Jacqulyn Thorpe

President, AAUW Maryland

Jacqulyn Thorpe remembers well the summer that marked a turning point in her education: It was 1956, two years after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, and her hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, was beginning to integrate its schools. As a young student, she knew little of the landmark decision or the new laws—she just knew that instead of going to "the one and only African American school in the city," she could go to any high school she chose.

"It was called Louisville Male High School," she recalls of her selection, which until that summer was all white and all male. "I think back on that and say, 'How in the world did that happen? How did I end up there?'"

Even with the new integration rules, Louisville Male struck a better balance of genders than of race, Thorpe says. In 1956, fewer than a dozen African American students attended the high school. Still, Thorpe says, choosing that school made all the difference in her life.

"I think Brown broadened my academic studies, because I was able to do things in this new setting that I would not have been able to do in a predominantly black setting," says Thorpe, an ordained minister and former AAUW diversity chair who has relied heavily on the writing and public-speaking skills she honed in high school.

"It was a good and positive experience for me. At that age, you're looking for identity and community," she recalls. "I joined the newspaper staff, and that just launched me into a whole bunch of things: competitions for the school, debates, dramatic readings, being with the students and teachers who led that work. . It was a great self-esteem builder."

Today, Thorpe sees a world of change as a result of the Brown case, including its tie-in with AAUW's own mission. "It fits with our diversity statement: all girls. Not just some. All.

"The mere fact that we're going to be celebrating [the decision] all over the nation is going to raise consciousness," Thorpe says, "and maybe give people an appreciation for how much better things are-especially among those who think this is the way it's always been, because it has not."

Michal Robinson

Eleanor Roosevelt Teacher Fellow, Birmingham, Alabama

When Michal Robinson scans her monochromatic Birmingham, Alabama, classroom today, she could just as easily be looking at a room from 1953. Why? Her school, she says, is "99 percent black."

"I'm in a school that, when it was established in the late '70s, was in a community that was white," the AAUW Educational Foundation fellow says. "In the '80s, when I got here [as a teacher], that was when we got the biggest influx of minority students. I watched the school change from white to mixed black-and-white to just a black school."

Robinson, an African American whose children attend predominantly white schools in the suburbs, cites residential segregation as the leading culprit in Birmingham's ongoing struggle to maintain racial balance in its schools.

"White people who lived in this community with their children moved out, so I would say Brown is not working here," she says. "But I think it could work-it's just the attitudes of people and a lack of knowledge about their history."

Robinson's own educational history is a powerful one: As a child, she traveled across Meringo County, known as the "black belt" of Alabama, every week to attend school with her mother, a teacher in a two-room schoolhouse with an outdoor toilet.

"I grew up in segregated schools using second-hand books and equipment from the white schools," Robinson says. "I wasn't even aware of the Brown decision and its implications growing up—it wasn't until the '60s and the Martin Luther King struggle that we became aware of any of that."

Still, Robinson says, her mother instilled in her a commitment to education that she does not always see in her students today.

"I knew I had to do well in spite of what we had, and I think my mother pretty much encouraged us to do well and taught us we could do well even though we didn't have all the equipment and supplies that were in other schools," she says.

Robinson believes the country still has far to go before it achieves what Brown was intended to accomplish. "In the school where I'm working, it seems like we've moved back," she says. "In America, economics determine what type of education you have, and historically, the minorities will have less money and fewer opportunities for education. Is that progress?"

Robyn Handler

LAF-supported plaintiff

As a college softball coach at Nova Southeastern University, Robyn Handler hated to see the women on her team settle for less than the men when it came to all aspects of athletics: uniforms, practice times, and travel budgets, to name a few. To fix the situation, Handler filed complaints with the Office of Civil Rights and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on her team's behalf, using Title IX—a distant legal cousin of the Brown v. Board of Education decision that promotes equity in education for women and girls—as her basis for improvement.

Less than two years later, this five-time conference coach of the year—whose teams were consistently ranked and represented in national tournaments—was terminated following two poor evaluations. She believes the university fired her in retaliation for sticking up for her team, which now is "well cared for" as a result of the complaints she filed.

"That's the problem with Title IX: There's no protection for the person who files the suit in the first place," says Handler, who has not found another coaching job since her termination in 2002. "There are laws in place that can be used, but eventually the person filing that suit is sacrificed."

Even before her firing, Handler suspected the school was retaliating and contacted the OCR to find out how to protect herself. "They told me to file a complaint so I could be reinstated if I was fired, and then I find out that only one coach in 30 years has been reinstated," Handler laments. "And in 30 years of Title IX, no university has ever lost its funding as a result of a violation."

