Crucible of Desegregation - The Uncertain Search for Educational Equality

"In 1954, the Supreme Court delivered the landmark decision of Brown v. Board of Education--establishing the right to attend a desegregated school as a national constitutional right--, but the decision contained fundamental ambiguities. In close to three dozen decisions on school desegregation, the Supreme Court has never offered a clear definition of what desegregation means or laid out a framework for understanding or adjudicating between competing interpretations. In the Crucible of Desegregation, R. Shep Melnick examines the evolution of federal school desegregation policy from 1954 through the termination of desegregation orders in the first decades of the 21st century, combining legal analysis with a focus on institutional relations, particularly the interactions between federal judges and administrators. Melnick argues that years of ambiguous, inconsistent, and meandering Court decisions left lower court judges adrift, forced to apply contradictory Supreme Court precedents in a wide variety of highly charged political and educational contexts. As a result, desegregation policy has been a patchwork, with lower court judges playing a crucial role. They did so against the backdrop of massive resistance, and this combined with the fragmented and decentralized nature of America's political institutions and its education system. The Crucible of Desegregation reveals patterns and persistent impasses that remain relevant today. It also shows that school desegregation was a crucial driver for the expansion of the broader American civil rights state"--

About the author

R. Shep Melnick is the Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr. Professor of American Politics at Boston College and cochair of the Harvard Program on Constitutional Government. He is the author of The Transformation of Title IX: Regulating Gender Equality in Education, Between the Lines: Interpreting Welfare Rights, and Regulation and the Courts: The Case of the Clean Air Act.

Product details

• Authors: R. Shep Melnick
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.05.2023
• EAN: 9780226825526
• ISBN: 978-0-226-82552-6
• No. of pages: 336
• Series: Chicago Series in Law and Society
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Education > Social education, social work; Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education; Human Rights, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Human Rights, EDUCATION / Educational Policy & Reform / General, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Civil Rights, Social discrimination & inequality, Educational strategies & policy, Civil rights & citizenship, Human rights, civil rights, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Discrimination, Educational strategies and policy, Social discrimination and social justice