School Desegregation

For several reasons, the Supreme Court Ruled that segregating educational institutes was unconstitutional. Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling, was the result of multiple actions contesting segregation based on race in school districts around the country that were brought as a component of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s plan to outlaw the practice nationally (Erickson, 2019). In the cited instance, a Black man by the name of Oliver Brown challenged the Topeka, Kansas, Board of Education for denying his child, Linda, the right to attend the neighborhood primary school only on the basis of her color.

The supreme court ruling did not only apply to African American students but also other students of color. There were several issues with desegregation. First, Sadly, desegregation was not planned nor quick.  In order to uphold the commitment of Brown during the ferocious and frequently vehement “massive resistance,” LDF challenged most school systems nationwide (Erickson, 2019). The Supreme Court did not order that isolation be eliminated, specify what needs to be taken into account to do so, or guarantee that the district courts of the United States had the power to make that happen until LDF’s following achievements in 1971’s Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg and 1968’s Green v. County School Board.

Because the Brown decision did not immediately alter the country, a great deal still has to be done. However, the desegregation of public schools across the country was a major catalyst for the struggle for civil rights, opening the door for advancements in living expenses, public spaces, and higher education institutions. I can make several connections to local districts incorporating desegregation in Mansfield. It is a difficult and perplexing topic to determine what could be done to compel integration if every member of a local school district or accountable state agencies refused to follow a court order (Erickson, 2019). Such offenders might not be worth fining or imprisoning. The potential that a scenario like this will occur is not wholly speculative, despite the fact that tribunals may take care to delay setting dates for integration in areas where resistance to it is strong.

Reference

Erickson, A. T. (2019). Making the unequal metropolis: School desegregation and its limits. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/9780226025391