The Brown Decision's Other Legacy: Civic Education and the Rodriguez Case

Abstract

Youngstown State University T he publication of Gerald Rosenberg's The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change? (1991) spawned an ongoing argument among legal scholars about the effect that Brown v. Board of Education (1954) had on the civil rights movement and the end of legal segregation. Whatever the Court's precise causal role compared to subsequent waves of protest and legislation, desegregation remained on the public agenda. The same cannot be said for Brown's lesson about the civic importance of education. Indeed, in the 50 years since Brown v. Board of Education the very notion of education providing a civic benefit has been drowned out by an emphasis on its economic (sometimes social, but mainly individual) benefits. Where democratic theorists such as Benjamin Barber (1998, 220) observe that the logic of democracy begins with public education, proceeds to informed citizenship, and comes to fruition in the securing of rights and liberties, politicians argue that we ought to measure every school by one high standard: Are our children learning what they need to know to compete and win in the global economy?' Although it is difficult to identify its genesis, one can cite instances and cases that both contributed to and were symptomatic of this change in understanding about the civic nature of education. One case