News | Center for Education and Civil Rights

Segregation Has Soared in America’s Schools as Federal Leaders Largely Looked Away

Los Angeles Times, July 8, 2019 Nearly 50 years have passed since Kamala Harris joined the legions of children bused to schools in distant neighborhoods as the United States attempted to integrate its racially segregated public schools. Yet the consequences of racial and economic...

Effective But Never Popular, Court-Ordered Busing is a Relic Few Would Revive

Washington Post, July 7, 2019 Sixteen years after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed racial segregation in public schools, an attorney representing black families in Charlotte stood before the court. The landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling, he argued, had failed to deliver on...

‘Do You Support Busing?’ Is Not the Best Question

New York Times, July 6, 2019 In the short time since Kamala Harris and Joe Biden tangled over the history of busing in the first Democratic primary debate, the question has awkwardly shifted to the present. Busing is still needed today , Ms. Harris has since said. But discussion...

The Democratic Debate Resurrected Controversy Over Busing. But is it an Issue Today?

PolitiFact, July 3, 2019 Perhaps the biggest moment of the recent Democratic debate in Miami came when California Sen. Kamala Harris attacked former Vice President Joe Biden on a controversial policy from decades ago: integrating segregated schools by busing. Their interaction got...

Power Up: Busing is Still Happening. And 2020 Democrats are Divided on What To Do About It.

Washington Post, July 2, 2019 Outside the Beltway THE BUSING DEBATE: Kamala Harris’s broadside against Joe Biden’s record on busing during last week’s Democratic presidential debate has done more than just re-energize the California senator’s presidential campaign. Experts who...

There’s a Generational Shift in the Debate Over Busing

The Atlantic, July 1, 2019 During the second Democratic presidential debate, Senator Kamala Harris of California challenged former Vice President Joe Biden regarding a topic that has received little attention in recent presidential elections: school desegregation. Harris described...

School Busing in Berkeley During Kamala Harris’ Childhood Was Both Voluntary and Volatile

Los Angeles Times, June 30, 2019 The school bus ride was less than three miles from one side of Berkeley to the other, but from 1969 to 1973 it transported Carole Porter to an entirely different world. Like her neighbor and friend Kamala Harris, Porter was one of thousands of...

New York City Students are Fighting for School Integration

PBS, June 29, 2019 New York state has some of the most segregated schools in the U.S., particularly among African-American and Latino students. And 65 years after the Supreme Court decision declaring school-based racial segregation to be unconstitutional, New York City students...

Biden Takes Flak on Race and Busing. But His Views May Still Mirror America’s.

Washington Post, June 28, 2019 The year that Joe Biden entered the Senate, in 1973, Gallup asked Americans whether they thought busing children from one neighborhood to another was the best means of integrating the nation’s public schools. Five percent of those surveyed said they...

UCLA Study Finds Schools Across the Country are Becoming Increasingly Segregated

Daily Brun, June 6, 2019 American public schools are increasingly segregated along the lines of race and income, a study found. A report from the Civil Rights Project at UCLA and the Center for Education and Civil Rights at the Pennsylvania State University, which was published in...

Robert Henderson: Our Children Know They’re Attending Segregated Schools. We Need Policies That Will Bring Equitable Integration.

The DC Line, May 23, 2019 A couple of weeks ago, my 7-year-old son asked me a heart-wrenching question: “Dad, are schools still segregated?” My son attends a racially and socioeconomically diverse public charter school in Ward 5, but after three years of morning drop-offs, he had...

School Segregation on the Rise 65 Years After Brown v. Board of Education

CBS News, May 20, 2019 School segregation is on the rise 65 years after the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case , according to the co-author of a new report. At the time of the ruling in1954, schools were legally segregated...

Integration Progress Incomplete 65 Years After Brown

My San Antonio, May 19, 2019 On May 17, 1954, 7-year-old Linda Brown became the successful plaintiff in perhaps the most significant civil rights ruling in Supreme Court history — Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. It was a decision that would desegregate schools. But instead...

Hicks Column: There's No Room for Dissent on Brown v. Board Among Judge Candidates

The Post and Courier, May 19, 2019 It’s a simple question. For years, potential federal judges have been tossed the same softball at their Senate confirmation hearings: Do you support the United States Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education? That...

Bernie Sanders' Education Plan to Take Aim at Segregation in Public Schools

CBS News, May 18, 2019 Sen. Bernie Sanders will unveil an education plan in South Carolina on Saturday that addresses de facto segregation in American public schools. The Vermont senator's campaign says the plan is multi-faceted and partly aimed at reducing segregation in the...