Background/Context: In the 1973 "Rodriguez" decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Constitution does not guarantee a substantive federal right to education. So far, this holding has not been adequately contextualized with many other statements the Court has made concerning the nature of education in the constitutional order. For…

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…

Raising academic standards and eliminating achievement gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students are America's prime national educational goals. Current federal and state policies, however, largely ignore the fact that the childhood poverty rate in the United States is 21%, the highest in the industrialized world, and that poverty…

This book analyzes the two basic constitutional problems in the Brown vs. Board of Education case--how the Constitution prohibits racial segregation, and what can be done under the Constitution to enforce this prohibition. The roles of the justices, interpretations of the Constitution and relevant amendments, the impact of the decision, and…

Examines the concept of equal educational opportunity found in the district court's decisions in "Keyes," the court of appeals' response, and the legal framework in which those decisions were made. Asserts that a constitutional doctrine of equal educational opportunity can be formulated to address educational disparities. (Author/IRT)

Reviews efforts by Black Americans to gain social justice and equality through education. Traces the civil rights movement from the 1954 Supreme Court Brown decision and the Montgomery (Alabama) bus strike and examines the philosophy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on education as an instrument of social justice. (AOS)

Reexamines the "Brown" decision, including its background, the issues before the Court, the holding, and the implementation decision. (IRT)

The principle that seems to underlie the Court's school desegregation cases is that racial criteria may be used to make one person better off than another unless constitutionally-recognized expectations of the latter person are frustrated. Available from University of Cincinnati Law Review, Taft Hall, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH…

Desegregation issues continue to be the focus of court litigation in public schools. Since the "Brown v. Board of Education" decision, federal courts have consistently upheld that legally compelled racial segregation of students is a denial of equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. Since public school principals play a vital…

Reprints Marion Wright Edelman's 1975 article in which she argues that resistance to school desegregation means denying African-American children equal protection. Forty years after Brown v Board of Education, suggests that the current debate on educational quality be broadened to include issues of social inequality. (SK)

Outlines class activities to help students understand how the U.S. Supreme Court reaches its decisions and how the decisions change over time. Includes objectives, resources, issues and questions, procedures, and evaluations. Suggests that students will learn the facts and issues of important civil rights cases and form opinions on the decisions.…