Recent civilrightsprojectucla_k12 items

Brown at 50: King's Dream or Plessy's Nightmare?

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This report examines a decade of resegregation from the time of theSupreme Court's 1991 "Dowell" decision, which authorized a return toneighborhood schools, even if that would create segregation, through the2001-2002 school year. It goes beyond previous reports by Harvard's CivilRights Project to study the impact of resegregation in districts whose wherecourt orders have been ended and includes new data on the presentsituation of the four communities involved in the first "Brown" decision a halfcentury ago as well as of a number of districts whose subsequent casesproduced decisive changes in the law of school desegregation. It alsoconsiders the very different desegregation levels in communities of differingsizes. Finally, it reviews the broad sweep of segregation changes nationally,regionally, and by state since the 1954 "Brown" decision. It shows that themovement that began with the Supreme Court decision has had an enduringimpact but that we are experiencing the largest backward...

Preserving Integration Options for Latino Children: A Manual for Educators, Civil Rights Leaders, and the Community

Thu, 6 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This document will explain the effects of the Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education (cases known as PICS) ruling and how school board members can continue to use lawful policies, like those outlined by Justice Kennedy in the PICS opinion, to further the important goals of decreasing racial isolation, promoting diversity, and furthering equal educational opportunity in our public schools.

Extreme Segregation and Policy Inaction in California Schools

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

California is under an illusion that it’s a progressive place where racial diversity is a strength, yet it operates the nation’s most segregated schools, according to this report’s analysis. Segregation has quadrupled in CA schools in the last 30 years. Schools are segregated not just by race – there is double segregation by race and poverty, which means systematically unequal educational opportunity for students of color.

Segregated by Teacher Experience in California

Fri, 10 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Given the importance of teacher experience and possible changes to the racial distribution of experience in recent years, this policy brief examines the distribution of teacher experience across segregated schools in California. The authors analyzed 7 years of the most recent publicly available data from California’s public schools, focusing on the relationship between student race and teacher experience.

Barriers to Racial Equity for Teachers of Color and Indigenous Teachers in California’s Teaching Pipeline and Profession

Fri, 10 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This paper explores obstacles to recruiting and retaining teachers of color and Indigenous teachers (TOCIT) in California’s schools. The researchers used a mix of qualitative and quantitative data collected over the course of one year from system leaders in teacher preparation, pre-service teachers, in-service teachers, and former teachers to better understand current policies and practices that may be contributing to teacher burnout, turnover and early retirement.

Can Our Schools Capture the Educational Gains of Diversity? North Carolina School Segregation, Alternatives and Possible Gains

Tue, 30 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

May 17, 2024 marks the 70^th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court decision that ruled segregated schools were “inherently unequal.” At the time, North Carolina was one of 17 states that enforced de jure segregation, that is, segregation by law. The state of North Carolina and the school districts within the state have played prominent roles in our nation’s history of school desegregation. North Carolina’s public school enrollment is increasingly multiracial, and the expansion of school choice means that a growing share of students attends charters and private schools, both of which tend to be more segregated than traditional public schools. As the nation marks this important anniversary, the authors assess where North Carolina schools are now in terms of school desegregation, as segregated schools are systematically linked to unequal educational opportunities and outcomes, while desegregated schools are associated with...

Segregated Choices: Magnet and Charter Schools

Fri, 12 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This analysis describes levels of diversity in a comparable subset of schools to enable policy-relevant comparisons between charter and magnet schools. We examine schools in districts that had at least five charter schools and five magnet schools in any year since 2000. This selection includes most of the 100 largest school districts since both types of schools developed mostly in large urban districts. This sample is especially relevant to choice policies because it allows comparisons in the same districts where both types of school choice have been tried at a significant level. This study describes the level of segregation in recent decades in large districts which had a significant presence of schools of both types.

The Unfinished Battle for Integration in a Multiracial America – from Brown to Now

Mon, 8 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Brown v. Board of Education was a turning point in American law and race relations. In a country where segregated education was the law in seventeen states with completely separate and unequal schools, Brown found that segregation was “inherently unequal” and violated the Constitution. This report discusses the present realities of school segregation and the patterns of change over 70 years.

