Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954)
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WARREN delivered the opinion of the Court
Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.
We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does
Is the Supreme Court upholding this landmark 1954 decision? How is this case different? What has changed since 1954? What seems to be the issue according to this NY Times article?
7 comments:
I don't think that people should be sent to particular schools because of the color of your skin. It is never right to segregate either. Just because the school is the same separate is never equal. Mixed schools are better. I like going to the Queens High School because we are all different; with different color skin I've learned a lot about other people.
I think that it's a good idea to have a "wellrounded" school, but I don't think a school should have a specific amount of black kids for the amount of white kids in that school. It's wrong to accpet or deny someone entrance to a school based on their race. Even if you have 10 white kids and 10 black kids, if the 10 white kids are in AP classes and the 10 black kids are not the school is still being segregated, and the students have an even harder time interacting with one another. I agree with Jason, when he said that he didn't believe "people should be sent to particular schools because of the color of your skin." If the color of your skin makes a difference about which school you can go to, then they might also start to say that a person's gender can affect the school they attend too. If they have 65% boys and 35% girls, are they going to start denying boys entrance to the school, and accpet more girls to offset the balance? I don't think zoned schools cater to a particular race. They were created with a purpose of making it easier for kids to go to a particular school in their area, instead of another school far away. It's the students choice to decide if they want to go to their zoned school, or another school someplace else. I applied to our school because my zoned school was overcrowded, not because of the race of the students in the school. You can't help having a school that has a large percentage of students from a certain race, because the school is accpeting kids in the area around it. What will happen next? Will the city start mixing communities and have only a certain number of people from one race live in one area? If there are too many people of one race in one area, will they start to kick people out? I said in class how my father went to a high school he was zoned for in the early 70s, but then the city changed the zoning for his neighborhood, so his sister had to go to a different high school, in the late 70s. Now that particular high school is terrible and people who live in the area my father did send their kids to catholic schools, or other schools in different districts. Zoned schools just makes it easier to have a high school you are gauranteed to get into, but it doesn't mean that you have to go to that school.
I don't think that there is anything you can really do about the segregated state of public schools without changing the mentality of the American public as a whole. Personally, I would choose to base entrance into schools on how qualified on is, with none of this op-ed and affirmative action nonsense. Unfortunately, with the public feeling as they do and students, logically, going to the schools closest to their homes, what else is there for us to do but try as hard as we can to racially and culturally mix the populations of our countries schools as much as we can, therefore paving the way for a change in the demographics of neighborhoods? However, I was not in class when we discussed this article and I don't really think that this applies when a student is denied entrance to a school based on their skin color because it would upset the racial balance of the institution. I see the similarities between this situation and Brown versus the Board of Ed., the major difference here that I see, and I may not be as versed on this issue as I should be, is that the present segregation of schools would be institutional rather than forced. I am torn between my belief that affirmative action if outdated and the tremendous cultural disparities in our school systems. I agree with the points that Jason made; you can get so much more out of going to a school as diverse as QHST, which is probably why picking a side on this issue is so hard for me, because I am not directly experiencing said disparities. However, I wish there were more posts here so that I could get more opinions on this subject because, as I said, I was not in class when we discussed this issue.
-joanna vogel
2006, BROWN V. DEPT of EDUC. Well the first obvious thing that changed is the name. After that it only really gets more obvious. We are a completely different country then we were back then. People have learned so much about society, life and how the world turns. Schools now are all mixed, by law of course, but when does the law get to mixed up in schools. Is it right to deny a white student access to a school just because the school needs to make that 15% of african americans. I think that its wrong to set a percentage of what color students have to be. People already learned to live together and no matter what we will have our differences and in the end the mojarity will stick with our own race but when people of different races live and study together without anyone forcing them to, thats the real accomplishment.
This all comes back to the article about having bogus laws such as taxi drivers having bundles of hay in their trunk. It’s not a law that’s enforced, so people don’t abide by it. Laws are up to the people of the government to follow them and make sure they are up to date. I think that laws should change with the times because they apparently in the taxi driver case don’t follow the modern age of having gasoline run taxis. With this brown VS board of education case of having to have a percentage of 15% colored and 85% white I think it should be looked at again and re written. I think that every school should have a level of diversity rather than picking students from the same racial setting. Just as the case of putting schools on the community lines, it gives you the opportunity to allow kids to flock to your school because it’s in distance of all of the racially different communities. I don’t understand why they say it’s wrong to do that, because it can only solve a problem rather than trying to be politically correct. I think all schools should be done by a lottery and not done by the color of your skin because you go to school not to sit next to someone of the same race but to sit next to someone who wants to be there in your place, not because there was space in the building to put you since you are colored or white. I think that school systems will always find a way to segregate kids anyway but not by race, but my “brains”, by AP classes as what Kaitlyn said. I think that if there was a conflict of interest as to why all the same race kids were in an AP class, and the other were, people would look differently towards it and see that there’s a problem. You can please everyone and not everyone will agree to what is the right thing to do when you’re trying to be as politically correct as possible. I agree with Joanna because you really cannot do anything about trying to balance out the # of races in a classroom or school. In my eyes I don’t think race matters; you go to school for yourself and not to educate your race. You shouldn’t be able to deny children from a school because of race because race has no play in the way you learn so why cant seats be filled by students who want to learn and not care about the race card.
I think it is so pathetic that in the year 2006 we still have to have a mindstate in which we ae more concerned with the color of a students skin, then we are with the educations of the children in our nation. The fact that "wellrounded" is displayed as a culturally diverse environment to meet certain quotas, as opposed to an environment that hand unique individuals regardless of race, is a depiction of ignorance. Although diversity shoulkd try to be attained in all educational institutions, it is ludacris to enroll a certain amount of children of each race to attain this infusion of cultures.
when schools arent mixed i sometimes think that people look at mix schools like there are bad ones and that they have bad teachers but u have to look at it this way, our school is really mixed with different cultures and that in da real working world you have to work with different races and people if u like it or not and that our school is teaching us ways to be with other cultures to get the hang of it and to see if we get along with one another..
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