Photo courtesy of Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law | |
Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Harvard University and University of North Carolina admissions cases. NCSD released a statement in defense of diversity and equity in our nation's PK-12 schools, reiterating our unwavering commitment to school integration and highlighting powerful words of wisdom and solidarity from several of our members. Help amplify our message!
Excerpt from our statement: "[D]iversity is not a mere buzzword but a cornerstone of educational excellence. When students from various backgrounds learn alongside one another, they gain invaluable insights that transcend textbooks and classroom lessons. Exposure to different perspectives, cultures, and ideas fosters critical thinking, empathy, and understanding. It equips students with the knowledge and skills necessary to thrive in our increasingly interconnected and multiracial democracy."
See the White House's fact sheet, U.S. Department of Education press release, and joint press statement by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Legal Defense Fund, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, and LatinoJustice, as well as other pieces featuring the voices of our members:
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Update:
- Check out this new commentary that highlights five takeaways from last month's Bridges Collaborative, Magnet Schools of America, and NCSD event about the federal government's role in promoting school integration.
- See also this recent AIR piece on Bridges and early lessons from the initiative.
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Update:
- IDRA provided resources (in English and Spanish) on the anniversary of Plyler v. Doe, see: "U.S. Supreme Court Ruling 41 Years Ago Today Confirms Immigrant Students' Rights to Attend Public Schools."
- IDRA worked with coalitions in Georgia and presented testimony urging the Georgia Professional Standards Commission to vote against a revision to its standards to remove words like "culturally responsive," "linguistically diverse," "inclusive," and more.
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Update:
- Last month, ELC hosted its 50th anniversary celebration that included a panel discussion entitled “Promise and Perils in Public Education: Past, Present, and Future,” featuring NCSD member Derek Black. “Had Rodriguez been decided differently, we might have a federal right to education. Instead, we have 50 different states with 50 different school finance systems,” said Black.
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Update:
- The Peer Defense Project, housed within IntegrateNYC, launched a Youth Legal Web Tool to help youth:
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Connect to free youth legal support.
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Learn about youth law and legal rights.
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Support youth power under law.
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Update:
- Check out this new Integrated Schools blog post that shares a framework for advocacy and introduces a new partnership that's helping frame conversations and grow the movement.
- Tune in to the last episode of this season's Integrated Schools podcast, featuring reflections from the hosts on their amazing conversations over the past 16 episodes and what listeners are grappling with.
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INDIVIDUAL MEMBER UPDATES
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Derek Black was interviewed for a piece by New America on his recent Minnesota Law Review article entitled “Localism, Pretext, and the Color of School Dollars.” According to Black, "localism can have some positive effects, such as local engagement and investment. But the most immediate and longstanding harms of localism are school funding inequality and school segregation."
- Congratulations to John Brittain for being honored during the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law 60th anniversary event for his “transformative contributions to the fight for racial justice.”
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Kevin Welner co-authored a piece about the Schools of Opportunity project, which has "identified more than 50 public high schools that are using evidence-based practices to address achievement gaps by improving opportunities to learn."
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- The U.S. Department of Treasury put out a five-part blog series on racial inequality with the fifth installment on racial differences in educational experiences and attainment. According to the post, "Nearly 70 years after the landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education that ended legal school segregation, substantial racial disparities in educational opportunity and attainment still exist. Recognizing these disparities and understanding their determinants is important because they have stark implications for labor market outcomes, including employment, wages and earnings, and occupations and job quality, all key factors in individuals’ economic wellbeing."
- In a study published by the American Educational Research Association, researchers David Houston of George Mason University and Jeffrey Henig of Teachers College, Columbia University, found that "providing parents with achievement growth data encourages them to consider schools with greater economic and racial diversity, but only up to a point."
- In a study by WalletHub to determine which states have the "most racial equality in education," researchers compared the 50 states across six key metrics, including the difference between white and Black Americans in areas such as high school and college degrees, test scores, and graduation rates.
- Focusing on racial and ethnic segregation in U.S. public schools, researchers from Cornell conducted "randomized email outreach experiments and surveys to explore how local school districts respond to algorithmically-generated school catchment areas ("attendance boundaries") designed to foster more diverse and integrated schools." Read more.