Understanding Suburban School Segregation: Toward a Renewed Civil Rights Agenda

Fri, 1 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

As shifting populations change suburban school enrollment, education policy trends formerly confined to urban districts have spread to suburban ones. Many suburban school districts have experienced growth in the charter school sector, as well as a rash of school closures. Suburban schools and districts reflect broader societal problems, paradigms, and possibilities. Yet, if our society is to advance equitable opportunity for all, children learning together in suburban schools must be part of the solution. In order to think clearly about what a renewed civil rights agenda entails given our complex and multiracial geography of inequality, we must understand the extent to which suburban school districts are segregated—and why. We also need to think deeply about policy responses to advance integration with equitable status for all children. This paper draws on federal enrollment data from the nation’s largest 25 metros from 2011-2020 to descriptively analyze suburban school enrollment...

Washington, D.C.'s Voucher Program: Civil Rights Implications (working paper)

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The District of Columbia has the nation’s only school voucher program established and funded by the federal government. In thinking about the federal initiative in an arena that is a top priority of the Trump Administration it is well to assess this effort over the last 15 years. Clearly the advocates had very high hopes that it would be a major solution to the weak educational results for children in schools that were overwhelmingly poor and nonwhite. Unlike most of the voucher programs, this one mandated evaluations but the results of the evaluations the federal government has commissioned have been seriously disappointing. This paper examines the goals of the program, the hopes of its authors and supporters, and the skeptical predictions of its opponents, and what actually happened.

Charters as a Driver of Resegregation

Wed, 3 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Building upon existing research that finds charter schools tend to be more segregated than traditional public schools, this report describes how charter schools also contribute to resegregation in traditional public schools. The authors explore the direct and indirect ways in which this occurs through a case study of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) in North Carolina.

Segregating California’s Future: Inequality and its Alternative 60 Years after Brown v. Board of Education

Wed, 3 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Marking the 60th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v Board of Education, CRP researchers assessed California's progress in addressing school segregation, and found that California students are more racially segregated than ever. The authors conclude that California is the third worst state when it comes to school segregation for African Americans, behind New York and Illinois. California is, however, the state in which Latino students are most segregated.

Gentrification and Schools: Challenges, Opportunities and Policy Options

Wed, 3 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The study examines the growth of gentrification in California and its impact on schools and educational opportunities in the state. The study highlights the complex connections between gentrification, school choice, and school segregation patterns, finding the relationship between gentrification and local elementary schools largely depends on the specific city and community being gentrified. Statewide, gentrified neighborhoods have become more racially and economically diverse compared to those that did not gentrify, but the analysis finds only modest changes in local schools.

Private School Vouchers: Legal Challenges and Civil Rights Protections (working paper)

Wed, 3 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In this report, the authors detail the evolution of voucher policies, from their roots in the Jim Crow Era to their modern-day applications, including the rise of “neovoucher” programs; the past legal challenges to vouchers; factors that may influence the legal justifications of vouchers, including the quality of education for students of color in voucher programs; key policy issues that arise from this shift toward greater public funding of private schools; and conclude with a set of recommendations focused on civil rights protections.

Brown at 60: Great Progress, a Long Retreat and an Uncertain Future

Wed, 3 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Brown at 60: Great Progress, a Long Retreat and an Uncertain Future

Racial Reckoning and the Role of Schooling: Exploring the Potential of Integrated Classrooms and Liberatory Pedagogies

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Schools have long existed as a means of maintaining democracy in the United States and, given the centrality of race relations to the success of democracy, this paper suggests that schools can be called upon to address racism as well. As such, this paper looks to our rapidly diversifying nation and asks: “What would it take to move closer to meaningfully addressing the legacy of racism in the United States, and what role might schools play in this process?”

School Integration in Gentrifying Neighborhoods: Evidence from New York City

Tue, 7 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

gentrification, demographic change, school demographics, school integration

Dallas Diversity and Inclusion Study

Tue, 10 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Dallas, one of the nation’s largest central cities in its most rapidly growing metropolitan areas, has had a shrinking school district in the midst of major housing development. A surge in housing costs since the Great Recession has led to the return of middle class and white families to a number of communities but that has not been reflected in the student population. In response to the challenge of closing more schools and losing out to expanding charters, the DISD leadership decided to create some new schools and restart some older ones with programs designed both to attract new and non-public school families and to offer new choices to the families of color and low income families already in the system. This commitment to quality and diversity is still relatively modest but could hold real promise for both the city’s schools and as a national example of creative leadership. Because of our long-term interest in integration and quality schooling for all students we decided to...

