More progress is needed to achieve equity in racial and gender representation in the push to diversify the physical sciences. In order to continue moving towards representation and equity, there is a need for more analytic tools that can help us understand where we are and how we got here. This may also enable meaningful systemic change. In this…

Analyzes three landmark Supreme Court cases in which the value of literacy and the reality of racial discrimination were contested. Concludes that there is an ideology in which the economy of literacy is regarded as white property and argues that these court decisions have stalled the civil rights movement. (Contains 59 references.) (SK)