It's All De Jure: Examining Northern Complicity in Educational Inequality

• In Event: Closing Educational Opportunity Gaps: Exploring a Federal Right to Education

Abstract

Objectives
In this paper, I argue that ALL school segregation is de jure, whether it occurs through the establishment of separate schools or whether it is a result of more “upstream” practices, like the establishment of restrictive covenants, redlining, or discriminatory housing financing and policies.

Perspectives/Theoretical Framework
The narrative about public school segregation in the United States typically casts southern states as villains because of their practice of de jure segregation, or segregation by law. Under this view, the South was committed to entrenching the “separate but equal” doctrine the Supreme Court established in Plessy v. Ferguson (1898) in the context of education. The North, according to this narrative, did not engage in de jure racial segregation. To the extent that schools were segregated in the North, that was a product of de facto racial segregation, or a matter of circumstance based on housing patterns.

Methods/Data Sources
To substantiate this claim, I offer a brief description of the prevailing post-Civil war narratives in the North and in the South. I then examine southern strategies to undermine the landmark Brown v. Board of Education (1954) decision, with a particular focus on how pieces of that strategy transcended the North and figured prominently in the mid-Western state of Missouri.

Results
Finally, I highlight massive housing discrimination along the northeast coast and link it to school segregation to further support the thesis that all school segregation in the US is de jure. Thus, federal school level interventions are likely to be effective without more extensive systemic changes.

Significance
The scientific or scholarly significance of this study lies in its critical reassessment of school segregation in the United States. The paper challenges conventional historical narratives by arguing that all school segregation is de jure, and offers insights that can inform policy and action towards achieving greater educational equity.

Author

• Gloria J. Ladson-Billings, University of Wisconsin - Madison