What accounts for the variation in southern state colleges and universities responses to initial desegregation? This article analyzes southern state university responses to qualified Black students' applications to historically white public colleges. Furthermore, the study tests V.O. Key's hypothesis in Southern Politics in State and Nation--that…

Argues that Brown v. Board of Education outlawing segregation in public schools has had a negligible impact on longstanding practices of unequal funding of publicly operated state universities. Suggests that black colleges and universities in many states continue to receive significantly less funding than their predominantly-white sister…