Download Residential Segregation and School Resegregation in America

Residential Segregation and School Resegregation in America
There is significant support for the notion that a diverse student population is a
vital element of a successful school1. This sentiment has been echoed by the United
States Supreme Court on several occasions, but most notably in a 2003 case called
Grutter v. Bollinger. In Grutter, while upholding the University of Michigan Law
School’s race-conscious admissions policy, the Court stated that a diverse student body is
a benefit to all students2. The majority opinion explained that diversity creates a more
enlightened and interesting classroom discussion, and fosters better preparation for
professional careers3. In particular, the Court found that “the skills needed in today’s
increasingly global marketplace can only be developed through exposure to widely
diverse people, cultures, ideas and viewpoints.”4 Therefore, the question remains why
the integration of public schools in America has been such a slow and inherently
unsuccessful operation. It is evident that there have been a multitude of factors that have
contributed to the problem, but a historical analysis of school desegregation in America
shows that the principal factor has evolved from overt racial prejudice to covert racist
housing practices, which have resulted in a racially segregated populace. This paper will
try to demonstrate the complexity of the issue through an analysis of pivotal court cases,
followed by a study of the government’s failure to black students in the city of Chicago.
Throughout it’s history, public education in America has been primarily a state
and local matter. The system was established so state and local governments would have
1
Michael J. Kaufman & Sherelyn R. Kaufman, Education Law, Policy, and Practice:
Cases and Materials 3-4 (2d ed. 2009).
2 Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306, 321 (2003).
3 Id. at 321
4 Id.
practically unlimited control over the education of their children as long as they did not
violate constitutional prohibitions5. However, inequalities and segregation have existed
between white and minority students long before any sort of standardized public
education was established in the country.
Racial Prejudice and Segregation in Colonial Times
Since the beginning of slavery, local laws in most Southern colonies either limited
or prohibited the teaching of both free and enslaved blacks6. Although most Southern
whites did not believe that blacks had the mental capacity to learn, they were aware that
education would lead to unrest among the enslaved people7. As a result, in response to
numerous slave revolts in the early 1800’s, several Southern states passed stringent laws
further restricting the education of blacks8. For example, in 1831 North Carolina enacted
the Act to Prevent All Persons from Teaching Slaves to Read or Write9. The law stated
that any white person convicted of teaching blacks would be imprisoned, and that any
enslaved black person convicted of the crime would receive thirty-nine lashes on their
bareback10. These types of laws were not exclusive to slaves, as some states passed laws
that even denied free blacks the opportunity to learn how to read and write11.
However, in colonial New England, where the codes governing slavery did not
prohibit the teaching of blacks, some slave owners provided a limited education to their
5
Michael J. Kaufman & Sherelyn R. Kaufman, Education Law, Policy, and Practice:
Cases and Materials 8 (2d ed. 2009).
6
National Historic Landmark Survey, Racial Desegregation in Public Education in the
U.S. United States Department of the Interior National Park Service, 2 (August, 2000),
http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/school.pdf
7 Id.
8 Id.
9 Id.
10 Id.
11 Id.
slaves12. For the most part, this practice was done for religious purposes, because many
of the educators believed that the enslaved people could be saved through salvation13.
This idea led Samuel Sewall, a Massachusetts Bay Colony Judge, to recommend that
masters give religious instruction to their servants, which resulted in the establishment of
several church-related black schools14. Although education opportunities in the North
increased following the Revolutionary War, most of the black schools remained religious
institutions, because free Northern states either refused to allow blacks to attend public
schools or segregated them15. Even when states established black-only public schools,
they tended to be underfunded and overcrowded16.
In 1849 a free black Bostonian by the name of Benjamin Roberts filed the first
case challenging segregation in public schools17. In Roberts v. City of Boston, Roberts
challenged segregation within the Boston public school system, because his daughter had
to walk past five all-white schools on her way to class18. He argued that segregation
violated the Massachusetts Constitution’s principle that all men are born free and equal19.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court sided with the Boston public school system,
holding that the guarantee of equality was met if black and white students had access to
an equal education20. This decision had a profound effect on desegregation within
12
Id.
Id.
14 Id.
15 Id. at 5-6.
16 Id. at 6.
17 Id. at 7.
18 Id.
19 Id.
20 Id.
13
American public schools, because it created the doctrine of “separate but equal,” which
was used to uphold segregation for over a hundred years following Roberts.