Through her research for her court case (Handler sued Nova for pay inequity and retaliation; the case settled out of court), Handler had to face today's reality: Only two out of Florida's 50 universities are in passable compliance with Title IX standards, she says. "If so many schools aren't in compliance, they're going to look at me and say, ?No way—she'll tell,'" she says.

Asked whether Brown has moved the country forward enough, Handler is emphatic in her response: "Separate but equal is going to exist, whether it be racial, gender-based, [or] religious. Nothing is ever 50/50."

Anne Kaiser

Maryland State Delegate and AAUW member

"At age 5, when I decided I was going to run for office one day, nobody told me that wouldn't be possible," proclaims Maryland State Delegate Anne Kaiser. "And if they would have, I probably wouldn't have believed them anyway."

Kaiser, who joined AAUW as a graduate student nearly a decade ago, made equity in education her main campaigning issue after seeing the disparities among her own classmates back in school. Her AAUW membership began as an expression of gratitude to those who had paved her way.

"I wanted to say thank you to the previous generation for making certain things possible," Kaiser says. "I'm in my mid-30s, and my friends and I all grew up thinking we could do anything. That wouldn't have been the case 50 or 60 years ago, but it was definitely the case for me."

Kaiser, who came out as a lesbian in 2004 during a debate on the House floor over medical benefits for domestic partners, says social progress is always too slow. "I'm impatient as much as I am practical," she says. "I want changes to be implemented yesterday, but at the same time I realize how far we've come and that change takes time."

Although she knows there are many different views on the current debate over gay rights, she says there are parallels to the Brown debate. "I've often said that the issue of civil unions and gay marriage will be something people will look back on 50 years from now and think, 'What was the big deal?'" she muses. "It's very much like what people say now about interracial marriage, which was a very big deal 50 years ago. Perspectives change over time."

In balancing her own outlook on life, she takes a cue from her nephew, a student at Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas. The school became infamous in 1957, when the governor ordered the state's National Guard to block entry to nine black students attempting to attend the newly integrated school. But these days, Central is racially mixed, Kaiser says, and her nephew has nothing but praise for the school.

"One comment he made about why there aren't many fights or conflicts at his school is because it's a nice, good mix—no one is marginalized there, and everyone fits in and gets along," Kaiser says. "Fifty years later, that's the view my 15-year-old straight-A nephew has, and that may be better testimony than any experiences I've had."

Antonia Hernandez

1995 AAUW Achievement Award winner

Antonia Hernandez has devoted her life to making sure that fellow members of the Latino community have equal opportunities—an effort that has been dramatically enhanced by a singular legislative event.

"The Brown v. Board of Education decision put us on a path to equality of opportunity, and we have made progress in providing equality of opportunity to a greater number of Americans," says Hernandez, who spent more than 20 years working with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund before joining the California Community Foundation as president and CEO in 2004.

"Brown was the seminal decision that set the course for this country," says Hernandez. "Before that, America was racist [in its policy]. But Brown said no, we're all going to make it together or we're going to sink together."

Hernandez, who moved to the United States from Mexico as an 8-year-old in 1956, has watched the country's communities become more integrated—a factor she calls "critical" in a successful society. Still, she says, "the most segregated ethnic group in this United States is the Latino community."

Economics play a starring role in the battle for integration, Hernandez says, noting that poorer communities often have inferior educational systems, which in turn make it difficult to succeed. Worse, she says, "schools in wealthier communities are taxed at a lower rate, so they pull even farther ahead."

"In the 1970s, there was no upper class in the Latino community. Mexicans weren't allowed to go to school past eighth grade in this country for the longest time," she says. In her case, she navigated the schools of East Los Angeles from elementary school through high school before becoming the first person in her family to go to college and subsequently join the middle and upper class.

"If you look at the Latino community today, we have an emerging driven, entrepreneurial upper-middle class—but do all Latinos have access to these opportunities? No," she says. "Some people would say the glass is half empty; I say it's half full."

Though Hernandez acknowledges how far the country has come in the past 50 years, she believes "we have a long way to go."

"Look at the U.S. Senate: Women have made some entry into it, but we don't have an African American or a Latino or Latina," Hernandez observes. Today, 14 women, two Asian Americans, and one Native American represent their states in the Senate. "We have made progress, but the vision of Brown v. Board of Education has yet to be completely realized."