K-12 Integration
The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race & Ethnicity Official Response to the Supreme Court's decisions on: Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education
The Kirwan Institute's response in full
The ruling by the court is indeed disturbing insofar as it appears to limit the tools available to achieve racial integration and fulfill the promise of Brown. What has not been widely reported is how "for the first time in its history" the majority of the court recognizes a compelling government interest not only in ending state-sponsored (de jure) segregation, as in Brown, or in pursuing diversity in higher education, as in the University of Michigan affirmative action case Grutter v. Bollinger, but also in remedying racial isolation, regardless of its cause. (more...)
"Schools and race: picking up the pieces" (pdf) by Larry Gossett and john a. powell in The Seattle Times, July 6, 2007
K-12 Diversity: Strategies for Diverse & Successful Schools
This concept paper reports results of preliminary analyses using two race-neutral models that we believe have promise to identify areas of racial isolation: 1) an approach that targets neighborhoods of spatially concentrated poverty, and 2) a multi-factor analysis that identifies neighborhoods of low educational opportunity. Our preliminary analyses suggest that under different demographic and geographic conditions, different models may be more or less useful in identifying areas of racial isolation. This paper provides a menu of analytical options for school assignment decisions to school districts struggling to respond to the Supreme Court's recent mandate. (more...)
Professors of the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law discuss the Supreme Court's decisions, July 5, 2007 [play audio]
Featured experts: john a. powell, Ruth Colker, Edward B. "Ned" Foley, and Daniel P. Tokaji
Moderated by: Nancy H. Rogers, Dean & Michael E. Moritz Chair in Alternative Dispute Resolution
Constitutionality of the Supreme Court Decision
In Seattle, Washington and Jefferson County, Kentucky, school boards adopted racial tie-breaker plans designed to help integrate their respective school districts. Parents of nonminority students sued the school boards alleging that their children were discriminated against in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. (more...)
The Relationship between Housing and School Segregation
The issues of residential and school segregation are deeply entwined, both because perceptions of school quality so powerfully influence parents' residential choices, and because children typically attend schools close to home. Segregated housing patterns fuel segregated classrooms and disparate educational outcomes. In turn, low quality public schools reinforce segregated housing patterns due to the strong correlation between housing prices and public school quality. The quality of education is the most important factor driving many White families out of urban school districts. The result of these patterns is a downward spiral of continued White flight, flight of higher income families and racial/economic segregation in our urban school districts. In short, school segregation is both an important outcome and a crucial source of residential segregation.
Resources from related Kirwan Institute projects which highlight the relationship between segregation in our schools and neighborhoods:
The Impacts of Housing Segregation on Students of Color
The Impact of Racial and Economic Segregation in Ohio
The Impact of Economic and Racial Segregation in Columbus, OH Schools
The Impact of Economic and Racial Segregation in Richmond, VA Schools
For more reading, please refer to "In Pursuit of a Dream Deferred: Linking Housing and Education Policy" edited by john powell and Gavin Kearney.
An Amicus Brief submitted by the Kirwan Institute
Submitted in collaboration with some of the nation's leading scholars on the structural and institutional dynamics underlying persistent racial exclusion in the United States.
The brief locates the current controversy in the context of Brown v. Board of Education and its progeny. In these cases the court identified the harm of segregation and recognized the important role school boards play in ameliorating this harm through the use of race-conscious measures. The brief argues that school boards may intervene to disrupt the processes that produce segregation and cumulative racialized disadvantage.
The Opportunity Agenda's key messages on Affirming Diversity in Education
Additional Resources:
Seattle and Louisville Briefing Paper
Louisville Fact Sheet
Seattle Fact Sheet
Race-Neutral Alternatives Fact Sheet
