A Critique of the Taeuber Index as a Measure of School Desegregation: A Case Study

Abstract

Although 1954 Brown decision is viewed as landmark in legal struggle, high point of mass struggle to desegregate this nation's public schools is most often associated with historical epoch of 1960s' civil rights movement.' In Cincinnati, Ohio, this period of militant activism and mass struggle manifested itself in form of massive demonstrations, school boycotts, and petition drives combined with litigation, which according to Washington,2 culminated in election of the liberal school board in 1971. On December 10, 1973, the liberal school board adopted a resolution that would have desegregated Cincinnati School System to degree that every school in city district would be composed of roughly 49 percent Black children and 51 percent white when classes began following September, thus bringing to an end maintenance of neighborhood schools. However, plan was never implemented, because in next election most conservative sectors of Cincinnati's civic elite uti-