10 Things Every American Needs to Know About Brown v. Board of Education
The Nation is commemorating the 50th anniversary of one of the greatest civil rights victories, the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education. This unanimous opinion struck down segregation in public education as inherently unequal and unconstitutional, and rekindled hope that the American Dream could become a reality. There is, however, a more complicated legacy to the ruling of which Americans are generally unaware.
1. Keeping white and black Americans in separate public schools was perhaps the most significant social instrument for perpetuating and reinforcing America’s racial caste system. Brown v. Board declared that whites could no longer use public education to discriminate against blacks. No court, before or since, has asserted so much power to invalidate such widespread rules on which society had operated for so long.
2. The Court’s written opinion in Brown is different from any other Supreme Court decision. In a typical Supreme Court opinion, discussion of past cases provides the reasoning for the opinion. In contrast, Brown appeals directly to the conscience of the Nation and speaks primarily in moral, not legal, terms.
3. The reach of Brown quickly extended far beyond education. In fact, the dismantling of Jim Crow can be traced directly to Brown. Within months of deciding Brown, the Court ordered the desegregation of many public services without any discussion beyond a citation to Brown. As a result we are a more open society and there are more opportunities for people of color today than there were in the 1950s and before. While pressure had been building for greater social justice, particularly since World War II, Brown withdrew legitimacy from the old systems of segregation and greatly accelerated the transformation of American society in the second half of the 20th Century.
4. Brown’s impact on society generally was swifter and more positive than its impact on public education specifically. Public education first resisted and then subverted desegregation. Most students in the Deep South continued to go to all-white or all-black schools for many years while state and federal officials stood idly by. Desegregation most often consisted of telling black families that they had the legal right to send their children to “white” schools if they chose to do so, but blacks exercised this right at great personal peril.
5. Even as the Court’s order was wantonly flouted by State and local officials, the Supreme Court did not accept another desegregation case for 14 years. This meant that crafting and supervising remedies for segregation was left to the local federal district courts. These courts then deferred to the same local education officials that had defended and maintained segregated systems. Aggrieved blacks, promised so much by the sweeping language of Brown, realized quickly that local officials were capable of thwarting the High Court’s command.
6. African Americans were asked to bear a disproportionate share of the burden of desegregation. Busing most often meant that black children left their neighborhoods and went to a “white” school. Often, those newly integrated schools then sorted blacks into inferior educational programs that were considered more “appropriate” for them. The most distinguished black teachers were apt to be treated like second-class citizens when and if they were hired to teach in the “white” schools. And, rather than embracing desegregation, whites often abandoned public schools or moved away from communities that would have otherwise contributed to integrated schools.
7. When the Supreme Court finally engaged in substantive review of lower courts’ desegregation orders in the late 1960s, it devised a maddeningly narrow construct for evaluating whether school districts had desegregated. Following the Court’s lead, lower courts resisted any qualitative inquiry into the distribution of educational opportunities by race. Instead, courts simply asked: “Does the school district have separate school buildings officially designated for white and black students? Two systems of transporting students to school, one for black children and one for white children? Two different football teams?” Where the answers were “no,” courts assumed, incorrectly, that the education system was equal.
8. In 1971, as many districts were finally doing something about integrating schools, the Supreme Court ruled in San Antonio v. Rodriguez that class-based discrimination in public education did not violate the Constitution. This meant that school districts could defend themselves by saying that discrimination or inadequate educational outcomes could be attributed to students’ low socio-economic status. Almost immediately, a cottage industry of “researchers” stepped forward to declare that the massive gaps in educational attainment between black and white Americans was caused by socio-economic factors and not the result of discrimination in public education. This research further attempted to establish that what schools did mattered very little compared to the impact of parental education and income. Today, more sophisticated data analysis techniques establish the opposite: given adequate supports and resources, the most economically disadvantaged students can be taught to high standards.
9. Once desegregation moved into Northern cities in the early 1970s, there was renewed resistance which was every bit as vehement as that in the Deep South 20 years prior. Violence and riots greeted a court order to desegregate Boston’s white South Boston neighborhood, and a young Senator named Ted Kennedy was booed and driven from the stage when he asked a crowd of white protesters to show restraint and respect for others. Then, in 1974, the Supreme Court excused suburban districts from participating in desegregation. This marked the beginning of the end of active efforts to integrate public education.
10 Public education has never made good on the obligation to provide equal opportunities regardless of race. This is perhaps the most critical concept Americans must grapple with as they consider the legacy of Brown. As the country debates whether we can close achievement gaps, there is a misperception that public education operates fairly and distributes opportunity evenly. This is starkly at odds with reality. According to every measure on which we have information, students of color continue to be short-changed. Students of color have fewer qualified and effective teachers and less access to challenging and rigorous curriculum. Their schools, by and large, get less State and local money than schools educating mostly white students. Perhaps most insidious and most damaging is the fact that public education invests less of its hopes, expectations, and aspirations in students of color. Adding insult to injury, society then blames low achievement on the children and their families.
Brown v. Board is part of a long legacy of unmet promises. The Declaration of Independence spoke of all men being created equal, but did not question the propriety of slavery. Reconstruction after the Civil War promised 40 acres and a mule, but delivered Jim Crow and the sharecropping system. So, too, did America default on Brown’s promise of equal opportunity. We all have a responsibility to honor Brown in our actions as well as in our words.
Ross Wiener litigated desegregation cases as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division from 1997 to 2002, before coming to the Education Trust to serve as Policy Director.
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