Desegregation by Consent Decree? Necessary, Brief, Insufficient

• In Event: 81.018 - Who Sets the Agenda? Exploring the Role of the Courts, Intermediary Organizations, and State Regulators

Abstract

In this paper, I examine whether consent decrees issued to desegregate the University of North Carolina, a stand-in for southern higher-education systems, actually accomplished their goals of equalizing state appropriations and diffusing enrollments by race among public Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Traditionally White Institutions (TWIs). Applying a difference-in-differences econometric strategy to archival enrollment-by-race data, I find that the 1981 North Carolina consent decree did not lead to equalization of state appropriations, and that ending it in 1986 led to a 7-percent relative decline in appropriations among HBCUs. Against this finding, the concurrent desegregations of HBCUs by 9 percent more White students during the Consent-Decree era and 13 percent more White students in the post-Consent-Decree era seem counterintuitive.

Author

• Matthew Patrick Shaw, Vanderbilt University