Seventy years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional, America’s schools are just as segregated today as they were then. The painful truth is that this segregation is not by accident. It has been allowed to happen, with the Supreme Court playing a significant role in facilitating the resegregation of schools across the country.
In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in public schools violated the Constitution, famously declaring that “separate but equal” schools were inherently unequal. This ruling was a major blow to the systemic racism embedded in American institutions, including the public education system. At the time, zero percent of Black students attended majority-white schools. The decision was a victory for the Civil Rights Movement and a key step in dismantling the legal foundations of segregation.
The Court followed up with Brown II in 1955, which mandated the desegregation of schools “with all deliberate speed.” This was supposed to be the moment when Black children in America would have access to the same quality of education as white children. Unfortunately, what followed was not immediate desegregation, but fierce and widespread resistance, including “white flight” to the suburbs, private school enrollments for white children, and various legal maneuvers designed to maintain segregation.
While these forms of resistance were damaging, the most significant blow to the Brown decision came from the Supreme Court itself. Over the decades, the Court has gradually diminished the impact of Brown, effectively allowing America’s schools to resegregate.
The Supreme Court’s Role in Resegregating Schools
The resegregation of public schools began in earnest in the 1970s, when the Supreme Court started allowing exceptions to desegregation efforts. One of the most pivotal cases was Milliken v. Bradley in 1974, which dealt with Detroit’s segregated schools. The Court ruled that majority-white suburban school districts could not be forced to integrate with neighboring majority-Black inner-city schools, despite the fact that white flight to the suburbs had directly caused the racial segregation of urban schools. The Court’s decision effectively blocked a major pathway to desegregation—cross-district integration—and laid the foundation for modern school segregation.
By the 1990s, the Court had delivered another crushing blow to the legacy of Brown. In Board of Education of Oklahoma City v. Dowell (1991), the Court ruled that school districts did not have to demonstrate that they had eliminated all vestiges of past discrimination to end court-ordered desegregation. Instead, they only needed to show that they had made a “good effort” to desegregate. This ruling allowed schools to return to segregated conditions, as it removed any obligation to continue desegregation efforts once a district could argue it had made some attempt at integration.
The Dowell decision signaled to school districts across the country that the Supreme Court no longer saw desegregation as a priority. It permitted school districts to revert to the very conditions that Brown was intended to abolish: separate and unequal schools, with Black children concentrated in underfunded, overcrowded institutions, while white students attended schools with better resources, facilities, and opportunities.
The Ongoing Reality: Separate and Unequal
Despite the promise of Brown, Black children in America continue to be left behind. Segregated schools are not a thing of the past; they are a reality for many Black and Latino students in 2024. Schools serving Black communities are underfunded, understaffed, and often located in areas with fewer economic opportunities. Meanwhile, schools in wealthier, predominantly white areas thrive, with better facilities, more experienced teachers, and access to advanced educational programs.
The resegregation of schools reflects the broader racial and economic inequalities that persist in American society. In many ways, Brown’s goal of integration has been undone. According to some estimates, schools today are just as segregated, if not more so, than they were in the late 1960s. White students and Black students are often separated by neighborhood boundaries, school district lines, and funding disparities that mirror the racial and economic divide in America.
The New Frontiers of Segregation: Secession Movements
The push to resegregate schools has not been limited to legal decisions and white flight. In recent years, entire communities have sought to secede from larger, more diverse school districts in order to create new, predominantly white school districts. This tactic has become a modern tool for maintaining racial segregation in schools. Rather than integrate with Black or Latino communities, some white communities are carving out their own districts, ensuring that their children attend schools with fewer students of color and more resources.
The Supreme Court has done little to stop these efforts. As the Court has become more conservative over the past few decades, it has consistently ruled in ways that undermine the legacy of Brown and allow racial segregation in schools to persist. The Court’s reluctance to intervene in these secession efforts—and its general apathy toward desegregation—reflects a disturbing shift away from the ideals that once drove the fight for civil rights.
Injustice Persists
Black children in America continue to face an unequal education system. The promise of Brown has been broken, and the Supreme Court has played a key role in that betrayal. The resegregation of public schools is not just a failure of policy; it is a failure of justice. It demonstrates how deeply ingrained racial inequality remains in the fabric of American society.
Today, we see the consequences of resegregation not just in academic outcomes, but in broader social and economic disparities. The education gap between Black and white students is reflected in the wage gap, the wealth gap, and the incarceration gap. As long as Black children are denied access to the same quality of education as their white peers, they will continue to be left behind in every other aspect of American life.
The Path Forward
The fight for racial justice is far from over. Brown v. Board of Education may have been a monumental legal victory, but its promise remains unfulfilled. The Supreme Court’s decisions over the past several decades have eroded the progress that was made and have allowed the forces of segregation to regroup and flourish.
To truly honor the legacy of Brown, America must recommit itself to the fight for educational equity. This means addressing the root causes of segregation—racial and economic inequality—and investing in schools that serve Black and Latino communities. It means fighting back against efforts to resegregate schools through secession or other means. And it means holding the Supreme Court accountable for its role in maintaining an unjust system.
Until that happens, the legacy of Brown v. Board of Education will remain incomplete, and Black children will continue to face an education system that, 70 years later, is still separate and unequal.
