By Brittany Northcross

Surveying the 3.7 million square miles that comprise the United States, it is hard to find any uniformly common trait among the American people. Today, the U.S. is more racially, religiously, and socioeconomically diverse that at any point in its 200-plus-year history. Nowhere is this multicultural trend more prevalent than in the American public school system, where 40 percent of students are minorities. Despite the growth of cultural diversity in the United States, school segregation actually appears to be more rampant today than at the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, though citizens and students are not as aware of the problem. Whether governed by racism, demographic trends, or school district practicality, the ethnic “melting pot” in American public schools is beginning to look like it contains oil and water.

History of Racial Segregation

Racial segregation is an embarrassing, but unavoidable, part of American history. With segregation constitutionally affirmed in the infamous 1896 Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson, the United States continued upon 60 years of “separate but equal” policies of division along racial lines. In 1954, the Warren Court drastically changed the status quo of race relations in America with the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. Institutional segregation in public schools was outlawed, with racially separate facilities found to be inherently unequal. After a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court forced all states to desegregate their public education, though it would be another 15 years before all school districts fully complied with the ruling.

Segregation by the Numbers

Was school segregation just a shameful and closed period of American history? Many would say no; though there have not been any steps toward re-institutionalizing segregation, studies completed by civil rights advocacy groups have found observable trends in that direction. Since the 1990s, Gary Orfield, professor of education and social pHarvard’se Graduate School of Education and director of that university’s Human Rights Project, has released an annual study detailing the increasing racial segregation in American public schools. In the Civil Right’s Project most recent report – January 2006 – Orfield’s study showed that the most segregated population of students are white, while black and Latino students are increasingly attending schools that are at least 50 percent minority

Furthermore, segregation has grown in places like the Northwest, Northeast and Southwest due to new minority and white settlement patterns. In Michigan, New York, Illinois, and California, the average African American student attends a school where less than 25 percent of his peers are white. Ironically, in the South, where segregation was most dominant, the average black student is attending a school where 66 percent of his peers are white. On the national level, the average African-American and Latino student attend schools that are 28 to 30 percent Caucasian, even though white students are 60 percent of the enrolled population. In contrast, the average white student attends a school that is 78 percent white.

This trend toward resegregation can be attributed to two main causes. First, resegregation happened as a byproduct of neighborhood segregation as white, middle class families moved to suburban areas, leaving urban minority families in poorer neighborhoods with lower quality schools. Second, starting in 1990, a series of US Supreme Court rulings authorized the termination of desegregation plans, arguing that school boards had done enough to desegregate and that their goals had been met. As a result, school districts turned their focus away from desegregation efforts. Whereas 66 percent of African Americans attended majority minority schools before the rulings, in 2004, that number had jumped to 73 percent.

Why Does It Matter?

The segregation of students along racial lines leads to a problem in the American education system and affects the country’s ability to sustain its growth and success. Minorities are fast becoming the majority of students in public education, with Caucasian representation declining from 80 percent in the 1970s to less than 60 percent today. This trend is only expected to continue as the birth rate of minorities continues to exceed that of whites.

Racial segregation is systematically linked to other forms of inequality, particularly socioeconomic success and academic achievement. By Orfield’s measurements, achievement scores and the retention rate of qualified teachers are lower in segregated, minority-majority schools. In the 1980s, when desegregation was at its peak, the high school dropout rate of minority students was in sharp decline. Today, that rate has significantly risen, to a point where more than half of black and Latino students are dropping out of high school. Levels of concentrated poverty are highest in urban minority schools, where students receive as much as $1400 less than their richer counterparts.

Michael Wotorson of the NAACP maintains that the segregation of students “is not just about color and having a black, white, Latino or Asian student sitting together in a class room. It is about opportunity and having equal, high quality resources available to all public school students, not just the ones in certain neighborhoods. Caucasian students are disproportionately found in better schools.” In other words, the problem is not just a lack of diversity, but also a disparity in the resources available to minority students.

From 1954 to the 21st Century

The question that remains is, can desegregation be maintained given the demography of America today and current judicial opinion? Stephan Thernstrom, History Professor of Race and Race Relations at Harvard University argues that “less than 50 percent of all students are non-white in Texas, California, Hawaii, so you can’t have an integrated school by Orfield’s terms. The demography in America is completely different from what it was in the 1970s.” It would be neither feasible nor preferable to have all minorities enrolled in schools that are majority white, according to this view.

It seems the most effective way to seriously combat school resegregation is to integrate neighborhoods, but that decision ultimately lies with local school districts. Magnet schools, voluntary transfer, and choice enrollment policies have all been suggested as localized solutions to resegregation. As Wotorson notes, “With rollback of Brown v. Board, legislation may have to be passed to protect these students. But the most significant change will come from individuals who ask: ‘What do I want for my country? My community? My child?” If the answer is desegregated schools, it is clear that Americans of all races have a long battle ahead.

All statistics taken from:
Gary Orfield and Chungmei Lee. “Racial Transformation and the Changing Nature of Segregation”. Harvard Civil Rights Project: January 2006.