Legacies of Brown versus Board: An Introduction to the Special Issue

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

Public education is a fully racialized endeavor, even though we hoped that a Supreme Court decision, now known as the Brown decision, over 50 years ago would put an end to racialized schooling. About 50 years ago, many knew the evils of segregation based on race and knew that it could not be either morally or legally justified. However, privilege had been constructed historically on the basis of racial oppression, and this was not going to be easily remedied by even a Supreme Court decision. The Brown decision was made and largely ignored, especially in the South where segregation had been the law of the land. It took many subsequent court battles, a civil rights movement, and years of concerted efforts to end legal racial segregation in the schools. All of this was required because there was active, and all too often violent, opposition by whites who understood that their position in society was based in a system of racial superiority. In this, they were largely correct. Bell (1995) argues that the Brown decision is often misinterpreted. It was not about a white majority finally realizing the immorality of segregation. It was not due to the success of a civil rights movement in confronting racist powers. It was not due to the slow accrual of legal decisions that eventually got the equal protection doctrine right. Bell argues that these stories are actually efforts to shore up white privilege. These stories end up showing whites as morally superior, African Americans as belligerent and self-serving, and the legal system as ultimately fair. These stories end up reinforcing the perception that desegregation happened and equality has been achieved. Thus the differences we see now between races must result from the character of the racial groups themselves. Here we see a new form of white supremacy being constructed out of the ashes of the old. The new supremacy uses the concept of equality to deny that races are treated differently in our society and in our schools. Moreover, the assertion that equality has been achieved allows an argument to be made against ongoing remedies (let alone reparations) for racial