In 2012, Denver Public School District superintendent Tom Boasberg wrote to his employees about the state of their schools: "Yet there's a great deal of work ahead because our gaps still aren't closing at all. They remain strikingly and distressingly similar to the national data. Our schools still aren't the equalizing force that they need to…

This paper explores two previously unstudied court challenges brought by black settlers in the territorial and early statehood period of Oklahoma (1889-1907). Oklahoma Territorial courts heard more challenges to segregated schools than in any state as these black pioneers challenged new legislation that segregated previously integrated territorial…

This article focuses on the first African American students at two southern land-grant universities, North Carolina State University and Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (Virginia Tech). Although these institutions integrated in the 1950s, most of the current desegregation scholarship focuses on other southern institutions in…

From 1896 to 1954, the "separate but equal" doctrine instituted by the landmark "Plessy v. Ferguson" case reverberated in public education in the United States until its rejection in the 1954 "Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka" Supreme Court decision. In this integrative literature review, the authors sought to…

Schools in the United States continue to be segregated by race and socioeconomic status, almost 70 years after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling that aimed to desegregate schools. Segregation exists in three ways in K-12 schools: (1) Across districts. This is the case in about two-thirds of segregation in metropolitan areas; (2)…

The 2014-2015 academic year marked the first year that American, preK-12 public school enrollment became majority nonwhite, with Hispanic/Latino as the largest minority. Population shifts have continued to occur, with Latinos now representing 28% of public school students. American public schools are in trouble, with national achievement reaching…

In light of contemporary school choice proposals and the 60th anniversary of the Southern Manifesto, the Prince Edward County, Virginia public schools crisis provides interesting historical discussion. Prince Edward County (PEC), a rural community in central Virginia, was one of five school districts represented in the 1954 "Brown v. Board of…

This article highlights the overshadowed contributions that Marion Thompson Wright, Ruby Jackson Gainer, and Mamie Phipps Clark made to the landmark "Brown v. Board of Education" case. Arguably, "Brown" would not have materialized without their legal and scholarly activism. Yet their legacies were eclipsed by legendary race men…

The Mississippi Association of Independent Schools was born out of the turbulent years of the Civil Rights Era. "Plessy v. Ferguson" in 1896 had established the doctrine of separate but equal facilities, including schools. While the decision in "Brown v. Board of Education," handed down by the Supreme Court in 1954, ruled that…

Purpose: School administrators and policy makers live in a complex, changing policy universe in which there are many competing demands and political pressures. Rarely is there much time to think about sensitive issues of long duration that are not part of the immediate demands they face. This article is about such an issue, a question that will…

In 1954, the United States Supreme Court decided "Brown v. Board of Education" and ordered the desegregation of students by race in public schools. Many of the states as well as the federal executive branch of government expressed some level of opposition to this order. Over time, courts have taken alternative positions on the education…

After the Civil War, schooling for African Americans was irregular and consisted mainly of elementary grades. Education was provided, primarily, by elite, private institutions and fewer than three percent of students aged 13-17 attended regularly. In 1896, the United States Supreme Court issued a ruling in "Plessey v. Ferguson." Although…

This study examines the impact of racial isolation on high school student performance in North Carolina, a state in the southeast United States. Our research goal is to investigate if increased isolation negatively impacts Black students' academic performance. Employing the North Carolina State Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) dataset, we…

Since the separate-but-equal era, students attending schools with high concentrations of Black students have attempted to improve the quality of their educations through school finance litigation. Because of the negative effects of racial isolation, Black students might consider mounting school finance litigation to force states to explicitly…

Effective history teaching includes ample opportunities for students to develop historical thinking skills and habits of mind which encourage them to learn content beyond simple acquisition of facts. Covering the profound topic of segregation by employing multiple perspectives and encouraging investigation beyond the traditional narrative provides…