Segregation Academies: The Effect of “Whites Only” Private Education on Public Schools

• In Event: Causes and Effects of School Stratification by Income and Race

Abstract

In response to public schools integrating in the 1960s and 1970s, Southern white parents organized all-white private schools known as “segregation academies.” Building a data set of the universe of segregation academies, I estimate the effects of the opening of a local segregation academy on public school enrollment. On average, a segregation academy causes total public school enrollment to decline by 14% across the Deep South. Evidence from Alabama and Louisiana, where I can measure enrollment by race, suggests white students drive this decline: openings cause a 36% decrease in white public enrollment, but have no effect on Black public enrollment. These schools offset approximately 1/2 of court-ordered improvements in school integration. Consistent with a simple model of taste-based discrimination and costly outside options, these effects are largest in rural counties with a history of racial animus, low household income, and a high percentage of Black population.

Author

• Danielle Graves Williamson, Boston University
  Presenting Author