NYC School Segregation Report Card: Still Last, Action Needed Now!

Thu, 10 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Eight years ago, in 2014, The Civil Rights Project issued a report that raised awareness about the dire state of segregation in New York State and, in particular, New York City schools. That report spurred substantial activism, primarily led by student groups, parents, teachers, and administrators, which has been influential in the current integration efforts underway in NYC. This report serves as an update to the 2014 report, which analyzed data up to 2010. The analysis of recent data in this report reveals trends from 2010-2018 in school segregation at the state, city, borough, and community district level.

Black Segregation Matters: School Resegregation and Black Educational Opportunity

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This report shows that the segregation of Black students has increased in almost every region of the nation, and that Black students in many of nation’s largest school districts have little access to or interaction with White, Asian or middle-class students. The report documents substantial Black enrollment in suburban schools, but high levels of segregation in them. Several of the nation’s largest states, including California, New York and Texas, are among the nation’s most segregated in terms of exposure of Black students to their White counterparts. The study details how the national student population is changing and examines the basic patterns of enrollment, segregation and integration across the U.S. The analysis includes enrollment and segregation trends for the past several decades, nationally, by region, community type, and poverty level, and showing the most and least segregated states along multiple measures.

Private Schools in American Education: A Small Sector Still Lagging in Diversity (working paper)

Mon, 13 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Private Schools in American Education: A Small Sector Still Lagging in Diversity (working paper)

Harming Our Common Future: America's Segregated Schools 65 Years aFter Brown

Mon, 13 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Harming Our Common Future: America's Segregated Schools 65 Years aFter Brown

White Growth, Persistent Segregation: Could Gentrification Become Integration?

Mon, 22 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

White Growth, Persistent Segregation: Could Gentrification Become Integration?

New Jersey's Segregated Schools: Trends and Paths Forward

Sun, 19 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

New Jersey's Segregated Schools: Trends and Paths Forward

Deepening Segregation in American Public Schools: A Special Report from the Harvard Project on School Desegregation

Thu, 2 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Deepening Segregation in American Public Schools: A Special Report from the Harvard Project on School Desegregation

Tough Choices Facing Florida's Governments: Patterns of Resegregation in Florida's Schools

Mon, 23 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Tough Choices Facing Florida's Governments: Patterns of Resegregation in Florida's Schools

Choices Worth Making: Creating, Sustaining and Expanding Diverse Magnet Schools

Wed, 31 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Choices Worth Making: Creating, Sustaining and Expanding Diverse Magnet Schools

Southern Schools: More Than a Half-Century After the Civil Rights Revolution

Tue, 23 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Southern Schools: More Than a Half-Century After the Civil Rights Revolution

Our Segregated Capital: An Increasingly Diverse City with Racially Polarized Schools

Thu, 20 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Our Segregated Capital: An Increasingly Diverse City with Racially Polarized Schools

Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats

Tue, 1 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Looking at the grim picture of central city Hartford and Bridgeport when desegregation efforts began and considering the odds against the creation of new models in a time when civil rights were shrinking, what has been accomplished in Connecticut is a victory over great odds. It is also an example of the way there can be change that expands the possibilities for all and enriches the communities.

Integrating Neighborhoods, Segregating Schools: The Retreat from School Desegregation, 1990 - 2000

Tue, 1 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Public school segregation between white and black students in Southern states increased slightly in the 1990s, reversing several decades of stable integration patterns in much of the South. This increase in school segregation carte during a decade during which residential segregation in the South declined rather substantially. Seen in the context of these decreases in residential segregation, the increase in school segregation represents a substantial change in the effectiveness of public school desegregation efforts. In 1990, the public schools in metropolitan area counties were, on average, 40% less segregated than the housing patterns in their corresponding county—school systems were able to ameliorate two-fifths of the segregative effects of housing patterns. By 2000, however, public schools were only 27% less segregated than their local housing markets, a one-third reduction in the effectiveness of desegregation efforts.

Moreover, despite the trends toward decreasing...

Brown at 62: School Segregation by Race, Poverty and State

Tue, 1 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This research brief finds the dramatic increase of double segregation by both race and poverty for the nation's schools.

