Desegregation, Racial Equity, and Urban Education Reform: Legacies of Racial Contestation in Present-Day Chicago

• In Event: Desegregation Policies and Programs Post-Brown

Abstract

Existing historical accounts of contemporary urban school reform pinpoint a fundamental paradigm shift, typically located during the 1980’s, that marks a departure from the equity-oriented policies of the Civil Rights Era. This paper argues that this dichotomy rests on a mischaracterization of Civil Rights Era reforms nominally intended to address racial inequality. Focusing on the seminal case of Chicago, I draw on archival sources characterizing the implementation of the Chicago Board of Education’s Comprehensive Desegregation Plan of 1981 to complicate the dichotomy between past racial equity reforms and today’s neoliberal education policy.

Author

• Fithawee Tzeggai, University of California - Berkeley