Center for Civil Rights Releases Education Conference Video

The education conference hosted by UNC’s Center for Civil Rights (CCR) took place on April 2, 2009, the day before the Long Civil Rights Movement Conference hosted by the Southern Oral History Program. Entitled “Looking to the Future: Legal and Policy Options for Racially Integrated Education in the South and the Nation,” the conference presented a multidisciplinary set of panels aimed at translating academic studies into practical advice for activists, policymakers, and education professionals as schools all over the United States—especially in the South—resegregate.  The CCR has just released videos of the entire conference, including every panel and the keynote.

The following highlights, while not a comprehensive report on this well-planned conference, are intended to offer a taste of what took place and a brief introduction to the videos. The CCR, the LCRM project team, and the University of North Carolina Press are working on making the papers available online and in book form in the future.

Julius Chambers, Executive Director of the Center for Civil Rights and Clinical Professor of Law at the UNC Law School, set the stage for the conference by pointing out that in some parts of the country, we are facing a return to conditions that existed pre-Brown vs Board of Education. “Racially segregated schools are an affront to our Constitution,” he said. (For more on Chambers’ conference introduction, click here)

Second, panelists pointed out the hostility of the Bush Administration to the civil rights agenda, not only in the choice of Supreme Court appointees but also in the pervasive politicization of the Justice Department. Panelist Chinh Q. Le (Seton Hall University) described the 400 pages of a Department of Justice internal report on this problem; apparently there was “no end to the politicization of the Justice Department under Bush,” from decisions on which cases to pursue to consideration of the political leanings of interns.

In addition, according to Danielle Holley-Walker (University of South Carolina) and Maree Sneed (Hogan and Hartson), the Justice Department has worked aggressively to “help” districts to get out from under court order and end their “unitary status” (meaning that they were under court order to integrate). Some districts had been under court order for forty years and were glad to be free of it; the result, however, has been an end to busing and an end to meaningful efforts to integrate in many districts.

Possible solutions presented during the conference were socio-economic-status (SES) integration plans, which appear to approximate racial integration in some cases but which the panelists seemed to agree needed more study; magnet schools rather than charter schools, as charter schools have tended to be racially segregated; inter-district cooperation on magnet schools; policies that address segregation in housing; and more public awareness of the benefits of integrated education to generate the political will for change.

Panelists expressed concern that current programs to improve education, such as No Child Left Behind, are inadequate, even wrong-headed. Following Panel Three, “Evaluating Socioeconomic Based Student Assignment Plans,” in response to a question about how to prepare teachers for diversity, Sean Reardon (Stanford University) stated that incentives for good teachers and firing bad ones is a “bankrupt notion of teacher training.” Rick Kahlenberg (The Century Foundation) hoped that President Obama’s understanding of the importance of integration would be translated into policy. Panelists highlighted the need to educate the Administration and advocate for change. In his keynote, Jack Boger expressed the hope that President Obama will reset the Supreme Court balance.

Particular examples of experimental solutions to watch were noted: the SES assignment plan in Wake County, NC; “social purpose politics” swimming against the federal tide in Rock Hill, SC; and a cooperative learning community across three racially distinct districts in Omaha, Nebraska . The News and Observer reported on the conference panelists’ analysis of Wake County on April 3. The Charlotte-Mecklenberg school district was cited more than once during the conference as having moved backward in an apparent attempt to renew “separate but equal” education.

More than one panelist pointed out that latino students are the largest minority group, especially among the school-age population today, and that all discussions of racial equality must consider multiple races. Other important contextual issues that came up in the panels were the racial isolation of many rural schools and districts, and the racially isolating effects of housing patterns in suburbanization.

A number of panelists addressed what they saw as the fundamental need for integrated education for all students. For example, Roslyn Arlin Mickelson (UNC Charlotte), in her presentation during Panel One, “Making the Case for Racially Integrated Education,” described a meta-study in which school racial diversity had positive effects on math outcomes in 72% of studies. In answer to a question during Panel Three on why funding was not considered in studies, Rick Kahlenberg responded, “Would you rather have your child in a high-poverty school that spends more, or in an integrated school with fewer resources? By and large, you are better off in the integrated school. The socioeconomic mix is even more important than funding.”

In her Panel One presentation, Mickelson shared results of an examination of studies that were cited in amicus briefs submitted to the Supreme Court; she and her co-author Martha Bottia found that supporters of segregation referred more often to research from the 1970s and 1980s, whereas supporters of integration cited more recent studies, which she described as better designed and more accurate and reliable overall.

During Panel Four, “Building Political Will for Integrated Schools Post-PICS,” Amy Stuart Wells (Columbia University) offered a striking perspective on the Obama generation when she described her study of 1980 graduates, the first to complete a fully integrated education. They were prepared for an integrated world that they found did not yet exist: neighborhoods, social institutions, offices were still stratified. Now this generation is making decisions about educational policy and about where to send their children to school. This observer (a member of that generation) wonders whether our integrated educational experience has made us overly complacent about the advent of a so-called post-racial society. Could encouraging signs of a possible post-racial society disappear as rapidly as integrated schools are disappearing?

In his keynote address at midday, Jack Boger called the audience to action. “We have education in order to re-form and re-create ourselves in every single generation,” he said. “Education is our society’s most fundamental effort to reform itself. Schools are the chief site for moral understanding and democratic society.” He warned that negative results of our current inequality will surely come. “We need to focus on policy for integration in the South and the nation. It is our bounden duty. . . . Let us all work late to avoid a divided America we may one day all regret.”