Does the negro need a magnet school?; Examining BlackPlacemaking and Whiteness as Property in school choice in Dallas ISD

• In Event: Research in Progress Roundtable Session 3
  In Invited Roundtable: School Choice: Equity, Race, and Parental Decision-Making (Table 5)

Abstract

This study examines Lincoln High School in South Dallas, a historically Black school rebranded as a magnet program in the 1970s to fulfill federal desegregation mandates. Despite significant investments, the school enrolled only one white student in its first decade, with blame placed on the Black school. Using Cheryl Harris’s Whiteness as Property (1993) and Hunter et al.'s Black Placemaking (2016), this research explores how Black communities navigated, resisted, and reshaped desegregation policies. Preliminary findings reveal that magnet education reinforced whiteness through resource allocation, exclusion, and reputation, while Black communities co-created and sustained spaces of resistance. Drawing on archival materials and oral histories, this study centers Black voices, complicating the legacy of school choice and magnet education.

Author

• Bethany Bass, Stanford University