Where Are the Most Segregated Schools? In Liberal States!, Of Course!

The new UCLA study that had a press release a couple days ago is a great "headline grabber" but it's just not "news." If anyone thinks that this was a world-shattering revelation ... let's do a bit of research before going off half-cocked. The issue is well-known and these States have been working to find solutions to the problems for many years.

Consider the situation specifically in New York for a moment. This is a long-standing issue that has been being addressed for years. The point is that it is BEING addressed willingly without any kinds of Federal threats or intervention.

Indeed, the current problems may be linked to actions that began in the Federal Government (under G HW Bush) and subsequent Supreme Court decisions made by a conservative-stacked bench:

Furthermore, the implications of the UCLA study are being grossly misinterpreted and not only by the OP.

Gary Orfield (Director of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA) himself has stated previously:

"People need to understand that we have race-based solutions because nothing else worked. Other things failed miserably."

Why is segregation increasing rather than decreasing? BECAUSE race-based solutions are being ELIMINATED.

In 2006, Jonathan Kozol had this to say in an article in Gotham Gazette:

Segregation has returned to public education with a vengeance, as a result of years of federal policies that started in the early 1990s when the US Supreme Court and the local federal courts began to rip apart the legacy of the Supreme Court's 1954 school desegration ruling, Brown v. Board of Education. The percentage of black children who now go to integrated schools has dropped to its lowest level since 1968.

What are those trends? In distinction to the assertion of the OP, I think (unsurprisingly to some) we must look in a more Conservative direction: The Supreme Court.
Source - American Radio Works History of Segregation

By the early 1990s the trend toward school desegregation had begun to reverse. Three Supreme Court decisions set the course by limiting the scope of Brown v. Board of Education. Efforts by other branches of the government to roll back school desegregation plans also took effect. By the late 1990s, some courts even barred school districts from voluntary desegregation efforts.

The Supreme Court decision of June 2007 is likely to accelerate that trend. The decision came in two cases from Seattle and Louisville. In both cases, white parents filed suit after their children were denied admission to the public schools of their choice because of their race.

The court threw out Louisville and Seattle's integration plans. It forbids schools from using race to assign children to schools unless they are under a court order to remedy past inequities.

In its decision, the Court acknowledged that school districts may consider diversity valuable. But Chief Justice Roberts wrote, "Simply because the school districts may seek a worthy goal does not mean they are free to discriminate on the basis of race to achieve it."

Oh, the irony of Chief Justice Robert's statement. Warren and Marshall must be spinning in their graves.

(... and before anyone argues that this Supreme Court is NOT conservatively-biased (and intentionally so) consider this:

Daniel Fisher of Forbes magazine lamented when President Obama was elected to a second term Forbes Magazine:

The decades-long campaign by conservatives to build a lasting majority on the U.S. Supreme Court may come to an end over the next four years, now that President Obama has been reelected to the White House.

While it is possible all five of the conservative-leaning Supreme Court justices will try to hold onto their seats until the end of the Obama presidency, death and the siren call of a well-funded pension plan may pull one or more of them off of the bench. That would give Obama the opportunity to swap in a left-leaning justice who could prevent Chief Justice John Roberts from obtaining a majority in the cases that divide conservatives and liberals — abortion, affirmative action and employee and property rights.

I guess we could add ending school desegregation to that list if we wanted to dance around the fire of Conservative-bashing, but I, for one, do not.

Indeed, I would argue the fact the issue is NOT primarily about race or even about population distribution in the modern era but rather SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS: the poor kids are being kept away from the rich kids.

That's the beginning, end and middle of the problem highlighted in Dr. Orfield's report.

reply to post by Gryphon66


Great post Gryphon. If your name was Peter, that would be pretty cool. Even more if you lived in a town called Quahog.

I am not for desegregation or segregation. I am for people doing what they feel better doing naturally. If that means that someones rights get violated, then you handle that individually in court.

I think people need to also think about the historical backgrounds of the regions too.

In the south, people of all colors lived and worked closely together, even in the antebellum south. It was just a function of the times. Masters and slaves still worked side by side, lived close together, even had relationships that weren't always antagonistic even though they were certainly skewed by the master/slave dynamic.

In the north, you had far less people who were minority. There just wasn't any need for them to be there so they had never been brought there. The poor worker class in the north was mainly white.

After the Civil War, you had chaos in the south with the rise of Jim Crow and segregation and everything else that went on.