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NEWS FROM ACROSS OUR COUNTRY | |
National -
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How School Integration Upended a ‘Most Tolerant Little Town’ (New York Times, June 13) - "[G]iven the constant threat of racism to our democracy, including worsening school segregation in districts across the country and the bans in certain states on books about systemic inequality, who is to say that Martin is wrong to leave her readers so overwhelmed by despair?"
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Undoing Housing Segregation: An Interview with Leah Rothstein (Nonprofit Quarterly, June 7) - "[T]o truly redress segregation, you have to both repair past harm and prevent future discrimination and segregation...we believe that it is our constitutional responsibility to redress the unconstitutional acts of our government, which were race-specific, and the only way to do that is with race-specific remedies."
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There’s Unsettling New Evidence About William Rehnquist’s Views on Segregation (Slate, June 1) - "The late chief justice, who long sought to turn the 14th Amendment on its head, notoriously drafted a 1952 memo as a Supreme Court clerk that defended racial segregation in the South and the disastrous Plessy v. Ferguson decision on which the institution’s legality was based. Although Rehnquist denied during his confirmation hearings that the memo reflected his own views—saying they were meant to reflect those of Robert H. Jackson, the justice he was clerking for in 1952—a newly released court document, not previously reported, lays bare Rehnquist’s abhorrent true position on segregation as late as 1993."
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Georgia -
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Holmes v. City of Atlanta: How Golf Led to a Landmark Civil Rights Case (Atlanta History Center, June 5) - "While this newly established [Brown] precedent was an essential step in civil rights history, the ruling only pointed to the unconstitutionality of segregation in public education. Additional cases supported by the NAACP expanded the ruling to desegregate other public facilities in the United States, often at a faster rate than school desegregation. One of these cases was Holmes v. City of Atlanta which argued for the end of segregation on Atlanta’s public golf courses."
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Kentucky -
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‘Massive, systemic and institutional.’ How Lexington intentionally created a segregated city (Lexington Herald-Leader, June 15) - "[H]ere in Lexington, a series of serendipitous events, including a Lexington Public Library exhibit on Lexington’s redlining, a community read-along of one of the most important books about redlining and a detailed new website about Lexington’s history of housing segregation will put unprecedented attention on these topics for the first time."
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Lousiana -
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New magnet school in historically Black zone, a step to resolve 1965 desegregation suit (Associated Press, June 12) - "Authorities in a southwest Louisiana school district have agreed to develop a magnet school in a historically Black school zone to draw students of all races from across the district in a step toward resolving a desegregation lawsuit dating back to 1965. The agreement, or “consent decree” involving the St. Martin Parish School District and the U.S. Justice Department was approved last week by U.S. District Judge Erny Foote in Lafayette."
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New Jersey -
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NJCU Announces Partnership with Latino Action Network and LAN Foundation (Insider NJ, June 27) - "In an effort to address issues plaguing Latino and immigrant communities, New Jersey City University (NJCU) has announced a partnership agreement with the Latino Action Network and the Latino Action Network Foundation which will focus on the development of community education, civic engagement, and research initiatives on educational equity and health care access policies...The joint agreement will address six key issues, including: the impact of school segregation."
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North Carolina -
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Signs of fraud raise major red flags about expanding NC school vouchers (News & Observer), June 28) - "North Carolina is the only state that doesn’t require voucher schools to be accredited, use approved curriculum, hire certified teachers, participate in state testing, or meet minimum instructional time requirements. The new data shows that financial oversight is similarly lacking."
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Recalling ‘Principal’s Row,’ a Whiteville street home to Black educators (Robesonian, June 27) - "Still known as Principal’s Row, the 300 block of West Columbus Street is one block from what was once segregated Whiteville Negro High School and Central High School, now Central Middle School. Many descendants of those educators continue to live there, more than half a century after local schools were integrated in the late 1960s."
