Join us in-person or virtually on March 13 at 11:30am ET for a Capitol Hill research and policy briefing hosted by the UCLA Civil Rights Project, featuring Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) and moderated by CRP Co-Directors Gary Orfield and Patricia Gandara. REGISTER TODAY!

POLICY & LEGAL UPDATES

NCSD STAFF UPDATES

What We've Been Up to Recently

NCSD to Present at National Education Association Leadership Summit

NCSD Director Gina Chirichigno and Professor Henry Tran will lead a session entitled "Increasing Access to Effective Educators: Leveraging ESSA for Integration & Educator Diversity" at NEA's upcoming National Leadership Summit in Chicago, IL. The session will share highlights from NCSD's American Institutes for Research project grant, "Leveraging Title II of ESSA and Redressing the Post-Brown Decimation of the Black Educator Workforce in the South to Support School Integration and Educator Diversity."

NCSD to Serve on Panel at Georgetown Journal of Law & Modern Critical Race Perspectives Symposium

NCSD Director Gina Chirichigno will serve on a panel entitled "History of Segregation and Inequality and the Impact of Critical Race Theory in Education" at Georgetown Law's upcoming 2024 MCRP Symposium in Washington, DC. The symposium will "feature renowned attorneys, professors, and organizers as we use the 70th anniversary of Brown as a vehicle to identify and examine issues that impact the educational experiences and outcomes of students of color." 

In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision declared that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” Seventy years later, communities and educational justice advocates continue to grapple with how to make the Court's decision a reality. What progress has been made, where have we fallen short or gotten stuck, and what is required to truly fulfill Brown’s promise of integration and educational equity?

To commemorate and build on this milestone anniversary, please join us on the evening of Thursday, May 2, 2024 at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC. Advocates, parents, educators, policymakers, and students will convene to examine perspectives on Brown's promise––both fulfilled and unfulfilled––and imagine how, together, we might build a collective vision for what truly integrated, equitable, and thriving schools look like.

The event will take place from 6:30 to 10:00 p.m. and is hosted by The Century Foundation’s Bridges Collaborative, National Coalition on School Diversity, and American Institutes for Research. It will include a reception (with food and drinks provided), followed by programming and an opportunity to explore the museum’s galleries. More details to come!

NCSD MEMBER UPDATES

CROSS-MOVEMENT RESOURCES

• Check out the YouTube series Black History in Two Minutes, written and narrated by historian Henry Louis Gates, which covers everything from the Civil War and emancipation to the civil rights movement and school integration.

• Watch the recording of a recent PEN America event that "provides an overview of the rise in book bans in the U.S., followed by a panel discussion on the harmful effects of book bans and curriculum limitations and what role the law can play in combating them."

• New Pew research finds: “Most public K-12 teachers (60%) say parents should not be able to opt their children out of learning about racism or racial inequality in school, even if the way these topics are taught conflicts with the parents’ beliefs. A quarter say parents should be able to opt their children out of learning about these topics."

• New EdTrust report, "Advocates’ Guide to Demanding Racially & Culturally Inclusive State Assessments," outlines how advocates, state leaders, and assessment developers can work together to ensure assessments reflect the identities and lived experiences of all our nation’s students. 

• Call for Conference Proposals (Deadline April 1, 2024): "The Education Law Association (ELA) welcomes proposals for members and non-members to offer concurrent paper presentations, roundtable discussions, poster sessions, and panels at the 70th Annual Conference of the Education Law Association in Orlando, Florida from November 6-9, 2024."

• Research RFP Opportunity (Deadline April 16, 2024): "The Russell Sage Foundation, in collaboration with the Hewlett, Spencer, and William T. Grant Foundations, seeks to support innovative research on the aftermath of the 2023 Supreme Court decision striking down race-conscious college and university admissions policies."

NEWS FROM ACROSS OUR COUNTRY

National -

• Pauli Murray, Civil Rights icon and former professor, to appear on American Quarter (Brandeis, February 7) - "Dr. Pauli Murray, a hero of the civil rights movement...will appear on the 11th coin circulated by the United States Mint as part of the American Women’s Quarters Program in 2024...Murray’s writings on 'separate but equal' formed many of the key arguments conveyed in Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court case that ended school segregation in 1954."