Schools More Separate: Consequences of a Decade of Resegregation

Tue, 1 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Almost a half century after the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that Southern school segregation was unconstitutional and "inherently unequal," new statistics from the 1998-99 school year show that segregation continued to intensify throughout the 1990s, a period in which there were three major Supreme Court decisions authorizing a return to segregated neighborhood schools and limiting the reach and duration of desegregation orders. The data from the 2000 Census and from national school statistics show that the U.S. is an overwhelmingly metropolitan society, dominated by its suburbs. The high level of suburban segregation reported for African American and Latino students in this report suggests that a major set of challenges to the future of the minority middle class and to the integration of suburbia need to be addressed.

Diversity in the Distance: The Onset of Racial Change in Northern New England Schools

Tue, 1 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Northern New England, comprised of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, has the opportunity to plan carefully and intentionally so that the region is not plagued by problems of segregation and can instead benefit from the impending racial change and increased diversity to create and sustain diverse learning environments. There are no serious problems with segregation in northern New England yet, and those problems that do exist are modest and localized. Therefore, now is the optimal time for the region to reflect on what has occurred in southern New England and the rest of the United States, which were once as racially homogenous as northern New England but have since become more multiracial and more segregated. As northern New England is relatively early in the process of racial change, there are no significant responses to it yet. Without policies to harness racial change to create positive and successful diverse learning environments, segregation is likely to increase. In addition...

The Courts, the Legislature, and Delaware’s Resegregation: A Report on School Segregation in Delaware, 1989-2010

Tue, 25 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Delaware’s desegregation story is one of the most important in the nation. As the

northernmost of East coast states segregated by law at the time of the Brown decision, Delaware

hardly promised to become a national leader in school desegregation. Yet because it was one of

only two states where the federal courts ordered a district merger and full desegregation of what

had been separate school districts in a large metropolitan area, Wilmington became a test of the

possibility and durability of city-suburban desegregation policies. The scope of these policies

went far beyond individual districts in fragmented metropolitan areas and affected the great

majority of the local housing market. This happened in only one other major metropolitan

area—Louisville-Jefferson County, Kentucky. Because in both cases the dominant metropolitan

area served most of the state’s students of color, the plans produced rapid, sweeping and longlasting

declines...

Better Choices for Buffalo's Students: Expanding & Reforming the Criteria Schools System

Tue, 25 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This report examines educational opportunity in Buffalo’s system of criteria-based schools of choice, which offer their admitted students special opportunities not available in the regular schools. This system is a direct descendant of the nationally famous system of magnet schools which Buffalo Public Schools created in the l970s and l980s under the court-ordered desegregation plan, following the ruling that the school district and the city government had discriminated for many years against students of color and had contributed directly to the housing conditions that made Buffalo one of the nation’s most segregated cities. School choice has been a central element of educational policy in Buffalo for 40 years. In contrast to cities like Boston, which experienced major conflicts in the civil rights era, Buffalo achieved a high level of diversity and created a number of very desirable public schools with little overt conflict. In l995, however, the federal court ended the plan...

The Growth of Segregation in American Schools: Changing Patterns of Separation and Poverty Since 1968

Tue, 25 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Southern segregation grew significantly from 1988 to 1991 and segregation of African-American students across the U.S. also increased. This study provides national data that shows the relationship of segregation to poverty and where segregation is either concentrated or remains highly integrated. This report also explores the way in which a state's pattern of school district organization relates to the segregation of its students after the Supreme Court's 1974 decision in the Detroit case, Milliken v. Bradley.

Segregation Again: North Carolina’s Transition from Leading Desegregation Then to Accepting Segregation Now

Wed, 15 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

North Carolina has a storied history with school integration efforts spanning several decades. In response to the Brown decision, North Carolina’s strategy of delayed integration was more subtle than the overt defiance of other Southern states. Numerous North Carolina school districts were early leaders in employing strategies to integrate schools at a very modest level. When the l964 Civil Rights Act vastly expanded federal power, desegregation accelerated. In 1971, Charlotte-Mecklenburg gained national attention in the first Supreme Court decision mandating busing as a primary strategy to achieve school integration. By 2000, Wake County public schools became the first metropolitan school district to implement a class-based student assignment policy1, shifting from a race-based student assignment plan. Yet despite initiating school diversification efforts for a generation, currently North Carolina has reverted back to neighborhood schools while concurrently adopting policies...

School Accountability Under NCLB: Aid or Obstacle for Measuring Racial Equity?