In 1955, the U.S. Supreme Court instructed the states to implement desegregation plans with “all deliberate speed.” This episode of Justice Above All highlights the complexities of realizing equal educational opportunities through desegregation. We explore how, even decades after Brown v. Board of Education, schools in America today remain deeply segregated by race and class and are unequally funded. We discuss what is truly needed to achieve the goals of desegregation and promote equitable educational opportunities for all of America’s students.
Research Manager, Thurgood Marshall Institute
Alumni Specialist, Goodwin University Magnet School System and lead plaintiff in the Sheff v. O'Neill case
Partner, Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight LLP and Co-Founder, Brown’s Promise
Education Fellow, Legal Defense Fund
In 1989, continuing in the tradition of Brown v. Board, the Legal Defense Fund, alongside co-counsel the American Civil Liberties Union, the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union, attorney Wesley Horton, and others, filed the Sheff v. O’Neill complaint on behalf of students in Hartford, Connecticut, public schools who were being denied an education equal to that of their counterparts in suburban school districts due to the racial segregation and the economic disparities between Hartford schools and schools in the nearby suburbs. The integrated educational opportunities established because of the Sheff decision have had a lasting impact on student achievement. Children attending Sheff-related schools are outperforming their counterparts in Hartford schools and are performing extremely well in relation to all other Connecticut students.
LDF successfully convinced a District Court to delay the closure and consolidation of a historically Black high school in Chambers County, Alabama, until the school district builds a new high school. The federal court ruled that the plan for consolidation can proceed, but the Chambers County School District must keep LaFayette High, a majority-Black high school, open until a new school is built. Chambers County is one of nearly forty Alabama school districts under active desegregation orders.
This Thurgood Marshall Institute Brief uplifts the seventieth anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education. Brown was the culmination of groundbreaking legal strategies utilizing the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause to dismantle state-sanctioned segregation in public education. Unfortunately, persistent resistance to eliminating both the “root and branch” of segregation on the local, state, and federal levels has hindered the full realization of Brown’s promise.
This report by Brown’s Promise, the Education Law Center, and the National Coalition on School Diversity persuasively argues that school integration is as important as ever before. The authors document how a core purpose of public education is to prepare all students for their future workplaces, communities, and democratic institutions, many of which are growing more diverse by the year. They then share a vision for fairness and flourishing in our educational systems.
Justice Above All Podcast
Justice Above All Podcast