• Our freedom is intertwined: Reflections on Black History and the imperative work of inclusion (Sahan Journal, February 5) - "The recent attacks on DEI are undoubtedly coming from people who believe that, since the work isn’t centered on them, they have no part in it. And that couldn’t be further from the truth. All our freedom is intertwined with each other’s."

• Pathways to racial democracy in America (Community College Daily, February 2) - "America is at a crossroads. Our nation must choose one of two alternative futures. We will either choose to become the world’s first truly multiracial democracy, or we will choose to sustain or even strengthen existing patterns of segregation and inequality. At the center of this national future-choosing is urban public education."

• What’s it like to live Black history? Ruby Bridges has some thoughts (NBC News, February 1) - "Bridges: I think that’s what my books are for. That’s why we have to continue to write about books being banned. It’s important. History is important. History is a road map for us. Good, bad or ugly. No matter how it happened or why it happened. We can still learn from it. And that’s going to take us into the future, hopefully a better future."

Arkansas -

• Desegregation suit legal fees approved (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, February 26) - "U.S.District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr., has approved a recent legal fees agreement between the Pulaski County Special School District and the class of all Black students known as the McClendon intervenors in a long-running federal school desegregation lawsuit."

California -

• Landmark school desegregation case may soon be part of California history textbooks (Spectrum News, February 12) - "[N]ewly proposed state legislation hopes to incorporate the Mendez vs. Westminster case into social studies curriculum for public schools—a move that comes as subjects that deal with racism and critical race theory are being banned nationwide."

• Students learn from Mendez Tribute Monument Park as state legislation aims to elevate case in education (Daily Pilot, February 3) - "State legislation has been introduced in the form of Assembly Bill 1805 to bring Mendez vs. Westminster School District of Orange County into the curriculum for public schools."
• Related: Mendez Tribute Monument Park Elevates Importance of Mendez v Westminster Case in Education; Future ‘walk through history’ trail to honor the landmark Westminster school segregation case

• AG Bonta: Closure of Oakland elementary schools would have most affected Black, low-income kids (CBS News, January 29) - "California Attorney General Rob Bonta in a letter to the Oakland Unified School District stated that the—now-rescinded—decision to close several schools would have disproportionately affected Black and low-income students...Bonta states, that even though OUSD is meeting the minimum requirements to make sure any closures do not maintain school segregation but alleviate it, it could again make a decision that 'mirrors' the impacts of its original decision."

Florida -

• Empty seats are not worth our money': Broward grapples with low enrollment, school consolidation (WLRN, February 9) - "Broward County Public Schools has lost 24,000 students in the last decade alone—amounting to a loss of more than $200 million in revenue a year...There are concerns that minority communities—who have long suffered due to systemic racism and inequality—could take the biggest hit in consolidating or closing schools."

Georgia -

• From Segregation to Celebration: The Transformation of Atlanta's Spring Street School (BNN, February 16) - "[T]his historic site is known as the Center for Puppetry Arts, a beacon of diversity and inclusion through its arts programming and exhibits. But the journey from a segregated school to a celebrated arts center tells a story of resilience, hope, and the enduring power of community."
• Related: Students remember former Spring Street School

Massachusetts -

• Historian tracks the ‘Long Black Freedom’ struggle in Boston in new book (Dorchester Reporter, February 22) - "In his book 'Before Busing: A History of Boston’s Long Black Freedom Struggle,' Zebulon Vance Miletsky highlights what the violence and division eclipsed. His intent, as he put it, was a book in which 'Black agency and activism take center stage, situating the busing program as the culmination of nearly three decades of consistent political organizing by Black Bostonians.'”
• Related: Why I wrote ‘Before Busing’

• Study Finds METCO School Desegregation Program Benefits K-12 Students (Tufts Now, February 14) - "A new study has found that a long-standing voluntary school desegregation program in Massachusetts has a significant positive impact on the urban students who take part in it. METCO, which facilitates students of color from Boston studying in some 33 suburban communities that surround the city, improved test scores in math and English, attendance rates, and college aspiration and graduation rates of its students over a three-decade period."

