An 8-year-old in Topeka, Kansas, launched perhaps the most significant discrimination cases in history: Brown v. Board of Education.
Linda Brown had to cross railroad yards to catch the bus for a black school two miles from home. Her father wanted her to attend the white school, just five blocks away. But when Oliver Brown applied on his daughter's behalf, the school denied her admission. Brown sued the school board.
Although Brown directly addressed racial discrimination, the case has had great significance for women.
Legal Context
Enforcement of Brown
On Brown's Heels: Securing Civil and Women's Rights
Has Brown Succeeded?
Legal Context
Jim Crow laws in the 1800s legalized segregation, from separate water fountains and busses to schools and housing. Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 "constitutionalized racial apartheid," in the words of NBA Magazine, as long as facilities for black people were not inferior to those of white.
Fast forward more than half a century. Oliver Brown, working with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, challenged the U.S. Supreme Court: Under segregation, they contended, blacks were denied equal protection under the law.
Recognizing the value of education, the court ruled unanimously in favor of equity:
Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. ... Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. ... In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education."...
To separate [elementary and secondary school children] from others . solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.
We conclude that in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.
Enforcement of Brown
The Supreme Court tasked the nation with implementing this historic decision "with all deliberate speed." But the vagueness of the phrase combined with continued bigotry slowed the process, in some cases to a standstill.
President Eisenhower had to call in the national guard to escort black children to an Arkansas school that refused to integrate. Other communities used different tactics to resist. In Virginia, schools closed rather than desegregate. Elsewhere, some white families migrated to suburbs. Some black parents kept their children in the same black schools to avoid conflict. Families who chose white schools under "freedom of choice" plans—allowing black children attend any school in a district—received threats. In at least one instance, a cross was burned outside the home of a family
On Brown's Heels: Securing Civil and Women's Rights
A decade after the decision, concern with this lack of enforcement led to passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VI of the act bars discrimination based on race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal funds. Title VII prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, and sex, but excluded "educational institutions in their educational activities."
Another glaring exclusion: all laws and decisions to date failed to bar sex discrimination in education. Not for another 10 years did Congress pass Title IX, which filled the breach in federal law. Based on Title VI, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits sex discrimination in education. Congress also amended Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to cover employees in educational institutions.
Has Brown Succeeded?
"Desegregation has been a substantial accomplishment and is linked to important gains for both minority and white students," reports a 2003 study by the Harvard Civil Rights Project. But we have far to go.
- Just 14 percent of white students attend multiracial schools.
- Whites are the most segregated group in the nation's public schools; they attend schools where, on average, 80 percent of the student body is white.
- Non-white (what Harvard calls "apartheid") schools educate one-sixth of the nation's black students and one-fourth of black students in the Northeast and Midwest.
- During the 1990s, the proportion of black students in majority white schools decreased by 13 percentage points, to a level lower than any year since 1968.
- One ninth of Latino students attend schools where 99 to 100 percent of the student body is composed of minority students.
Harvard adds that "persisting high levels of residential segregation for blacks and increasing levels for Latinos in the 2000 Census indicate that desegregated education will not happen without . planning."
The impact of Title IX has also been mixed. For an assessment of its effectiveness, see Title IX at 30: Report Card on Gender Equity, by the National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education. AAUW served as coalition chair at the time of the report.
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