The Impact of Law on African American Males

Abstract

This article analyzes whether federal and state constitutional and statutory provisions sufficiently protect African American male students from racism in public education. The first section explains how structural racism and unconscious racism have worked in tandem to prevent many African American males from experiencing the promise of equal educational opportunity in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). The second section examines the two federal laws that are primarily invoked to protect African Americans from governmental discrimination: (a) the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and (b) Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The third section explains whether legal arguments arising from the accountability movement might enable African American males to obtain remedies from the effects of structural and unconscious racism. Three provisions are examined: (a) the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, (b) state education clauses, and (c) the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.