A STRUGGLE FOR EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY1950-1980ABBY LEVINAMY NEWCOMBDAVID OHKIMBERLY SIEVEKELUCINDA PHILIPPRICHARD PRESICCITERRA MAKOWSKI

CI 565 – Dr. Gayle Y. Thieman, Portland State University

Social Context in the 1950’s Postwar baby boomers are

hopeful Schools expected to

inoculate children from disease, protect them from nuclear threat and prepare them for a technological future.

There were, however, severe inequalities. Springfield Public School - 1950

Severe Inequalities in 1950 African Americans

Segregated by Law: 17 States Average Schooling for

Mexican Americans: 5.4 Years Disabled Children Not

Enrolled in School: 72% Women Athletics Teams,

Scholarships and Professional Schools and Colleges were unavailable. Eastport School, Annapolis -

1950

Racial Segregation in Topeka, Kansas Fight Began in Topeka, Kansas High Schools

Integrated on the surface School activities were segregated

Elementary Schools Strictly segregated 18 white schools, 4 African-

American schools African-American Teachers held

Master’s degrees and were highly qualified. They had vastly limited resources compared to white schools.Board of Education in Topeka, Kansas

Beginning the Fight for Equality: Parents and the NAACP

Parents fight for their children School Board meetings

Wanted the same education Separate, but equal court decision

upheld NAACP efforts

School was the platform to end segregation

13 parents attempted to enroll children (1950)

Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education (1954 verdict)

Problems with the Implementation of the Brown vs. Board RulingA Failure to Integrate 10 years after Brown vs

Board of Education ruling, 90% of schools were still segregated.

Example: The Little Rock Nine - 1957

Civil Rights Act of 1964 President Lyndon Johnson  The act withheld funding if schools

failed to integrate, and gave funding if schools successfully integrated.  

The monetary incentive was enough to make most schools comply

Within 8 years, 91% of schools were integrated

The Bilingual Education Act 1968 - Congress Passes the Bilingual

Act of 1968  1970 - Crystal City, Texas. Chicano

students demand to be allowed to speak Spanish, study Chicano history, and be taught by Chicano teachers.

1974 - Lau sues San Francisco's school district. Lau v Nichols US Supreme Court 1974: Specialized instruction in English; Access to core content; and Access to all other district programs and services

1975 - National Association for Bilingual Education is founded.

Walkout in Crystal City - 1969

School in San Francisco - 1975

Gender Equality In 1970, only 1 % of Medical and Law degrees

were awarded to women and 7.4% of high school athletes were female

In 1972, Title IV was passed. Like the previous civil rights laws, enforcement was still an issue

Dorothy Raffle: 14 year old female basketball player. Filed lawsuit against federal government for failing to enforce the law

Within 20 years, 40% of all high school athletes are female, and over half of higher level graduates are women

Title IX had an impact broader than just K-12 education; it swept to professions, which changed the workplace

Children with Disabilities Civil rights movement

extended to children with disabilities, based heavily on the Brown vs. Board decision

Not enough to treat everyone equally, had to provide resources and training to make learning possible

Changes were costly and controversial

Widely implemented

Busing and Zoning Discrimination Persists 1971: U.S. Supreme Court ruled that busing children

within a city’s limits was lawful and a solution to the school segregation issue.

Detroit, Michigan was not one of those successful cities. In 1972 a federal judge ordered an unconventional solution: Bus inner city students (black) out of Detroit and into the suburban schools (white) and vice versa. This was due to the “white flight” that stemmed from Detroit’s riots of the 1960’s that now had caused severely underfunded inner city schools while the suburbs – due to a rich tax foundation – offered a rich variety of academic and extracurricular activities.

This affected approximately 800,000 students

1974: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the suburbs of Detroit were not responsible for the school conditions in the city.

Thurgood Marshall was outspoken against the ruling: “In the short run, it may seem the easier course “to allow our great metropolitan areas to be divided up into two cities – one white, the other black. But it is a course, I predict that our people ultimately regret.

The Debate Continues

Years later the debate for educational equality continues!

Busing as an example was used successfully to create more racially

balanced schools in many cities But it failed in places like Detroit - the numbers were out of sync to promote

quality education for all

Did the lawsuits and litigation work? Some think the debates and action were needed to address the social injustice in

a democratic society  Yet there is a doubt that the best ideas

about common schools and public education have not been tried

So where did we get in 30 years of radical changes? 

We sometimes forget where we were in 1954 and some do see a net gain for the

society as a whole.We got the laws in place that can allow

us to move forward and develop a healthy system - but will we?