Response to U.S. Supreme Court decision about voluntary school integration

Civil Rights Project's response to U.S. Supreme Court decision

• The following CRP staff have expertise on voluntary integration and can respond regarding the Supreme Court cases:

• CRP co-director Gary Orfield
  office: (310) 267-4877
  

• CRP co-director Patricia Gándara
  office: (310) 267-4875
  

• CRP research assistant Erica Frankenberg
  

• CRP research assistant Liliana Garces
  

• Professors Orfield and Gándara can also be reached through Kathy Wyer
  office: (310) 206-0513
  

• Joint Civil Rights Centers statement

• Short Civil Rights Centers statement

• A statement about linguistic isolation

• Cita de Patricia Gandara, Codirectora del Proyecto Derechos Civiles

Information about Segregation and Its Consequences

The United States is more than 40% nonwhite and going through dramatic racial change. Segregation is growing, and the racial isolation of blacks and Latinos is more severe than it has been since the late 1960s. While segregation rises, the tools that school districts can use to create integrated schools are limited, despite growing knowledge about the importance of integrated experiences. Civil Rights Project research has documented the extent of segregation and its associated harms in a series of reports.

• For more information on research about the benefits of integrated schools (and the harms of segregated schools), the social science statement submitted by 553 social scientists summarizes the extensive desegregation literature.

• The Civil Rights Project has extensively studied the issue of racial segregation in schools. Download the fact sheet: "State of Segregation."

• Social Science Talking Points

• For information on the benefits of integrated schools and how to effectively structure such schools, order a newly published book Lessons in Integration:  Realizing the Promise of Racial Diversity in American Schools (University of Virginia Press, copyright 2007)

• For more research about segregation trends and associated negative educational outcomes

  • The most recent report on school segregation, which discusses the rapid, multiracial transformation of the nation's public schools

  • A report examining the growing segregation and resulting effects on achievement in Denver

  • A report documenting the rapid resegregation of many school districts, including suburban school districts that were formerly all-white

  • Draft papers from a Resegregation of the South conference cosponsored with the UNC Civil Rights Center document the multidimensional impact of resegregation in the region of the country where black students had experienced the most integration (edited versions of these papers have been published by UNC Press in a book called: School Resegregation: Must the South Turn Back?).

  • A report examining segregation across a metropolitan area (Boston) and how segregation across boundary lines can affect the integration of a student's school, their school's educational resources, and the achievement of students

Additional Information about the integration cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and related court cases

• Information about Lynn, Massachusetts' voluntary integration plan, upheld by the First Circuit Court in 2005.

• The comprehensive manual on voluntary k-12 school integration was designed for parents, educators, and advocates.

• To read more materials submitted in the case, and other information, visit the NAACP Legal Defense Fund's webpage for these cases and their blog for commentary

• Download the transcripts of the oral arguments before the Supreme Court—for Louisville and Seattle.

• For more information on the Supreme Court's 2003 Grutter decision and legal and social science responses to it.