schools, especially in the completely segregated South, where there was massive resistance to desegregation. Resistance was so fierce in the first decade after Brown that compliance with desegregation orders at times required federal troops to escort Black students to enroll in formerly all-white schools.
Brown vs. Board of Education, the pivotal Supreme Court decision that made school segregation unconstitutional, turns 70 years old on May 17, 2024.
At the time of the 1954 ruling, 17 U.S. states had laws permitting or requiring racially segregated schools. The Brown decision declared that segregation in public schools was “inherently unequal.” This was, in part, because the court argued that access to equitable, nonsegregated education played a critical role in creating informed citizens – a paramount concern for the political establishment amid the Cold War. With Brown, the justices overturned decades of legal precedent that kept Black Americans in separate and unequal schools.
As a professor of education and demography at Penn State University, I research racial desegregation and inequality in K-12 schools. I’m aware that, after several decades of unraveling of desegregation progress, the upcoming Brown vs. Board of Education anniversary comes at an especially uncertain moment for public education and efforts to make America’s schools reflect the nation’s multiracial society.
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