In June, the U.S. Supreme
Court agreed to review challenges to the two districts' methods of
assigning students to schools, each of which seeks to allow for
parental choice and still achieve racial balance. The Court's ultimate
decision in the review, which took place on December 4th,
could profoundly alter the future ability of local school authorities
to follow integration guidelines established by the Court in Brown v. Board of Education, its landmark 1954 ruling to desegregate
The amicus brief was written by Amy Stuart Wells, Professor of Sociology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and co-signed by the scholars Jay Heubert (Teachers College), Linda Darling-Hammond (Stanford University), Jomills Braddock (University of Miami), Jeannie Oakes (UCLA) and MichaelRebell (Teachers College). It was filed through the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF).
Of the more than 50 briefs that was presented at the audio press conference, Wells' is the only one that focuses specifically on the long-term benefits of integration -- both for the individuals who have lived through it and society as a whole. According to Wells, the value of integrated schooling has become more apparent to its beneficiaries after graduation, with the passing of years. Most say that compared to peers who attended segregated schools, they are more open-minded, less prejudiced, and less fearful of other races. Because of these altered world views, many of the graduates say they find themselves far better prepared for life in a global society and more adept at reaching across cultures and nationalities to function in a global economy.
More broadly, Wells writes, "the social science research since Brown has vindicated" the promise of that ruling, which "gave rise to a new hope: that exposure to integrated settings early in life would improve opportunities for all students, break the cycle of racial separation in the U.S. society as a whole, and yield generations of young Americans more apt to construct an equal open society." Yet, she adds, Brown's purpose "will erode substantially if, as Petitioners contend, local school districts themselves cannot safeguard the integrated setting Brown rightly recognized as crucial."
Enacted in 2001, the Jefferson Country plan, which includes
In a sweeping review of 50 years of social science research, Wells details the long-term personal and societal benefits of integrated schools:
Noting that the Brown decision was based in part on the "undeniable social science evidence of the profound, often lifelong effects of segregation on African American students," the Wells brief also chronicles repeated subsequent rulings of by the Court that support precisely the kinds of integration efforts undertaken by the Seattle and Jefferson County districts:
The brief also includes a review of
two studies conducted by Wells and colleagues. The first study is of
graduates of racially integrated schools in six cites across the
country. The more recent study, and most relevant to these two court
cases, is of graduates of integrated schools in
"If I didn't have [integrated schooling] coming up, I wouldn't have known how to handle... getting along with people, understanding them and their culture, their ways, their style of dress," commented one African American graduate from a Seattle school.
Yet despite such positive responses, schools have steadily re-segregated since the 1980s, as many standing Court orders to districts to integrate were lifted. Wells concludes, "In many districts, absent a concerted effort to safeguard integration, there is little chance that students of different races ever will occupy the same classroom and, as Justice Marshall observed, -'little hope that our people will ever learn to live together.'"
Click
here for a copy of the amicus brief.
