The Impact of Court-Ordered Desegregation on Student Enrollment and Residential Patterns (White Flight)

Abstract

Since the 1954 Supreme Court decision (Brown v. Board of Education), public school systems in the United States have been under pressure to desegregate in order to provide equal educational opportunity for all students. One of the methods used by courts is systematic transfer of white and black students in such a way as to break down segregation patterns. This process usually requires the busing of students. Objections have been raised concerning this method because it is believed that it fosters a type of residential movement called White Flight. The research that exists on this subject is not particularly useful and consists mainly of the use of surveys of cities in attempts to explain the relationship between desegregation and white flight. The purpose of this study was to determine if white flight was occurring as a result of the court-ordered metropolitan busing plan being implemented in Jefferson County, Kentucky. Careful analyses of enrollment trends in Jefferson County over the past ten years failed to reveal any substantial net loss resulting from white flight*. Enrollment in non-public schools which had been declining over the last few years did have an increase at about the same time as the imposition of court-ordered desegregation. Based on this example it therefore was concluded that at least in the case of a metropolitan busing plan the existence of residential white flight should not be assumed.