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Pennsylvania -
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When it comes to magnet school admissions, blame the implementation, not the ‘lottery kids’ (Philadelphia Inquirer, June 22) - "While intelligence and talent can be found throughout our city, access to resources and advanced learning opportunities does not exist at every middle school...Instead of suggesting that some Philadelphia public school students are less deserving of a good education, we should focus on making sure all middle school students in the district receive the support they deserve when they arrive at any high school."
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Inequitable charter school enrollment practices hurt our public schools (Philadelphia Inquirer, June 15) - "When charter schools make school segregation worse, it limits opportunities for all kids. Though there are many excellent schools that serve mostly Black and brown students, in general, students of color who attend segregated schools tend to have fewer opportunities and worse outcomes. On the other hand, students of color and white students benefit from attending diverse schools, including better test scores, graduation rates, and social cohesion."
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The Color of Law explained how our segregated and unequal society was created by racially explicit and unconstitutional policies at all levels of government. As a follow-up to that book, father-daughter duo Richard and Leah Rothstein co-authored a new book entitled Just Action: How to Challenge Segregation Enacted Under the Color of Law. The authors describe what citizens and residents can do in their own communities to redress the inequality and deprivation that are ongoing effects of government-imposed segregation.
Over the next couple of months, the authors are hitting the road to promote and discuss their new book. See all upcoming events.
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Clinton, TN
June 26-30 and
July 10-14 (online)
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Centering Youth Agency in the Civil Rights Movement Summer Institute for Educators
Children’s Defense Fund and Florida A&M University
"This professional development program will serve 25 K-12 teachers of all subject areas and expose participants to new approaches to civil rights history that center the agency of young people. This program is based on innovative scholarship and the culturally relevant pedagogical traditions of Freedom Schools past and present."
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New York, New York
July 10-13 (hybrid)
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Reimagining Education: Teaching, Learning and Leading for a Racially Just Society
Teachers College, Columbia University
"Since 2016, RESI has drawn thousands of educators from across the country and globe. Each of these RESI alums takes resources and pedagogical strategies back to their classroom, schools, and communities to have a positive impact on all their students, but particularly their students of color. Thus, our central theme for RESI 2023 will be: 'Antiracist Education: It’s Just Good Teaching.'"
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Minneapolis, MN
July 12-14
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National Forum on Education Policy
Education Commission of the States
"We are excited to bring together bright minds and powerful thought leaders to connect and collaborate on solutions and innovations that address the most pressing issues in state education policy."
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Buffalo, NY
July 21-23 (hybrid)
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6th Annual Teaching Black History Conference
University at Buffalo
"Each year, the conference convenes hundreds of teachers to learn the best curricular and instructional practices surrounding Black history education. We will have featured speakers and entertainment, but the stars of the conference are our teachers. Each conference session is led by a classroom teacher who shares their Black history strategies. The sessions are interactive, so participants will have hands-on experiences to bring to their classrooms...The 2023 conference theme is The Sounds of Blackness, Hip Hop Turns 50."
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Washington, DC
September 20
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9th National Conference on Housing Mobility
Poverty and Race Research Action Council
"Featuring a keynote address by Professor Raj Chetty and a progress report on the Community Choice Demonstration. The ninth national housing mobility conference comes at a time of exciting momentum in our field – the launch of the Community Choice Demonstration in 8 metro areas, the release of a new $25M Mobility Services funding notice to support new and existing mobility programs, and potential policy changes at HUD that could improve low-income families’ access to higher opportunity communities."
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Washington, DC
September 20-24
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CBCF Annual Legislative Conference
Congressional Black Caucus Foundation
"Join us at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center for five days of premium programming and signature events including the Prayer Breakfast, National Town Hall, Phoenix Awards, and Black Party."
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Color of Education Summit 2023
Dudley Flood Center for Educational Equity and Opportunity
"Join us in promoting equity in education as we develop The Path Forward by Co-Creating Equitable Spaces. Together, we can build an education system that protects and supports every student... [by] bringing together educators, policymakers, researchers, students, parents, community members, and other key stakeholders focused on achieving racial equity and eliminating racial disparities in education."
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Contact Us
National Coalition on School Diversity
c/o Poverty and Race Research Action Council
Mailing Address: 740 15th St. NW #300
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: 202-544-5066
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