Then you had the Great Migration where large numbers of blacks started coming north looking for work. Northern segregation wasn't openly legally enforced; it was enforced through more subtle means (real estate zoning and stuff). It did what it was supposed to. While in the South, living conditions and relations still stayed in that off state they had during slavery.

The north is more sharply divided than the south and just as racist in its own way. The weirdest places are the border areas that are on the edge. They're neither fish nor foul.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


Thanks BFFT ... I probably resemble Peter more these days than I would like to: but I'll take that as a complement.

Everyone doing what they want and being free to do so is an amazing idea. Or should I say Ideal?

There DOES EXIST a balance between individual freedom and liberty and government regulation and control. Arguably, the greatest issue that faces us now is that we are being pushed to believe that only the two extremes (anarchy or totalitarianism) are viable. One or the other. All or nothing.

Wrong. The American Experiment was DESIGNED to demonstrate that there was at least one third option: a constitutional and representative democratic-republic.

Problem is, instead of a democratic-republic we have Democrats and Republicans. I prefer the Mars Attacks! alternative, meself.

Gryphon66
...
Consider the situation specifically in New York for a moment. This is a long-standing issue that has been being addressed for years. The point is that it is BEING addressed willingly without any kinds of Federal threats or intervention.

The problem with de facto segregation in NYC was discussed about 10 posts ago with reference to the 10 year-old Harvard and SUNY studies:

New York Schools: Fifty Years After Brown
by Gail Robinson, May 17, 2004

... New York City public schools are among the most segregated in the country. But, if integration has not been achieved, few New Yorkers seem to see it anymore as the most important goal in education.
...
Today, of the approximately 1.1 million students in New York City public schools, about 13 percent are Asian, 15 percent white, 32 percent black and 40 percent Hispanic. Given the makeup of the student body, one reason for segregation of New York City schools, said Pedro Noguera, a professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Education, is that "there are no kids to integrate with."

But the population of many schools is even more skewed than the student population as a whole. Some 60 percent of all black students in New York State, including those in New York City, attend schools that are at least 90 percent black, according to a recent study by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University; more Latinos in New York State than in any other state go to schools that are 90 percent or more Latino.

Another study, this one by the Lewis Mumford Center at the State University of New York at Albany, found that Asians and Hispanics are more segregated from whites in New York schools than in any other school system in the country. For black-white segregation, New York ranks third.

The Mumford study also found that, in 2000, the typical black student attended a school where only five percent of the other students were white, a sharp drop from 1970.

www.gothamgazette.com...

The NYC problems have been recognized and analyzed for years.
Harvard and the Mumford Center at SUNY found rampant de facto discrimination 10 years before the UCLA report.

The UCLA report and the coming reports in the series bring home the point that areas that consider themselves "progressive," and the MSM that echo that mythology for them and progressives everywhere, ignore reality as reflected in one of the basic functions entrusted to government: the education and socialization of our children.

Indeed, the current problems may be linked to actions that began in the Federal Government (under G HW Bush) and subsequent Supreme Court decisions made by a conservative-stacked bench

Still blaming a "Bush" for liberal failures?
Such a baseless contention, frivolous on its face, reflects the knee-jerk reaction of liberals to the entrenched policies and practices they have steadfastly defended while ignoring and denying the damage they, themselves, caused.

Why is segregation increasing rather than decreasing? BECAUSE race-based solutions are being ELIMINATED.

In 2006, Jonathan Kozol had this to say in an article in Gotham Gazette:

Segregation has returned to public education with a vengeance, as a result of years of federal policies that started in the early 1990s when the US Supreme Court and the local federal courts began to rip apart the legacy of the Supreme Court's 1954 school desegration ruling, Brown v. Board of Education. The percentage of black children who now go to integrated schools has dropped to its lowest level since 1968.

Jonathan Kozol was explicit in his criticism of so-called "progressives''" self-delusion as among the root causes of the failure of integration and NYC schools in particular:

Segregated Schools: Shame of The City
by Jonathan Kozol, Jan 16, 2006

When it comes to residential integration and school integration, New York has an undeserved reputation for progressive values. For the last 40 years it has been one of the most regressive cities in America, in many ways unaffected by the Brown decision. The courts never tried to integrate New York, and the major media, including the New York Times, consistently opposed any drastic measures that would significantly integrate the city's system.
…
The metropolitan New York City area is one of the most adamantly resistant sections of the nation, in which there has never been any serious attempt at voluntary integration programs between the city and the suburbs.

