What Causes Present-Day School Segregation?

Over 70 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Brown vs. Board of Education case that public school segregation is unconstitutional. But since then, some schools across the country have remained segregated due to school choice, political influence over district boundaries, transportation challenges and more. 

After his inauguration in January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to expand school choice programs, which many experts say increases school segregation. 

Experts spoke about what segregation looks like today, the historical context of the 1954 Supreme Court case and integration strategies since then during EWA’s 2024 National Seminar in Las Vegas. Many points from this conversation are still pertinent today, and they will provide useful background and context to help journalists with their education coverage. 

Here’s what reporters should know about the discussion, which was moderated by Catherine Carrera, bureau chief for Chalkbeat Newark.

The Participants 

• Alejandra Vázquez Baur, fellow, The Century Foundation (She manages an initiative, Bridges Collaborative, that champions school integration.)
• Erica Frankenberg, professor of education and demography, Pennsylvania State University
• Janel George, associate professor of law, Georgetown University Law Center; founding director, Racial Equity in Education Law and Policy Clinic

6 Questions Asked About School Segregation and Integration Efforts 

1. What is the historical context of Brown v. Board of Education, and how does that shape today’s education landscape? 

Janel George:  Generally, when people hear of Brown v. Board, they understand it to be a ruling that dismantled the idea of separate but equal in education and throughout American society. 

But the context of education being denied to Black people goes further back in history to when Black people, enslaved and free, were denied public education through slave codes. And after the Civil War, when public education became more widely available, codes were still implemented to restrict education and freedoms of Black people. History has shown that there have been different strategies to deny public education for Black people and maintain second-class citizenship. 

Brown vs. Board was a culmination of over 100 years of Black people and activists fighting against those ideals. Some of those people include Charles Hamilton Houston, the late founder of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and vice dean of Howard Law, who teamed up with his student, Thurgood Marshall, to challenge the Jim Crow regime and its educational impacts. 

• In 1947, the Mendez v. Westminster School District of Orange County landmark case ended school segregation in California. A group of Mexican American families brought a federal class-action lawsuit to challenge school segregation in the county and won. Thurgood Marshall represented the Mendez family in the case. Cases like Mendez set the stage for Brown vs. Board.
• A case that people rarely talk about is Brown II. In 1955, the Supreme Court ruled that schools must desegregate, “with all deliberate speed,”  which many southern jurisdictions interpreted as no speed. In opposition to the ruling of Brown v. Board, 96 congressmen from 11 states wrote the “Southern Manifesto,” which detailed resistance toward racial integration. A lot of southern school districts evaded federal orders by creating strategies, such as vouchers and private schools, to maintain segregated schools and invest less in the public education of Black students.We also see the loss of Black educators during this time because desegregation was not only about Black students going to white schools, but that white students would attend Black schools. However, many white parents did not want their children to be taught by a Black educator, which resulted in Black teachers being fired.
• In 1968, the Supreme Court ruled in the Green vs. County School Board in New Kent County that “freedom of choice” policies were not helping to desegregate schools. This follow up to Brown emphasized integration in every aspect of education, such as in school operations, faculty, transportation, extracurricular activities. 

2. What does research tell us about present-day segregation? 

Erica Frankenberg: Today, we have a more racially diverse K-12 student population, and the class cohorts going into public education are majority students of color. 

• A trend that we see in regards to school segregation that’s not often talked about is that white students still have the least exposure to students of other races in their school.
  
  This matters because research shows that students benefit from going to racially desegregated schools, and this can be impacted by the racial composition of different regions and structure of school districts.
• Two more trends that impact school desegregation are attendance zones, which involve  a lot of political decision-making, and school choice, which can enforce segregation in a number of different ways.In the South, we’re also seeing a pattern of school district secession, in which communities are pulling away from larger heterogeneous counties. The courts also play a role in this conversation because there is a growing number of cases being brought up to challenge school district boundaries.

3. What are Bridges Collaborative’s approaches to integration? 

Alejandra Vazquez Baur: Our idea for the Bridges Collaborative came from the idea that collaboration is needed to solve school integration. That looks like not only working with school districts but also those of charter school networks and housing organizations since we know that housing impacts school segregation. 

This initiative, which started in 2020, brought together these different communities in order to talk about the challenges we face with integration and bringing that to the attention of national leaders. We work with organizations across the country to increase the number of students attending diverse schools by building partnerships and providing strategic support. 