Shifting Sentiments in Post-Civil War America
In 1865, in the aftermath of the Civil War, Congress created the Bureau of
Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, which was established to help the
emancipated slaves adjust to a life of freedom21. One of the Bureau’s many goals was to
provide the newly freed slaves with the foundation of an education22. In order to
accomplish this goal, the Bureau coordinated the many religious educational programs
already in existence, and began to build black schools23. Although the Bureau was the
federal government’s first proactive push towards the education of African Americans,
the perceived inherent inferiority of blacks led to vastly inadequate schools24. The
curriculum was focused on reducing illiteracy and teaching basic manual skills instead of
an extensive liberal education25. Around the same time, Congress passed the Civil Rights
Act of 1866, which guaranteed civil rights for all United States citizens and adopted the
Fourteenth Amendment, which promised all citizens the equal protection of the laws.
However, it remained apparent that racial discrimination still flourished within the
country. School integration remained almost nonexistent outside of a few northern states,
and Southern whites largely ignored these new policies26. In addition, the great migration
of African Americans into the northern states following the Civil War created new
problems for northern blacks.
21
Id. at 11.
Id
23 Id.
24 Id. at 12.
25 Id.
26 Id. at 15.
22
As a result of the large migration of blacks northward, most northern states passed
legislation that prohibited school segregation27. However, many of these communities,
including areas in Illinois, maintained separate schools in direct violation of the laws28.
In the first real showing of racially motivated housing practices, it became custom for
school officials to gerrymander district lines in order to create a dual school system29. In
addition, some schools separated black and white students into separate classrooms or put
them in separate buildings on the same plot of land30. In response, several suits were
brought against this de facto segregation and courts often sided with the black petitioners,
however enforcement of these verdicts proved to be nearly impossible31. The rapid flood
of southern blacks into the northern states shifted the majority opinion on integration, and
deceitful residential manipulation decreased the number of integrated schools in the
north32. This shifting sentiment coincided with the Supreme Court showing support for
segregation in its landmark decision in Plessy v. Ferguson.
In Plessy v. Ferugson, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of state
segregation laws33. The majority opinion held that it was a reasonable exercise of state
legislative authority to provide “separate but equal” facilities for white and black
citizens34. In effect, the Court upheld the reasoning used in Roberts v. City of Boston,
even though that decision was made prior to the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of
1866 and to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteeing all citizens equal
27
Id. at 52.
Id.
Id. at 54.
30
Id.
31
Id.
32
Id. at 52.
33
Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 543 (1896).
34
Id.
28
29
rights35. Furthermore, it was apparent that public schools in the United States were far
from equal. Statistics show that in 1890, less than one percent of black students attended
high school, and only one of every three of those students went to a public school36. The
obvious inequality that existed between black and white public schools, combined with
the increased centralization of African American power during the mid-20th century, led
to several court cases that eventually invalidated the reasoning used in Plessy.
A Move Toward Desegregation
During the 1930’s and 1940’s the NAACP took an aggressive stance against
racial discrimination, especially within the area of public education37. Their first success
came in 1935, when a black student challenged his denial from the University of
Maryland Law School38. In Murray v. Pearson, Murray argued that the University of
Maryland was in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment for denying him admission
based solely on race, because there was not a separate law school for black students
within the state39. The Baltimore City Court agreed and ordered that Murray be admitted
to the Law School40. Although the Supreme Court of the United States did not decide the
case, thus limiting its application to similar cases, it created a framework that could be
used to achieve social change through litigation41.
35
National Historic Landmark Survey, Racial Desegregation in Public Education in the
U.S. United States Department of the Interior National Park Service, 31 (August, 2000),
http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/school.pdf
36 Id. at 32.
37 Id. at 55.
38 Id. at 59.
39 Id.
40 Id.
41 Id. at 60.
In the aftermath of Murray, NAACP lawyers challenged segregation policies
within the public school systems of Oklahoma and Texas. In 1948, the Supreme Court
ruled in Sipuel v. Board of Regents that the University of Oklahoma Law School must
admit a student whose application was denied on racial grounds in order to comply with
the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment42. This decision was followed by
Sweatt v. Painter, which proved to be a crucial turning point in the NAACP’s plight for
segregation. In Sweatt, the Supreme Court determined that a newly established law
school for black students did not satisfy the constitutional requirement of equality
because of the disparity in facilities and intangible factors43. The logic applied in these
decisions eventually led to the pivotal holding in Brown v. Board of Education, which
completely changed the landscape of public education in the United States.