This is in great contrast to St. Louis, Milwaukee, Boston, and several other cities, all of which have successful suburban integration programs for inner city children. ... .
In virtually all of the [above] urban-suburban integration programs, the high school completion rate and graduation rate for black students average 90 to 95 percent or better, and the overwhelming number of these black kids go to college. There are waiting lists for all these programs; in St. Louis there are four applicants for every opening.

www.gothamgazette.com...

Of course, you wouldn't quote Kozol's direct refutation of your transparently desperate attempt at diversion, to lay blame on conservatives and the Bush administration, when it doesn't serve the underlying purpose of deflection as the reality cannot longer be ignored.

What are those trends? In distinction to the assertion of the OP, I think (unsurprisingly to some) we must look in a more Conservative direction: The Supreme Court.

Why not look at those who explicitly advocated continued segregation, and more of it: the City of New York?

Separate Schools for Black Males Might Work in New York City; Segregation Is the Issue
Published: November 20, 1990

To the Editor:

The New York City branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is saying no to using public funds to establish schools that separate black boys from their female peers and other ethnic groups. Laws on segregation and integration are at issue here.

As a whole, children of African descent in our city's public schools are not progressing as well as they can; particularly black boys. There is no question that actions must be taken to remove the impediments in the school setting that prevent them from doing their best work. However, further segregation is not the way to do that. Effective educational models will work for all children and can be established for the population mix in the schools that serve our children.

As we focus on educational issues that relate to a global community, an international work force, a pluralistic society and multicultural education for the year 2000 and beyond, we see a disadvantage to greater segregation. Quick fixes frequently contain other problems that come back to haunt us down the road.
NONA E. SMITH
Director, Project Excellence
New York City N.A.A.C.P.
New York, Nov. 2, 1990

www.nytimes.com...

You resort to opinion and skewed liberal "interpretations" of suspected conservative policies that fostered and strengthened segregation, when it was the City itself at the forefront!

Even as far back as the 90s the N.A.A.C.P. recognized the flawed policies NYC liberals were floating as "cures" for the problem

Kozol was right,
New Yorkers have only themselves and their self-delusions to blame for the sorry plight of their schools and the performance of their students.

jw

All residents of New York are not "liberal."

All residents of New York City are not "progressive."

"Liberal" and "progressive" are only identical terms in right-wing bombast.

One of the identifiable CAUSES of the segregation issue in these states is the result of George H.W. Bush stacking of the Supreme Court with David Souter and Clarence Thomas. A Conservative court immediately began to attack the very clear requirements of Brown vs K Topeka Brd of Education ... and THAT is what Kozol claims in his article and in his books for that matter.

This trend continued and was expanded under G W Bush:

Dr. Gary Orfield, the Director of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA (you know, the fellow that conducted and published the OP Study) has stated very clearly that the issues in current segregation were created by A CONSERVATIVE SUPREME COURT and REPUBLICAN ADMINISTRATIONS dismantling the States and municipalities abilities to put race-based solutions in place.

Again, Dr. Orfield:Source

I think it's really ironic to be celebrating Little Rock as we're re-segregating the South. And I think it's pretty cynical for the president of the United States (2007 GWB - note) to be praising the efforts of the Little Rock Nine at the same time his Justice Department has succeeded in urging the Supreme Court -- which has been changed by his appointments -- to forbidding even voluntary efforts for school desegregation.

To state facts about the political actions of BUSH I and BUSH II is not "blaming" anyone ... the facts are clear in black and white, so to speak.

The assertion in the OP and the title of the thread that Liberals and Progressives are the CAUSE of the situation of segregation in school systems in these states and others is simply INCORRECT.

It is OBVIOUS that these are not LIBERAL nor PROGRESSIVE nor DEMOCRATIC positions.

It is OBVIOUS that these situations are the result of CONSERVATIVE and REPUBLICAN and RIGHT-WING attacks on race-based solutions in the schools, to wit:

1. The Bush I and Bush II stacking of the Supreme Court to achieve a conservatively-biased body capable of "legislating from the bench."

2. The Bush I and Bush II Justice Departments policies to dismantle race-based solutions in the school systems.

The position, asserted in the OP and maintained there after, that somehow the "Blue States" status of New York, California and Illinois has created this situation is clearly and plainly ludicrous.