Michigan -

• “There Goes the Neighborhood: The Closing of Jones School”: Michigan Theater (Ann Arbor Observer, February 4) - "Premiere of this 50-minute documentary about the 1965 closing of Ann Arbor’s majority Black school (now Community High) which, in an effort to join a nationwide trend of school desegregation, struck a blow to a close-knit community and foreshadowed the gentrification of the Kerrytown and Water Hill neighborhoods."

Minnesota -

• In dozens of Minnesota schools, entire classes are failing to meet minimum state standards (Minnesota Reformer, February 27) - "The Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity has consulted on a lawsuit aiming to desegregate public schools in the metro, Cruz-Guzman v. State of Minnesota. One of the alleged violations was the state’s exemption of charter schools from rules governing desegregation and integration. Three metro charter schools intervened in the case, siding with the defendant."

Mississippi -

• Private schools forget their racist origins in trying to collect public funds (Mississippi Today, February 11) - "The current lawsuit is not the first involving public money going to private schools and Section 208 of the Mississippi Constitution. In 1964, during the height of efforts to circumvent federal court orders to desegregate Mississippi public schools, the Legislature passed a law that offered tuition for students to attend private schools in clear violation of Section 208."

New Jersey -

• Two Trailblazers of Trenton: The Legacy of the Hedgepeth-Williams School Desegregation Case (BNN, February 19) - "Gladys Hedgepeth and Berline Williams, whose unwavering determination not only challenged but also changed the racist policies of the Trenton Board of Education...led to a landmark New Jersey Supreme Court decision that desegregated the city's schools, setting a precedent that would influence the seminal Brown v. Board of Education case a decade later."
• Related: Trenton getting ready to celebrate 80th anniversary of landmark Hedgepeth Williams desegregation case

New York -

• As NYC eyes more mergers, one Upper West Side middle school navigates a newly combined community (Chalkbeat New York, February 15) - "In some ways, the merger served a goal that has proved elusive in one of the nation’s most segregated school systems. It provided a path toward further integration in District 3, which encompasses both schools. The district is one of a handful in the city that has remained focused on integration. Last year, the school district won a federal grant to help foster diverse schools."

Ohio -

• 'Lincoln School' spotlights Hillsboro's little-known civil rights pioneers (WVXU, February 22) - "Black mothers marched for two years through Hillsboro streets after the school board ignored the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 1954 'Brown v. Board of Education' ruling to integrate schools."
• Related: The Lincoln School Story: A Documentary of Courage and Resilience; 'The Lincoln School Story' to air on PBS stations across Ohio in February

South Carolina -

• Separate but equal? The history of segregated schools in Horry County (My Horry News, February 22) - "[A] community gathering was held at the Historic Myrtle Beach Colored School Museum and Education Center. The topic discussed was an event thought to have been left in the era of segregation: a cross burning. Not one that occurred decades ago, but months ago near Conway."



• Column: The Rosenwald initiative, equalization schools and school desegregation (My Horry News, February 16) - "Unlike the Rosenwald initiative to improve the education of Black children, the equalization schools’ initiatives underlying objective was to preserve segregation of students by race rather than improve the education of Black children."

Tennessee -

• Cherished Institutions: Beck center digitizes artifacts from Knoxville's Black schools (Knox News, February 22) - "The grant opened the door for Beck to hire staff to rehouse, digitize, and make available virtually 60 linear feet of archival material related to the Black experience with segregated education, including yearbooks, student publications, and photographs."

• ‘Scarboro 85’ who desegregated Oak Ridge Schools to be added to TN academic standards (WATE, February 17) - "The story of the Black students who desegregated two schools in Oak Ridge, marking first school desegregation in the Southeast, will be added to Tennessee academic curriculum after it was approved by the state education board."
• Related: Storyteller returns to Oak Ridge to dramatize Scarboro 85 experience

• Tennessee’s universal school voucher bill draft drops. Here are 5 things that stand out. (Chalkbeat Nashville, January 29) - "The voucher movement has some roots in racist opposition to school desegregation in the mid-20th century, and critics have long charged that private schools pick and choose which students they want when accepting public funding through vouchers."

