Desegregation of Schools

In the 21st century, school desegregation is still inextricably linked to the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education (1954) decision, which declared racially segregated schools illegal. However, 10 years after Brown, not only were the [Page 282]courts still undecided about what desegregation really meant, but the ruling in Brown had largely been ignored, especially in the South. To put an end to deliberate delays in desegregation, the 1964 Civil Rights Act ordered desegregation to achieve equality of educational opportunity—which is the idea that all people have an equal chance of achieving regardless of race, sex, or class. In general, the concept of school desegregation has influenced the curriculum studies field by providing an important historical backdrop that informs the development and design of the methods, policies, and procedures of this field to ensure that in a pluralistic society such as the United States the curriculum in schools is culturally, socially, and economically relevant and geared toward the equitable and successful education of all students.

Despite three major waves of desegregation efforts in the United States as a strategy to pursue equality of educational opportunity and to overcome school segregation, unequal access to courses, and unequal educational outcomes, over half a century since this landmark decision, schools in the United States are reportedly more racially segregated than ever before. In fact, as a result of Supreme Court decisions in the early 1990s, such as Dowell v. Board of Education of Oklahoma City Public Schools (1991) and Freeman v. Pitts (1992), as well as most recently Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 (2007), public schools are becoming more segregated than before Brown. The current reseg-regation of schools, and failure to achieve the desegregation promised by Brown, is largely a result of rampant confusion about what desegregation actually means and how it is best achieved, as well as a result of fundamental differences between the related concepts of desegregation and integration of schools that has historically impeded, and continues to impede real progress in school desegregation efforts.

Although fundamentally different, desegregation and integration are often used interchangeably. Desegregation of schools is an equality of educational opportunity concept that refers to the idea that students of diverse racial backgrounds should attend the same schools as opposed to racially isolated and identifiable schools that are often marked by sweeping differences in resources, facilities, funding, curricula, and personnel. In contrast, the integration of schools occurs not only when students of different racial backgrounds attend the same schools, but also when conscious and effective steps have been taken to overcome educational disadvantages and inequities that minority students in these environments often experience and to encourage and develop positive interracial interactions and relationships. In spite of the common, yet inappropriate, conflation of these concepts, the desegregation of schools, more so than integration, has been a major educational goal in the United States, as evidenced by numerous legal battles, court rulings, educational and social policies, and entire social justice movements over the last 50 years.

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