What else do these states have? THE HIGHEST POPULATIONS OF STUDENTS Of course, in a study which is recording "the worst" situations, the more populous states and cities (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles) will come out "on top."

That in no way implies that there are no current segregation issues in the South or anywhere else in the country and neither does the Dr. Orfield or the UCLA study.

Here are two interviews with Dr. Orfield in which he makes it clear that these segregation issues are based in the efforts to dismantle race-based integration efforts.

NPR 2006 De Facto Segregation Growing Study Suggests (Dr. Gary Orfield)

Are Schools Resegregating - ABC News - Dr. Gary Orfield

OF COURSE THE ISSUE IS STILL RACIALLY BASED! For example, let's see what the "White Genocide Project" has to say about the UCLA study under discussion:

US: Non-Whites Want to Force Assimilate New York City Schools, March 27, 2014

Where we find such rare gems as:

New York public schools, according to the study, are the most segregated schools in the United States. This is not the policies of schools or any authority that is separating the racial groups in the schools; the children of the schools want to be with their own race – something the UCLA wants to stop children from doing.

The study looks from 1989 to 2010, and finds that schools have become more naturally segregated as the United States has become less White. Many people are now starting to grow out of their anti-White education as they are dropped head-first into a minority White society.

and not to mention this one ...

All and ONLY White countries are expected to have open borders. This allows millions of non-Whites to flood in and make White people a minority. The next stage is to force White people to assimilate. What that means is, schools, towns, states, etc, are not allowed to remain majority White. They call for “diversity”, but what they really call for are non-Whites.

That kind of embedded racism, which if not directly encouraged has at least been promulgated by the Bushes and their Conservative Courts, is what the "liberals and progressives" have to face in dealing with these problems.

Claiming anything else is overtly disingenuous.

Again, my own position would look more at the socio-economic basis of the problem, i.e. it's not so much about keeping the races apart as it is about keeping the poor away from the privileged.

reply to post by Gryphon66


We had a school not far from here, an "alternative school" that focused on certain areas of study. Math and science. You could apply to go there from any area in the school system. It was about 50/50 white black even though the school was in a 98% black demographic.

Anyway when the administration changed, they started phasing out the white kids. Told one white parent whose kids had gone there for years that their application was denied because they were going to make the race status of the students more representative of the local population.

It really was a clear example of race mindedness coming down from the top. Blacks, liberals, segregating themselves from whites. Plus, as later demonstrated, its easer for black school administrators to hide malfeasance when there isn't so many whites, conservative or not, around. They were cooking the books on grades and attendance to qualify for certain federal and state "monies".

Logarock
reply to post by Gryphon66

 

We had a school not far from here all an "alternative school" that focused on certain areas of study. Math and science. You could apply to go there from any area in the school system. It was about 50/50 white black even though the school was in a 98% black demographic.

Anyway when the administration changed, they started phasing out the white kids. Told one white parent whose kids had gone there for years that their application as denied because they were going to make the race status of the students more representative of the local population.

It really was a clear example of race mindedness coming down from the top. Blacks, liberals, segregating themselves from whites.

Did the school administration of the school nearby you claim that their position was a "liberal" one? If not, why are you including the "liberal" tag in your list?

Do you realize that the arguments AGAINST further integration of school districts nationwide, as brought out in the UCLA study in the OP, are the same argument you're making here? i.e. that the schools' populations are based on the surrounding demographics?

Do you realize that the arguments to further segregate schools in this country are particularly based in recent decisions of the Roberts Court to wit: "Simply because the school districts may seek a worthy goal does not mean they are free to discriminate on the basis of race to achieve it." (Chief Justice Roberts) ?

There is little doubt that racial issues abound in this country.

The errors in logic stem from trying to suggest that "liberals" or "progressives" are somehow the sole cause of these problems.



Let's make it easy: find liberal or progressive or even Democratic policy-makers who are advocating for the segregation of schools. Quote directly from those policy-makers' own words calling for greater segregation of schools. That's the claim that OP is making; I'd love to see some direct cited, quoted evidence.

OR, what should be even easier if this is a RIGHT-LEFT political issue ...

Find conservative or right-wing or even Republican policy-makers who are calling for greater INTEGRATION of schools based on racial factors. Again, quote directly from those policy-makers' own words calling for greater INTEGRATION of schools.

I sit corrected: Mitt Romney mentioned such a plan in May 2012. Romney's "Far Left" Education Plan