Title: Why are American public schools still segregated? | Berkeley News
Headings: Why are American public schools still segregated?
Why are American public schools still segregated?
Berkeley News: Why is there still segregation in our schools?
How has the history of slavery in this country impacted the segregation we still see in our public schools?
How can the federal government play a role in integrating schools?
Why should the public help in this fight to integrate public schools, and how would it benefit future generations?

Content: That’s because after Brown v. Board of Education, Southern school districts that were intentionally segregated were subject to constitutional remedies that were supervised by federal courts. Although quite a few school districts in the South are still subject to federal oversight, many re-segregated after changes in the law made it easier for federal courts to release them from supervision. In other parts of the country where cities were segregated—but not by law—the only way to integrate was through metropolitan desegregation plans that crossed into the suburbs. But the 1974 United States Supreme Court case Milliken v. Bradley, limited the power of federal courts to order integration across school district boundaries. As a practical matter, the case made school desegregation in these areas very hard to achieve. How has the history of slavery in this country impacted the segregation we still see in our public schools? In my mind, there is unquestionably a connection between segregation and the history of enslavement in this country and segregation, because the tragic story of America is that the forces of white supremacy replicate themselves. We had a brief period of Reconstruction; and then the federal government pulled out of the South, which led to a resurgence in white domestic terrorism against black people. After that, we had Jim Crow for over half of the twentieth century, including forced segregation not only in the schools, but across every facet of society throughout the South and places in the North.