In the aftermath of World War II, the overall outlook of minorities in America
changed due to their role in the war effort44. Many African Americans believed that their
involvement in the war would lead to better opportunities, and this hope came to fruition
in 1954 in the Supreme Court’s landmark decision Brown v. Board of Education (Brown
I). In Brown I, the Court found that school segregation was inherently unequal, thus
killing the doctrine of “separate but equal” established in Plessy45. The following year,
the Court issued Brown II, which stated that racially segregated schools should integrate
“with all deliberate speed,” and that the federal district courts would handle the
42
Sipuel v. Board of Regents, 332 U.S. 631 (1948).
Sweatt v. Painter et al., 339 U.S. 629, 631-32 (1950).
44 National Historic Landmark Survey, Racial Desegregation in Public Education in the
U.S. United States Department of the Interior National Park Service, 68 (August, 2000),
http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/school.pdf
45 Id. at 77.
43
enforcement of desegregation46. However, the decree was ambiguous, and many school
systems found ways to circumvent the mandate in order to maintain segregation. Many
districts implemented “freedom of choice” plans that allowed students to choose which
school to attend and resulted in de facto segregation. As a result, in 1968 in Green v.
County Board of Regents of New Kent County the Court found against these “freedom of
choice” plans, and demanded that dual systems be replaced “root and branch” with
unitary ones47. In addition, the Court set out categories in which a school system had to
be free from racial discrimination in order to be relieved of judicial supervision.
Consequently, immediate success was accomplished. Statistics show that only 32% of
black students in the south attended integrated schools in 1968-69, however by 1970-71
the number jumped to 79%48. In spite of this transformation, the success was short lived.
Modern Resegregation
In 1991 in Dowell, the Supreme Court stated that a desegregation order should be
removed once a school system had arranged itself into a unitary system, even if that
would lead to resegregation49. Furthermore, in 1992 the Court held in Freeman v. Pitts
that district courts have the authority to use their discretion in ordering partial withdrawal
of judicial supervision when there has been compliance with a desegregation decree50.
More importantly, the Court stated that once a school district showed a “good-faith”
commitment to the court’s decree, it was no longer in the district court’s authority to
interfere with any resegregation that occurred as a result of independent demographic
46
Id.
Id. at 89.
48 Id.
49 Board of Education of Oklahoma City Public Schools v. Dowell, 498 U.S. 237 (1991).
50 Freeman v. Pitts, 503 U.S. 467, 482 (1992)
47
shifts51. Therefore the Court ultimately legalized de facto segregation within the public
school systems, and as a result, over the past twenty years a swift resegregation trend has
occurred across the country.
According to a 2004 study conducted by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard
University, since Dowell public schools have become more segregated in all regions of
the United States 52. This is extremely detrimental to African American students due to
the inequality that still exists in largely black schools. During the 2001 – 2002 school
year, 88% of public schools with less than 10% white students had concentrated poverty,
which studies have linked to a lack of resource and lower achievement levels53. As
expected, this trend has been witnessed in the once de jure segregated south, but has also
occurred in the north. In fact, the most segregated school systems are located in big cities
in the Northeast and Midwest54. This is often a result of demographic shifts caused by
housing segregation, which makes it no surprise that the Chicago Public School (CPS)
system is one of the most segregated school systems, because Chicago has always been
one of the most segregated metropolitan areas in the United States55.
51
Id. at 469 – 471
Gary Orfield & Chunmei Lee, Brown at 50: King’s Dream or Plessy’s Nightmare?
The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, 2 (January, 2004),
http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED489168.pdf
53 Id. at 21.
54 Amanda Paulson, Resegregation of U.S. Schools Deepening: Districts in Big Cities
of the Midwest and Northeast Undergo the Most Change, The Christian Science
Monitor, (January 25, 2008),
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2008/0125/p01s01-ussc.html
55 Gary Orfield & Chunmei Lee, Brown at 50: King’s Dream or Plessy’s Nightmare?
The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, 6 (January, 2004),
http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED489168.pdf
52
The Chicago Problem
Although the CPS has been desegregated since 1875, in the years following
World War II, school officials in Chicago redrew boundary lines to assure that school
districts remained as segregated as the housing market56. As the black population
increased in the city, schools in black neighborhoods became overcrowded, but demands
for better desegregation were ignored and portable classrooms were added instead57.
