Research Digest
This summary highlights the last quarter's research produced by the Civil Rights Project and its Center for Civil Rights Remedies.
Keeping California's Kids in School
Publication date: June 10, 2014
This study, by CRP’s Center for Civil Rights Remedies, analyzes suspension trends in the 745 California school districts that reported discipline data in 2011-12 and 2012-13. Based on the statewide averages for 2011-12 and 2012-13, the researchers find that progress was made in reducing out-of-school suspensions in California schools for every racial/ethnic subgroup. “Disruption/Willful Defiance” suspensions still, however, account for the largest share of the problem.
Brown at 60: Great Progress, a Long Retreat and an Uncertain Future
Publication date: May 15, 2014
Marking the 60th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v Board of Education, CRP assessed the nation's progress in addressing school segregation and authors found that the vast transformation of the nation’s school population since the civil rights era includes an almost 30% drop in white students and close to quintupling of Latino students. Contrary to many claims, the South has not gone back to the level of segregation before Brown. It has, however, lost all of the additional progress made after l967, but is still the least segregated region for black students.
Publication date: May 14, 2014
In this latest sequel to CRP’s series on school segregation trends in the East Coast states, North Carolina, a state that was once recognized as a leader in school desegregation, is the subject of a study which find that it has returned to a resegregated schooling system, where students are increasingly isolated by race and poverty. Over the last two decades, the share of intensely segregated schools—those that enroll less than 10% white students—has tripled despite the fact the overall public school enrollment in the state is becoming more diverse and multi-racial.
Vast Changes and an Uneasy Future: Racial and Regional Inequality in Southern California
Publication date: April 16, 2014
Looking at the depth and scope of the demographic shifts within our social and urban landscapes, this research finds the geographic divide is strongest between the coastal and inland portions of the region, with increasingly divergent fortunes accentuated by the economic shock of the Great Recession. The two Inland Empire Counties of Riverside and San Bernardino have undergone the most dramatic demographic changes over the past decades. Most notably, in the last 40 years, Riverside County’s African American population increased by almost 600%. The report also documents the intensifying generational gap in racial composition between an older non-Hispanic white population and a young minority population.
New York State’s Extreme School Segregation: Inequality, Inaction and a Damaged Future
Publication date: March 26, 2014
Alarming trends throughout the Empire State are reported in this study. Public school students in New York continue to be severely segregated and increasingly isolated by race and class as the proportion of minority and poor students continues to grow. Exploring trends in enrollment and school segregation patterns from 1989 to 2010 at the state and regional levels, the report includes the New York City metropolitan areas of Long Island and the New York City District, the upstate metropolitan areas of Albany, Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse. The report also documents the history of school desegregation in the state and across its geographic regions, including key desegregation cases and remedies in Yonkers, Rochester, and Buffalo.
