May 2020 was the 66th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in "Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka." In this case, perhaps the most important ruling of the 20th century, the Supreme Court ruled that the racial segregation of Black children in public schools was unconstitutional. In addition, the ruling in "Brown v.…

Conceptualizing and measuring trends in segregation in higher education is difficult as both vertical and horizontal sorting is prevalent and patterns vary across racial groups. In this paper, we measure various trends in racial segregation in California for 20 years. We find significant sorting by race both between and within sectors of higher…

In January 1932, two white women--Agnes Boeing Ilsley and Mina Buckner--were murdered in Ilsley's home in rural Middleburg, Virginia. Suspicion of who the murderer was settled on George Crawford, an African American man who was sometimes employed by Mrs. Ilsley to do various jobs, including serving as her chauffeur (Virginia Circuit Court 1933,…

In 1955, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church called for the racial desegregation of Episcopal institutions: parishes, seminaries, and schools. The study of Episcopal school desegregation reveals a fundamental paradox: Episcopal theology promoted desegregation but "white flight" spurred Episcopal school growth. The question of…

This essay attempts to show how the Social Darwinist thinking of white racial superiority, and so, ultimately, white supremacy, came to be institutionalised in law in South Africa. It looks specifically at the making and institutionalisation of the School Board Act (SBA) of 1905 of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope. It argues that the SBA…

Schools in the United States continue to be segregated by race and socioeconomic status, almost 70 years after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling that aimed to desegregate schools. Segregation exists in three ways in K-12 schools: (1) Across districts. This is the case in about two-thirds of segregation in metropolitan areas; (2)…

This article reconstructs the story behind "Freeman v. Pitts" (1992), one of the main US Supreme Court cases that made it easier for school districts to terminate court desegregation orders and that, in turn, helped to propel a widely documented trend: the resegregation of southern schools. The case in part hinged on the question of…

Demographics in the U.S. have changed dramatically over the last three decades. Indiana's demographics are changing, too--albeit less dramatically. To explore how demographic shifts are changing the composition of Indiana's schools, the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy (CEEP) uses Common Core of Data (CCD) school enrollment data from the…

Students are more racially segregated in schools today than they were in the late 1960s and prior to the enforcement of court-ordered desegregation in school districts across the country. This special issue addresses the overarching theme of policies, practices, or roles and responsibilities of various stakeholders that may directly or indirectly…

To introduce their examination of the social production of segregated space and power relations in Oxnard, California from 1934 to 1954, the authors utilize portions of a letter written by Alice Shaffer, April 21, 1938, to the Oxnard School Board of Trustees. Shaffer outlines the seemingly shared concerns of her neighbors about a disruption of the…

Noting the nation's renewed attention to remedying school segregation, "Segregation, Race, and Charter Schools" presents evidence about the extent of school segregation and its relationship with improving student achievement for students of color. The report argues that school segregation has remained flat for decades and also argues…

The Commonwealth of Kentucky was identified in the Adams v Richardson case as one of the nineteen states that were cited for providing separate but equal education for black and white students in higher education. The Office of Civil Rights (OCR) required the state of Kentucky to develop a voluntary desegregation plan for its state institutions to…

During the aftermath of the First Red Scare in the 1930s and during the early stages of the Cold War in the 1940s, the United States engaged in a great national effort to preserve and protect its capitalist system from international rival--the communist Soviet Union. In the American South, states such as Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama faced a…

We examine whether the legal decision to grant unitary status to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district, which led to the end of race-conscious student assignment policies, increased the probability that families with children enrolled in the district would move to neighborhoods with a greater proportion of student residents of the same race as…

This report analyzes the data on changes in patterns of racial segregation and their education consequences over a quarter century, from l987 to 2012. It examines a major transition in the racial and ethnic composition of Connecticut and the changes in integration and segregation in the schools of the state and its urban communities and it…