We also conduct research and push for policy change at the local, state and national levels. We have 19 states that are represented by our membership, and some of these states – such as North Carolina – have multiple school districts and community organizations. 

For us, we follow the framework of “The 5Rs of Real Integration” which was created by students in New York City, one of the most segregated school districts in the country. 

1. The first R is related to race and enrollment and that we are not isolating students from another. 
2. Second is restorative justice and that kids must be treated like kids and not criminals, particularly noting the experiences of Black and brown students. 
3. Third is resources and recognizing that integration is about resource equity and that schools need to have adequate resources for all students. 
4. Fourth is representation, which goes into the teacher workforce and who is leading schools at the district, state and federal level. 
5. Lastly, relationships and building safe connections between school leaders and students is important to ensuring that integrated schools feel safe for students. 

Our work looks different in different states and cities – in Seattle, Washington, we’re looking at school choice policies, and in Tucson, Arizona, we’re looking at how migration has impacted community demographics. 

4. What are some different strategies for addressing segregation, and how broad is their impact?

Erica Frankenberg: There are different categories of student-assignment strategies depending on whether you just want to focus within your district or in a broader sense of your region. We’re seeing regions and even in between districts responding to federal incentives for grant funding. 

• If you choose to focus on district boundaries, you can use school choice to see how that impacts the diversity of individual schools and compare that with other schools like magnets. 
• Another approach is how you think about diversity and whether that is through free or reduced lunch, census data, household educational attainment and/or the rate of students that attended preschool. 
• Lastly, infrastructure is important in making these things happen, such as looking into the transportation provided by schools. 

Janel George: The federal government has a small role in supporting integration. Previously, there was a larger federal involvement in funding schools post Brown vs. Board, but now federal funding is relatively low. But those federal funds can be vital for a school district that has limited funding. Also, a lot of districts aren’t aware of the availability of federal funds to help with transportation, which in turn helps school integration. 

Alejandra Vazquez Baur: Another strategy that we’re seeing being implemented across the country is dual language. We’ve seen districts put dual language on federal grant applications as a way to implement integration models. The value of bilingualism is being highlighted as communities continue to diversify and migration patterns impact community demographics. Through our research, we’ve seen more than 50% of families wanting their children in programs that support bilingualism, throughout all ages and racial demographics. 

5. What role does housing policy play in school segregation?  How should education reporters  incorporate housing policy into their coverage?  

Alejandra Vazquez Baur: Our work at the Bridges Collective isn’t only about bringing various leaders into a room to have a conversation but also to push affordable housing options into the hands of families that need it. 

Our research has shown that, unfortunately, talking about educational equity is not a motivator for integrating communities or public interest in housing policies. Specifically in the state of New York, fears of overcrowding and competition of resources were points of opposition for housing reform. 

Talking about school integration created fear, particularly when you approached it from a justice lens. This was a surprising finding for us, but it led us to think about how we message housing. We’ve conducted more research with our members, specifically school districts who are building housing partnerships, to think more about this messaging. 

6. Erica Frankenberg and a colleague  wrote an opinion piece about how the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action in higher education relates to inequities at the K-12 level. What should reporters know about that? 

Erica Frankenberg: My colleague Genevieve Siegel-Hawley and I wrote this piece for multiple reasons, one being that Chief Justice [John] Roberts’s majority opinion in that case assumed that K-12 education was available to everyone; therefore, there was less of a need for affirmative action. 

We know that is not the reality in our country. But if our courts share this point of view, then we really need to think about how to achieve that. That leads into conversations about school integration and physical equity. 

We also wrote the piece to highlight to K-12 educators and policymakers that there was nothing in their majority opinions about K-12 education, despite it being interpreted that way. 

And lastly, we need higher ed and K-12 to work together to advance racial justice. We sometimes see them as separate education departments instead of seeing that everyone who applies to higher ed institutions come from K-12 schools — we collectively have to think about inequality and racial segregation. 

Story Ideas 

• What does school segregation look like in your state, city and local community? 
• How do local affordable housing policies impact school districts? 
• Does your school district use dual language as an integration model? 

Reporting Resources

• Education Updates: Striking Down “Freedom of Choice” Plans for School Desegregation: Green v. New Kent County
• Integrate NYC: The 5Rs of Real Integration
• Oyez: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (2)
• Stanford Graduate School of Education: 70 years after Brown v. Board of Education, new research shows rise in school segregation
• The Hill: Social science explains why K-12 integration efforts should continue
• United States Courts: Background – Mendez v. Westminster Re-Enactment