This practice led to protests and threats by the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and
Welfare to withhold federal funds until a desegregation plan was implemented58. In
1966, the city attempted to develop an integration plan that would send black students to
white schools, but hostile demonstrations in predominantly white neighborhoods killed
the initiative59. As a result of local failure, the state and federal government intervened
and implemented a court-mandated desegregation plan in 1980, but the plan was too late
to create any sort of real segregation within Chicago’s public schools60. By the time the
plan was implemented, “white flight” had created a drastic loss in white students from the
school system61. Between 1970 and 1990 the white population of Chicago’s public
schools fell by 75%, and by 1990 nearly 2/3 of white school-aged children attended
private school62. Although magnet schools have achieved some integration within the
city, heavy segregation remains the norm in Chicago’s public schools.
56
John L. Rury, School Desegregation, Encyclopedia of Chicago,
http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1121.html (last visited April
19, 2012).
57 Id.
58 Id.
59 Id.
60 Id.
61 Id.
62 Id.
African American students represent 42% of Chicago Public School enrollment63,
but the city ranks fourth in the nation in school segregation64. In addition, 30% of the
public schools in Chicago are 100% African American, and 47% are 90% or more
African American. Furthermore, inequality remains in resources allocation, because
most school funding in Illinois is derived from local taxes65. In fact, Illinois ranks 49th
nationally in the amount of funding provided by the state66. This, along with other
socioeconomic factors, leads to high levels of failure among black students. Nearly 60%
of the African American high school freshmen in the CPS do not graduate with a degree
in four years67. Black students are also less likely than white students to take Advanced
Placement (AP) exams in high school with 70% of AP exams being administered to
Caucasian students, as compared to only 4% by African Americans68. The disparity in
education can also be seen in standardized testing results. The average scores on the
Prairie State Achievement Exam for African American’s are 31.8 for reading and 19.2 for
math, in comparison Caucasian student’s average 66.1 and 62.8 respectively69. Likewise,
Caucasian students average higher scores on the ACT and SAT70.
Much of this racial segregation resulted from covert governmental tactics to keep
homogeneous neighborhoods. In response to the great migration of African Americans to
63
Jesse Jackson, School Suspension Policy in Chicago Brutal, Unfair, Chicago SunTimes, (April 2, 2012), http://www.suntimes.com/news/jackson/11671379-452/schoolsuspension-policy-in-chicago-brutal-unfair.html
64
Loyola University Chicago’s Center for Urban Research and Learning, Segregation in
Chicago 2006: Executive Summary, Loyola University Chicago,
http://www.luc.edu/curl/cfm40/data/minisynthesis.pdf (last visited April 19, 2012).
65 Id.
66 Id.
67 Id.
68 Id.
69 Id.
70 Id.
the industrial north, both the federal and local governments used public housing and
urban renewal programs in order to accomplish racial segregation. On the federal level,
the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) used discriminatory practices to deny
mortgage loans to African Americans71. For example, between 1930 and 1950 three out
of every five homes were purchased with an FHA loan, but less than 2% of these loans
were made to minority homebuyers72. In addition, the federal Neighborhood
Composition Rule required that tenants of public housing be of the same race as the area
in which it was located73. In Chicago, this resulted in most of the housing projects being
built in predominately African American neighborhoods. As a result, the FHA lending
practices and the homogenous urban renewal projects succeeded in creating segregated
neighborhoods and thus deny blacks a real “free choice” as to where they want to live.
After reviewing the history of public school segregation in the United States and
Chicago, it is evident that many factors have contributed to the failure of integrating
school systems. Although school segregation was once caused by racial prejudice, it is
apparent that the principal factor is now racial residential segregation. In modern
America, the real issue lies in the government’s ploys to segregate communities, and the
Supreme Court’s allowance of de facto segregation created by these practices. Although,
the Court was correct in Freeman that it is not within the government’s authority to
control independent demographic shifts, the Court was flawed in applying this concept to
71
Marc Seitles, The Perpetuation of Residential Racial Segregation in America:
Historical Discrimination, Modern Forms of Exclusion, and Inclusionary Remedies,
Florida State University College of Law Journal or Land Use & Environmental Law,
(Fall 1996), http://www.law.fsu.edu/journals/landuse/vol141/seit.htm.
72 Id.
73 Harvey M. Choldin, Chicago Housing Authority, Encyclopedia of Chicago,
http://encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/253.html, (last visited April 19, 2012).
school desegregation. This is because de facto resegregation has not been created by
“independent” demographic shifts, but has resulted from unconstitutional governmental
practices that have pervaded the very fabric of the American system. As a result, unless
policies are implemented to assimilate our society as a whole, it is evident that public
schools in America will never truly integrate.