Texas -

• The Historic Case of Sweatt v. Painter and Its Impact on School Desegregation in the United States (Motorblog, February 11) - "This case set an important precedent in the fight for school desegregation in the United States. The final result was the decision of the Texas Supreme Court to order Sweatt’s admission to the University of Texas School of Law in Austin."

Virginia -

• Public school integration in Virginia started slowly, with just a few students. Their stories are now being shared. (Cardinal News, February 15) - "Virginia instituted this policy from 1965 to 1969 instead of fully integrating after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that ended segregation in public schools. Today, many people are unaware of the Freedom of Choice era. A Pittsylvania County group wants to change that by making its stories accessible to the public."
• Related: Students who paved way for integration in Pittsylvania County high schools to be honored

• Bipartisan effort looks to fund Massive Resistance-era scholarship program (Radio IQ, February 9) - "Both Republicans and Democrats are looking to increase funding for a scholarship fund that benefits the descendants of those impacted by the state’s fight against school integration."
• Related: Lawmakers float $5 million funding request for Brown v. Board of Education Scholarship Fund; Commentary: Virginia must fund its commitment to justice after Brown v. Board

• New sculpture memorializes Richmond schools' integration (Axios Richmond, January 31) - "At 12 years old, Daisy Jane Cooper—now Jane Cooper Johnson—was the first Black student at Richmond's Westhampton School in 1961, seven years after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling for school desegregation...Bon Secours and Thalhimer Realty Partners unveiled a 12-foot-tall sculpture commemorating Cooper Johnson's place in the racial integration of Richmond's public schools."

Washington, DC -

• As D.C. seeks fairness, a school integration plan divides Capitol Hill (Washington Post, February 14) - "Maury and Miner elementary schools are within walking distance of one another and in some ways a world apart—with lopsided demographics that mirror the racial and economic segregation surrounding them on D.C.’s Capitol Hill."
• Related: Opinion: Any school would fail without adequate support 

West Virginia -

• Documentary tells the story of Sumner-Ramer Memorial School (The Journal, February 7) - "[Gloria Jackson] Carter is one of eight former students who attended the Ramer School—formerly known as the Sumner School—prior to desegregation who is featured in the documentary video to be released this month."

“Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully, we shall overcome.”

–Rosa Parks (1998)

Founded in 2009, the National Coalition on School Diversity is a cross-sector network of 50+ national civil rights organizations, university-based research centers, and state and local coalitions working to expand support for school integration. NCSD supports its members in designing, enacting, implementing, and uplifting PK-12 public school integration policies and practices so we may build cross-race/cross-class relationships, share power and resources, and co-create new realities.

NCSD MEMBERSHIP

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund * Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund * American Civil Liberties Union * Poverty & Race Research Action Council * Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law * Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund * Magnet Schools of America * One Nation Indivisible * Southern Poverty Law Center * Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School * Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA * Campaign for Educational Equity, Teachers College, Columbia University * University of North Carolina Center for Civil Rights * Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at the Ohio State University * Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley * Education Rights Center, Howard University School of Law * Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity at the University of Minnesota Law School * Education Law Center * New York Appleseed * Sheff Movement Coalition * Voluntary Interdistrict Choice Corporation * ERASE Racism * Chicago Lawyers' Committee * Empire Justice Center * IntegrateNYC * Intercultural Development Research Association * Reimagining Integration: Diverse and Equitable Schools Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education * Institute for Social Progress at Wayne County Community College District * Center on Law, Inequaliy and Metropolitan Equity at Rutgers Law School * Integrated Schools * The Office of Transformation and Innovation at the Dallas Independent School District * Live Baltimore * Maryland Equity Project at the University of Maryland College of Education * Center for Education and Civil Rights at Penn State College of Education * National Center for Montessori in the Public Sector * Diversity Education Network at Rutgers University * Being Black at School * UnifiEd * The Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy * Public Advocacy for Kids * The Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools * The School Diversity Notebook * Fair Housing Justice Center, Inc. * Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity, Inc. (METCO) * Learn Together, Live Together * Beloved Community * Learning Policy Institute * Public School Forum of North Carolina * The Bell * North Carolina Justice Center * The Bridges Collaborative at The Century Foundation * SproutFive * Oneonta For Equality * NestQuest Houston * Metis Associates