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Not So Simple Justice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Wayne Urban
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Extract

Five or so years ago, I sat down to write a proposal to fund the writing of a history of school desegregation. This was not easy to write, since I had to account for the legal history of the process since the Brown decision, as well as the actual amount and kind of school desegregation that had taken place in that period, and come up with a definitive, overarching theme by which these two accounts would be tied together. Though the proposal was finished and submitted for funding, I was dissatisfied with my ability to say anything thematically novel or convincing about what had transpired in the forty-five or so years since the decision had been rendered. The funding agency evidently agreed with my own view of the proposal as it was not approved. So, I put my interest in school desegregation on the back burner, where it has rested until now. Once again, I get to confront the issue of whether or not I have anything interesting to say about Brown and its aftermath.

Information

Type
Retrospective
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , Spring 2004, pp. 133 - 139
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 by the History of Education Society 

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References

1 Kluger, Richard Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education, the Epochal Supreme Court Decision that Outlawed Segregation, and of Black America's Century-Long Struggle for Equality, Under Law (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976).Google Scholar

2 Orfield, Gary Eaton, Susan E. and the Harvard Project on School Desegregation, Dismantling Desegregation: The Quiet Reversal of Brown v. Board of Education (New York: New Press, 1996).Google Scholar

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11 Kluger, Simple Justice, x.Google Scholar

12 Ibid., 778.Google Scholar

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14 Ibid., 774.Google Scholar

15 As quoted in Kluger, Simple Justice, 606.Google Scholar

16 See Kluger, Simple Justice, 605 and Tushnet, Making Civil Rights Law, 351.Google Scholar

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19 Ibid., 238, 241. Schwartz also agrees with Kluger and Tushnet that Rehnquist's memorandum on Brown reflected his own, and not Justice Jackson's, views.Google Scholar

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