Racial Politics and the Role of Coded Appeals in Preserving Educational Inequity in the Post-Brown Era

• In Event: 34.050 - Boundaries and Borders: The Political and Social Context of Segregation and Spatial Inequality

Abstract

Regardless of contradictory evidence of their policies’ effects on communities of color, market reformers often invoke equity-oriented rhetoric in their efforts, suggesting that this discourse resonates with various groups despite evidence to the contrary. This investigation explores this disjuncture by analyzing its emergence. I engage in a historical, discursive analysis of the rhetoric employed by prominent political figures amid five reform waves in the 60 years since Brown. Drawing upon primary and secondary sources, I examine the racially coded appeals that characterized each wave to elucidate who the appeals were intended to reach and what they were in service of. In doing so, I analyze how the shifting rhetoric around educational reform has affected the advancement of racial equity.

Author

• Laura Elena Hernandez, University of California - Berkeley